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“Say what you want, Marissa, but I came back for you. I came back for you, and you were not here. And a damn good thing, I have told myself over the years, because I had a responsibility to my country and to my people, and you did not fit anywhere into that responsibility. But now there is her. Lily. And I cannot ignore the implications of her existence. My father has ruled Pelion with an iron fist for generations. And the only reason that I have not overthrown him in some kind of civil war is that the casualties would be too great, and there is a law that states the current leader is to step aside at seventy if the successor has married and produces an heir. I found that suitable woman some time ago.”
“Yes. I know. I’ve seen photos of you with her.”
“But Lily is my heir. And my father has had a significant birthday. That ushers in a new order in my country immediately. And that must be fulfilled. Because over the years my father’s tyrannical tendencies have gotten worse. He is beginning to crack down on even the most basic of freedoms people in my country used to experience. And while there is breath in my body and power to do so, I cannot allow it. But the consideration of the cost to civilian life and the danger to my mother and sister has weighed heavily on me. But this... We have a binding document.”
“Your father is a tyrant—do you think he would honor it?”
“It is not him that I need to honor it. It is the military. They serve the King. Not only that, it’s whether or not I am King in the eyes of allies.”
“It all seems trivial to me.”
“It is the nature of being royal. Tradition is what it is.”
“But will I be deemed acceptable?”
“That is for the Council to decide, but I suspect that the existence of an heir and the law as it is written will trump any concerns about your suitability.”
“I have a life. I have built a life for Lily and myself in Boston. I am terribly sorry about your country. Not for your sake, but for the sake of your people.But I fail to see how it’s my problem.”
“It is your problem because you had my child.”
I stepped forward, rage simmering in my blood, boiling over. “She is my child. Your contribution to her genetics does not make you a father. It does not make her yours. I gave birth alone. The pain and fear that I felt in that moment was horrible, and if not for a nurse who felt sorry for me and sat there and held my hand the entire time, there would’ve been no one there for me. I took an infant back to my home by myself, and I’m the one who didn’t sleep for months. I’m the one who paced the halls rocking a crying baby.”
I took a jagged breath and continued, all my anger—at him, my parents, the world—spilling out now. “And you... You were at parties. You had a new lover that same week that I gave birth, and she was on the cover of magazines with you, all slim and beautiful and perfectly made up, and my hair was in one giant mat, my pajama pants were too tight and I wanted to weep from lack of sleep. Lily is mine. She is mine by rights. You have parties. And endless photos to document the way that you enjoy spending your time, and all the glittering, sparkling objects you can lay claim to. But I am not one of them, and neither is she. Your father might be a bastard, but it’s his money that kept us off the streets, if I’m understanding this correctly.”
His face went grim, the light behind his eyes unreadable, opaque.
“I don’t have room for emotion in this,” he said. “There is a means here to liberate my country, and it will be done. Lily is coming with me whether or not you like it.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Take her from you forcibly if I must, and deal with whatever fallout results. But I would rather that you came with me, as it would make things easier for the child.”
Horror stole through me, and I could see that he wasn’t kidding. I could see the hardness in him. And I wondered how in the world I had ever thought this man to be a creature of pleasure and lightness, when I could see now that he was all rock and cold.
“You can’t do this.”
“I can. Even legally. I have diplomatic immunity, first of all. Second of all, Lily is a citizen of Pelion. And I am her father.”
“Your name isn’t on the birth certificate.”
“It doesn’t matter. Or have you not been listening? I am a prince in line to be a king and my word is law, even here.”
I felt some of the fight begin to drain out of me, but then I steeled myself, took a breath and did my best to renew it. “I will not go easily. I will not uproot my child from everything that she knows, everything that she is, because you have decided that it’s time to take responsibility.”
“I didn’t know. And if you want to make it about Lily, then you have to ask yourself what the ramifications of your decision are. She could be Queen.”
The words shocked me, because it had honestly never occurred to me. That Lily was royal. That she was a princess. One that was in line for the throne of Pelion, but only if Hercules and I married.
“Would you rob your child of her rightful place in this world?”
I didn’t want my child to be a queen. That was my very first thought. Because the very idea of her being a world leader, of her having such scrutiny placed on her, such a broad target painted on her back... It filled me with dread. I couldn’t stand it when children made fun of her parentage. The very idea of her being a leader—a woman leader in this world—and the kinds of things that would be said about her... It scared me to my bones.
But on the other hand, there was a truth to what he said that I found difficult to deny.
But the idea of being married to this man that I had hated for so long, who had hurt me so much...
A little bubble welled up inside my chest, and I despised it. Because I recognized it for what it was.
Joy.
That I could feel joy in some part of myself that Hercules was back, that he was proposing marriage...
Well, it made me feel like the foolish idiot my father thought I was. The immoral fool who would throw over all scruples and morality for the touch of a good-looking man.
This wasn’t about me. And if I was to claim truth for all the things that I’d said to him in the past few minutes, I had to take myself out of the equation.
I had to think of Lily. Only of Lily.
“It’s not my permission you need,” I said. “But you will ask my daughter’s.”
“I’m sorry,” he responded, arching a black brow. “You expect me to go to a child and explain all of this.”
“She has friends,” I said. “She’s just now reconnecting with her grandmother. It is her future you’re talking about, and yes, I know she’s four. And I know that...” I blinked back tears, because I knew that what my daughter would see was this tall, beautiful man telling her that he was her father. And that she was a princess. And I already knew what Lily would say.
But it was that vision in my mind that made me so resolute.
That Lily would be a princess. That she would have a father.
Whatever my feelings about him were...
He hadn’t known.
He hadn’t rejected me. He hadn’t rejected her. And I couldn’t shrug off the layers of armor that I had put on over the years with the ease of that revelation, but it was what made me give him time to speak, rather than simply attempting to run him through with a kebab skewer that I might have found in my mother’s kitchen drawer.
“It’s her life,” I said. “And so, yes. I expect you to speak to her.” I sighed heavily. “If she says no...you’ll have to kidnap us both, I guess.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Hercules
UTTER DISBELIEF FIRED through me as I stared down at Marissa. I hardly recognized the woman who stood before me, and I had known her intimately five years ago. But she was not the scared creature who had fled, no matter that I had thought she might be, given the way she had run from me
back at the restaurant.
She had not been running to protect herself, but to protect Lily.
Lily.
Who was undeniably mine.
But I could not afford to falter, could not afford to allow emotion to have any purchase on this moment, because I had a responsibility.
First and foremost, Lily was the heir to the throne of Pelion. Lily was the key to ousting my father from power, and she would have to be treated as such.
But somehow I had been thrust into a position where I was going to have to make political negotiations with a child.
Marissa was staring me down, her dark eyes never wavering from mine, and I had no doubt that everything she said was true.
I would have to bundle them up and carry them out of the house, forcing them onto a plane, if I did not do this.
Now, whatever Marissa thought, I was not ashamed at the thought that I might take that action. I would do what I had to do.
But I was also happy to avoid it, given it was an action that was guaranteed to draw press.
It was a tangled mess. I was set to marry Vanessa in just two weeks’ time, and now there was no question of that happening.
I didn’t need allegations of me being a kidnapper to come out on top of it.
I was not a man who dealt in uncertainty—a man in my position could not afford to be. But as I followed Marissa up the stairs, I felt a shadow of it. And I realized that the only reason I even knew what I could be feeling was because of her. Because Marissa had, all those years ago, taken that bedrock certainty of who I was—and my confidence that I could make whatever life I chose to arrange for myself—and dashed it against the rocks, as if she were the siren to my wayward sailor.
