CHAPTER THIRTEEN

C RISTHIAN DIDN ’ T CARE for the realization that the more time he spent with King Rendall, the less he liked the man. It wasn’t just that he was demanding and pompous and, well, royal in all those negative ways Cristhian had grown up hating.

It was the way the king spoke of the women in his family. As though they were nothing more than pawns to be moved about a board. Cristhian could picture, all too easily, his mother’s family talking the same way about her when she hadn’t done what she’d asked, about him when he’d been an orphaned child.

It filled him with a boiling anger he knew he needed to keep control over, but it was a struggle. Another slight he could lay at Zia’s feet, once this was all over and they were married.

Settled. Once everything was settled just the way he wanted, the anger, the frustration, this damn uncertainty would go away. Everyone would be safe, and he would be able to relax.

“King Rendall,” Cristhian said, after the king had gone on and on about royal weddings and whatnot. “I think you’ve misunderstood me. You are not in charge here.”

The king narrowed his eyes at Cristhian from his seat in an luxurious overstuffed leather chair seated in the corner of Cristhian’s office. “It is not customary for anyone to address the king in such a manner.”

“I am not a subject of your country,” Cristhian replied, standing behind his desk. Then smiled and tacked on a sir .

The king was clearly not placated. “Do you have proof you are the father of these children?”

Cristhian didn’t let the insult land. “I will,” he responded calmly.

“I suppose your name and pedigree comes with a certain amount of...reach.”

Cristhian felt he was holding his own in this ridiculous back-and-forth, but this change of topic was...confusing at best. “Reach?”

“Hisla is a small country.”

Cristhian had no great love for his mother’s country, but he had to admit it grated to hear the king act as though it was somehow beneath him. “As is Lille.”

“Indeed. A partnership is what I’ve been after in securing my heir a husband. Both political and ensuring that the best bloodlines continue.” He frowned a little and drummed heavy fingers against Cristhian’s desk. “I don’t know what I’ll do about the crown prince. Beaugonia won’t do. I don’t suppose you have some princess cousins who might want to marry a crown prince?”

“I couldn’t tell you. I have little to no contact with my mother’s family, Your Majesty. I intend to keep it that way.”

“No, that won’t do. You want to marry my daughter, raise these children as you see fit, but you don’t understand. It is our responsibility as leaders to consolidate and protect the kind of power that will keep our families safe and profitable until the end of times. Lille and Hisla must come to a kind of...partnership. You’ll need to secure agreements with your family.”

Cristhian stood there and felt something so strange and out of place he didn’t recognize it at first. But eventually, understanding seeped in.

He regretted this. He’d made a mistake. To involve Zia’s father, her family. He knew he wasn’t wrong about getting married. But he had been wrong about trying to use her own blood as a weapon against her.

Because now, more than ever, he wanted to protect her from... this . Power and profits, when a child’s future should be about happiness. About peace. Not just his children’s.

But Zia’s.

He had no doubt, even now, Zia and her sister were up there planning rebellions. Escapes. Just as they had planned and enacted Zia’s escape to the island. In this moment of King Rendall talking about power and kingdoms, Cristhian was tempted to allow them to do just that. To get away from the man who sat before him.

But if he let Zia run away, the king would find her again. Maybe not right away. Maybe Cristhian could even thwart him, but it would mean a life of constant vigilance for Zia and his children. A life, essentially, on the run.

And running away never solved a thing. If anything, it always ended in destruction.

At some point, Zia was going to have to see that he was offering her protection just as much as anything else by marrying her. He was trying to do right by her, even if she didn’t see it. He would protect her. He would...

A strange, clutching feeling took residence in his chest. An understanding just out of reach. And an old memory from long ago.

Your family does not have power over you unless you give it to them.

They control everything.

Not me.

Cristhian stood there while King Rendall prattled on, stuck in that memory of his parents. One from not long before they died. He’d been meant to be asleep, but he’d gone to find them for some reason he could not remember now.

They were huddled on the floor of their living room in his grandparents’ house in the States, a fire crackling in the hearth. His mother had been crying. She was shaking even now, but his father held her as he always did. And said those words that echoed in his mind, as if his father was reaching out from whatever great beyond and whispering them to him now.

He’d always thought his father’s words were simply love talking. Cristhian still thought that, all these years later. His father had loved his mother enough to take on some sort of unearned arrogance that he could face down an entire monarchy.

Now Cristhian was following in those same footsteps.

But it wasn’t love on his part. Protecting Zia was about protecting his children. If he didn’t like the thought of her under King Rendall’s thumb, it was because he hated bullies. Royal bullies especially. It was because he’d watched his mother struggle and did not want that for the mother of his own children. The children would watch, they would see. So it was for them.

He had believed all of that, until this very moment.

He didn’t love Zia. Couldn’t. What was there to love? He barely knew her.

Cristhian watched King Rendall’s mouth move and move and move, but he heard nothing the man was blathering on about. The word love clattering around inside him like some kind of internal grenade.

He thought her selfish, even if she had described a childhood where at every turn she’d made some sacrifice to protect her sister. She had run away for herself , not their children.

He could picture her perfectly in that cozy little cabin on an arctic island. Roughing it, essentially. It was hard to convince himself that had been selfish, exactly. There had been some sacrifice involved.

But for her own gains.

Gains she hadn’t attempted until she’d fallen pregnant. Then, very resourcefully, had escaped her royal chains and somehow lived for months on that tiny, isolated island. All those small, meaningful things she’d told him about doing the week she’d been exploring freedom, just to get a taste before taking on a marriage, an inheritance she didn’t want, to protect her sister.

And only the appearance of their children had changed the course of that. Because she had put them first.

He hadn’t wanted to believe that, but he’d seen her face when she’d seen Beaugonia.

That was love. Devotion. Zia was not selfish . Perhaps, if anything, she was a little too self less .

He blinked at this realization, at the warmth that seemed to settle over him when she smiled at him, when she let her guard down and trusted him. Something he’d broken now, but he’d had there for a few days.

And he heard his father’s words once more.

I saw her across the room, and she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. My heart stopped.

After their deaths, Cristhian had watched many videos of his father’s interviews. Before and after he’d married his mother. In those first few years after Cristhian had lost them, he’d collected any and every scrap that might keep them alive to him, that might give him hope for a life beyond his mother’s family’s machinations.

Sometime in his teen years, he’d cut himself off. Realizing he had to focus on his future to escape his present, rather than dwell forever in a past he couldn’t get back.

But that interview played in a loop in his head now. Because from that first moment of seeing Zia walk in the door at that bar, he had felt altered. And nothing had been the same since.

My heart stopped.

Something seemed to stop inside him then. Or start. Or break apart. He moved from behind his desk. “Your Majesty,” he said firmly, interrupting the king’s diatribe. “This is not Lille. And Zia is not your possession. I have my own money, my own power. I do not need your permission. I do not need to follow your orders. Here, you will follow mine. There will be a wedding tomorrow. You can be there, or not. But I will not be agreeing to anything with you or Lille.”

King Rendall shoved to his feet. His cheeks turning a mottled shade of red. “Then you will not inherit a dime. And neither will they. Whatever marriage you think you can enact, I will invalidate.”

“I don’t need your dimes, sir. Your titles. I don’t need any of it.” He did not say it angrily. It was a simple, easy truth. “Your reach does not extend beyond your country, and we are not in your country.”

The king fumed . For a moment or two, before turning on a heel and storming out of Cristhian’s office.

It wasn’t over, no, but Cristhian wasn’t backing down. Because love or no, nothing changed what he had to do.

Protect Zia and their children at all costs.

“We have to wait until the last possible moment,” Beau was saying as they got ready for bed that night. Zia had refused to attend dinner, which was perhaps petty, but she had been exhausted and known she wouldn’t be up to dealing with her father and Cristhian.

Because already she was having doubts of her rebellion. The more excitedly Beau spoke of escape, the more tired Zia felt. The heavier her stomach seemed. Something inside her ached, and it was hard to think past it.

What kind of life was she making for her children if they ran away? What kind of life was she making for them if she stayed? And where did either option leave Beau?

“If they have time to look for you, then they could stop us,” Beau continued, crawling into the huge bed next to Zia. “So we have to create some sort of trick where they think they know where we are, but we’re on our way. That they don’t come looking until the very last minute.”

“Beau. Realistically. Where are we going to go? This is not as simple as it was,” she said, gesturing at the very large bump under her blanket.

“What about your island? We still have that cabin for another few months.”

“Even if I didn’t think Cristhian would look there first, I can’t go back with this.” Maybe she could get by for a week or two, but soon enough the island would insist she return to the mainland until her babies were born.

Beau had her phone in her hand. “I’ll come up with something,” she said, the screen illuminating her face. No doubt researching all-new lives for them.

But... Zia couldn’t dream of an all-new life anymore. She had to deal with the people in this one. Not just her children, but their father. “You can’t find a new life for us before tomorrow.”

“Before morning,” Beau replied firmly. “You’re not marrying that incredibly handsome monster.”

Zia laughed in spite of herself. Incredibly handsome indeed. But... “He’s not a monster, Beau. And...we have to face facts. Not only will I be incredibly recognizable now that Father knows I’m pregnant, I need access to a doctor. I need lots of things, Beau. I can’t fly under the radar like I did. I know I said I needed help, but...”

“Zia.” Beau turned to her side to give Zia a stern look. “You can’t actually be considering marrying him.”

But she was. Ever since tea with Mother, she hadn’t been able to completely eradicate the idea of...just letting this happen.

“Mother was right. I was ready to marry Lyon. I never expected to marry for love. I never expected to have freedom. I want it for my children, of course, but... How can I give it to them? Father is a worst-case scenario. Cristhian isn’t as bad as that.”

She believed Cristhian at least had the potential to care about their children more than any legacy or bloodlines . He’d spoken of loving parents, grandparents. He expected there to be some...taking care of and putting the children first.

That was better than Father.

“He is the children’s father, Beau,” Zia said, and if it sounded like she was trying to convince herself, well, so be it. “That means something.”

“Why?” Beau flopped onto her back. “I’d rather go through the rest of my life without dealing with our father.”

“Cristhian isn’t like him.”

“He’s forcing you to marry him.”

“He...” Well, he was doing that, so how could she feel the need to defend him? After that beautiful moment of seeing their children, listening to their heartbeats, coming together again... He’d insisted on marriage. Without any care or concern about her.

He’d brought her parents here against her will. And insisted Beau come along, too . He’d once said he’d like to meet Beau because of the picture Zia painted.

Zia closed her eyes. She’d rather just sleep it all away. Wake up and maybe she’d have some new grand understanding of what was going on inside her.

“Zia, do you have feelings for him?” Beau asked carefully.

Zia wanted to deny it. She even opened her eyes and then her mouth, sure she could get the words out. But none came.

He was so very heavy-handed. So certain he knew what was right. Controlling.

And sometimes, she saw flashes of why. A boy who’d lost his parents at a young age, been thrust into someone else’s world. He was trying to make his own world where he could never be upended again.

And she’d upended him. The children had upended him. But he hadn’t gone to sleep and hoped it would all be better in the morning. He’d made decision after decision. Wrong decisions at times, but wasn’t that better than her? Letting everyone else make the decisions for her.

Even when she’d first found out she was pregnant, she’d let Beau take the reins. Beau had planned her escape, essentially, and kept her going.

Cristhian hadn’t disowned his soon-to-be children. Hadn’t marched her back to Lille and her father, even though that’s what he’d been hired to do. No, he’d taken control of that situation by insisting they work together. Put the children first.

Was that really as bad as she was making it out to be? When he also made her heart hammer in her chest? When there was this physical chemistry that made every rational thought leave her?

Shouldn’t she want to put the children above herself, like her mother never had? And wouldn’t having two parents be better than...a mother who’d run away from their father? A mother who’d had not one good example of what being a good parent looked like, when their father had many?

It was enough to make her want to go to Cristhian and the minister right now and say I do .

But she was so worried she would become like her own mother. A shell of a person living only for the king. Or, in this case, Cristhian and his decisions.

And still... “I suppose I do have some sort of feelings for him,” she said after a while, choosing each word carefully. “I’m not sure what they are. They’re so jumbled. I’m so angry at him for pushing this marriage nonsense, and yet... I think... He speaks of his parents so...lovingly.”

Zia swallowed. Beau was the only one in her whole life she could be fully honest with. Because Beau was honest back. Too blunt about it sometimes, but still. No games. No machinations. Real .

“It makes me think he knows what it takes to be a good parent, and that he’ll be one. Maybe I need that.”

“You’ll be a good parent.”

Beau said it with such confidence, but Zia had almost none. The closer she got to actually bringing them into the world, the more she worried how she would ever be the kind of mother that inspired the kind of feelings Cristhian had for his own. “How can you be so sure?”

“If you think he will be a good one because he had a good example, by the same logic, you will be a good one because you will know to do the opposite of our bad example.”

Zia chuckled in spite of herself. It was impossible to argue with Beau’s logic , but... The very simple truth was she did not know the correct course of action beyond what she did not want to happen.

Could she run away with Beau, somehow raise two children, free of all the controlling men in her life, and still give everyone what they deserved?

Beau needed freedom, too. She’d been dealing with their parents alone for months now. She deserved her own shot at something besides the palace and overbearing rules.

“We will be together, no matter what I decide. You aren’t going back there. I promise you.”

Beau was quiet for a long minute. “Zia, the truth of it all is, you care deeply about everyone and try to protect them. Maybe too much sometimes, but it is not like our mother. She is not evil, I know, but the only thing she has ever sought to protect is the peace. Sometimes, you need the fight. Sometimes bending isn’t the answer, even if you get crushed.”

Beau’s hand found hers under the covers as she continued. “Those babies are lucky to have you as a mother, no matter what you decide. But I think you need to stop making decisions based on what’s best for me.”

Zia squeezed Beau’s hand, turned to her in the dark. “But you can escape. Use my wedding to Cristhian as a diversion.” At least that would make it worth something then. “You can take this as your freedom.”

Beau squeezed her hand back. “You know I can’t.”

She didn’t agree with her sister, but she understood to an extent. Beau never knew when a panic attack might hit, which made it harder to be on her own. Especially if she was trying to hide.

“At some point, you have to face yourself, Zia. Not me. Not your babies. You . Long after your children are born and grown, you’ll still be around, and then what? Who will you be when there’s no one left to protect?”

The words made Zia teary-eyed. And scared. Facing herself? When she didn’t understand herself outside of those hard lines she’d grown up bowing under? When the only role that had ever made any sense to her was to protect her sister?

She swallowed at the lump in her throat. “What if I don’t know how?”

Beau’s hand squeezed even tighter. “I guess it’s time we both figured it out.”