CHAPTER FOURTEEN

C RISTHIAN DID NOT sleep well. Too many things working against him. Old memories. New problems. Threats from a king. The look on Zia’s face when he’d insisted they marry.

And though that haunted him most of all, or at least tied with his father’s words repeating in his head like some kind of ominous guilty conscience, he began to make the arrangements.

Maybe Zia would hate him for eternity, but he would protect her. As his father had once protected his mother. She didn’t have to like it or appreciate it for the course of action to be correct.

And if he was concerned that love was clouding his judgment, he set aside for after the wedding. When everything was settled and organized, and he could work through it all and twist it to his specifications. He would not run away from anything. He would make sure everything...worked. Everything made sense. Everything protected.

He needed to find the king to lay out the consequences of his actions. To explain what would happen, and what wouldn’t happen. But the queen had insisted King Rendall was not in their suite, and none of the staff had seen him, so Cristhian searched his own grounds trying not to let frustration take hold.

He was nearing the wing with Zia’s set of rooms, and his mood darkened even further at the thought King Rendall was bothering her. No, this would end now .

But before he made it to the door to Zia’s suite, the king appeared in the hallway, exiting a mostly unused library.

He stopped, gave Cristhian one disgusted look, then stormed up to him. “I will agree to the wedding. Our lawyers will call yours. Once paternity is proven, everything will be sorted from a financial standpoint.” His scowl turned into something closer to a sneer. “You and Zia will be free from any responsibility to the kingdom of Lille.”

Cristhian could not remember a time in his adulthood when he’d been left as utterly speechless as he was now. He hadn’t even made any of the arrangements that would impress upon the king he needed to agree for Zia’s sake.

What had happened?

The king stormed away before Cristhian could find his voice. Could find any sense in this strange change of heart. He snorted to himself at the idea of King Rendall having a heart.

But then he heard a strange noise. Almost like a gasp. Strangled breathing? He poked his head into the room and saw a figure huddled in a corner amid covered furniture, arms wrapped around her knees.

Zia’s sister. Who was struggling to breathe, clearly. Shaking like a leaf.

No doubt over something the king had done as this was the room he’d come out of all blusteringly angry. Cristhian strode forward.

“What did he do to you?” he demanded.

Beaugonia’s body jerked in surprise, and her head came up with a snap. Her eyes were wild with something he could only call panic. But she shook her head, wiping the tears off her cheeks with the sleeve of her shirt, even as her arms shook. “N-n-nothing.”

“This is not nothing.”

No, it was a very large something that had more of his old memories surfacing from wherever in his psyche he’d packed them away as he’d stepped into adulthood.

All those times he’d simply thought his mother... emotional , he supposed, it had been more, hadn’t it? More serious. More...this.

Whatever this was.

And every time his mother had behaved in this way, Cristhian had a clear memory of his father sitting next to her, taking her hand in his. He would press a kiss to her forehead, brush a hand over her hair, then tell her a story in low, calming tones. The same kind he had always delivered bedtime stories with.

As Zia’s sister sat there, shaking and struggling to breathe easily, Cristhian knew he could not leave her. Even to fetch Zia or a staff member. He swallowed, then lowered himself to the ground next to her.

He wasn’t sure how any of this would be received considering she no doubt viewed him as the enemy, but he took her hand anyway. It was cold, shaking. He tried to warm it in his. And when she didn’t immediately pull away, or scramble away, or scream, he patted her hand.

He cast back to his memories. His father had always spoken to his mother. Told her stories. Movie stars he’d met. A ridiculous stunt he’d done. Cristhian hadn’t realized it at the time, but now he realized it was to take his mother’s mind off of whatever was upsetting her.

So Cristhian figured he should do the same, even if he did not know what upset Beaugonia, or anything about her, he knew one thing. She loved her sister.

So he started there.

“I met your sister at a bar.” He could see it so clearly, even all these months later. “She walked in, her hair all cut off, dyed a ridiculous attempt at red. She was even wearing colored contacts. The blue eyes didn’t look right, I knew that even then. And still, even with all that fake, she swept through me like a storm.” He supposed he did not need to be giving the woman quite so much truth.

But he thought it was helping. Maybe he was delusional. “She asked the bartender for a menu. The bartender was clearly annoyed, so I offered a suggestion. I bought her the drink. We...talked. Of work responsibilities and freedom.”

He had turned that conversation over and over in his head for those months between meeting her and seeing her again. And now he understood why she had been celebrating freedom, and dreading responsibility.

Now he understood in a way he hadn’t let himself up until now that this was not the action of a selfish woman. No matter how much easier it would be if he believed that of her.

“Then she invited me to go dancing with her.”

“I c-can’t p-picture you d-dancing.”

“Ah, but I am a fantastic dancer,” Cristhian returned, pretending to be offended. “Your sister certainly thought so.”

Beaugonia didn’t laugh, but her mouth curved a little and some of the shaking seemed to have subsided. Her breathing was coming a little easier, and no more tears tripped over onto her cheeks.

“K-keep going,” she said, then she met his gaze. “I w-want to hear it all from your p-point of view.”

So he sat there on the floor, and told Zia’s twin the entire story—from then to now.

With Beau nowhere to be found, Zia began to worry. Because her sister was no doubt up to something. Especially considering her parents would not come out of their suite to talk to her. And now she couldn’t find Cristhian.

Something was definitely happening. Not even the staff could help her track down Cristhian, which felt so ominous nausea started roiling in her stomach. She had made almost a full circle upstairs when she finally heard a low male voice.

When she came to the open door where the voice was coming from, she looked in and then froze in utter shock.

Cristhian and Beau. They sat next to each other. Cristhian held Beau’s hand gingerly. He was speaking in calm, low tones.

Beau had clearly had a panic attack, but she was on the other side of it now. Tears had tracked her cheeks, but she was breathing normally. Maybe she was a little shaky, but not the full-blown shakes she got in the midst of it. Her eyes weren’t wild or panicked.

And Cristhian sat next to her. Right at her level, holding her hand . Zia’s heart clutched. Because it looked like he was...comforting her. She could hear him now that she stood in the entrance to the room.

“I told myself I would not track her down after she left. It had only been meant to be that one night,” he was saying. Like he was telling a story.

But Zia quickly realized it was their story.

“Six months, and I could not stop thinking about her. I told myself all sorts of reasons for why that was.”

The same as she had done. So he hadn’t forgotten about her the moment she’d left as she’d believed all this time. Convinced she was just one woman in the midst of many. He’d thought of her. Couldn’t stop.

It shouldn’t soften her, or she didn’t think it should. But he was sitting there on the ground, clearly comforting Beau with this story of them in the aftermath of a panic attack. He had not left her to fend for herself, had not called staff in to deal with it. He had clearly not told her to handle herself, as Father so often did.

He’d sat on the floor and held her hand. For what? There was no clear ulterior motive. Just the fact that he might be...good, underneath all that controlling.

“And what do you think the reason was?” Beau asked, but as she looked up at Cristhian, she must have caught a glimpse of Zia, because her chin jerked and her eyes widened.

So Cristhian looked over, too. He did not have the same surprise in his reaction, but he did not answer Beau’s question. He got to his feet, then using the hand that had been holding Beau’s, helped her up off the floor gently.

He did not seem disgusted or horrified. Zia stood there and saw with her own eyes as he gave Beau’s hand a little squeeze before releasing it.

For a moment, Beau stood there looking at Cristhian with a considering expression before she carefully turned to Zia. Beau walked over to her and wrapped her arms around Zia.

“I’m going to go lie down,” she whispered into Zia’s ear, holding her tight.

Zia wanted to demand to know what was going on, but she knew Beau needed a good, quiet rest after an attack. “I’ll come with.”

“No. I’d like to be alone for a bit.” Beau looked back at Cristhian, then at Zia. She continued to whisper. “Whatever you decide, I want you to know that it’s okay. I’m okay.”

“Beau...”

But Beau released her and moved into the hallway. Zia wanted nothing more than to follow, but she knew her sister well enough to know that Beau did need the alone time now.

Cristhian approached, and Zia had to turn her attention to him. She had to clear her throat to speak, because she felt very shaken, uncertain. Confused about everything she’d just seen. “I should go after her, but she wanted to be alone.”

“She was...very distraught when I came upon her,” Cristhian said. Clearly being very careful about words to choose. But he had an expression on his face she didn’t recognize. Something very...soft.

There was no point lying, Zia supposed. “She has panic attacks. They’re often brought on by...stressful social situations.” But there was nothing social going on, except dealing with Cristhian, she supposed. But Beau was usually fine with anyone one-on-one. “I cannot fathom what might have brought this one on.”

“Your father was in the room with her before I got here. I do not know what was discussed, but he was angry and she upset.”

Zia’s expression darkened. “Well, that will do it.” She was glad she had a lifetime of learning how to handle her temper and she no longer went tearing into her father after one of his arguments with Beau.

That had always ended badly for Beau in the long run. He’d often made Beau even more a prisoner in the castle after that. Kept Zia from seeing her. Kept anyone from seeing her until Beau could “handle herself.”

So Zia had learned to keep her anger internalized. Plan little rebellions. Ones that had no chance of hurting Beau.

And for the past few months, while Beau had been helping her with her own, who had Beau had? No one. Zia couldn’t take back protecting her children, but what she could do was make decisions in the here and now that did both things.

Zia would get Beau out of this. She looked up at Cristhian...who had been kind in the face of Beau’s panic attack. She could tell from the position she’d found them in, from Beau’s reaction.

But he was looking at the door, a strange frown on his face. “Panic attacks.”

Zia braced herself for an insensitive comment. The ones her parents and their staff had leveled at Beau her whole life. Cristhian had been kind to Beau’s face, but there was no way he could understand—

“It was so familiar,” he said, as if in a kind of trance. “I think... My mother had them. I simply thought she was crying, but it was like that. The shaking, the struggling to breathe. I never understood. I don’t know if they did.” He said it like he was lost in some old memory.

And was potentially realizing his mother might have been a real and complex person, even if his memories were from a child’s perspective of simplifying things. But children knew. They understood the world around them, often better than adults understood, or at least differently.

Cristhian was clearly having a moment of clarity, and she yearned to give him more, if she could. “Do you think they were brought on by her leaving her family?” She certainly wouldn’t be having any panic attacks about that, but maybe it was more complicated than she was giving it credit for.

“She never fully left. They wouldn’t allow it. Even disapproving of my father, they did not want to lose their control over her completely. So she struggled with the way they treated her. So often they tried to stir up false stories. Infidelities. Abuse. My parents never believed these things, and the media never could seem to make the accusations stick, either. It was all...mind games, but the complications went away if she attended the events they wanted. I always thought her reaction was just the stress. I have always blamed her family for pushing at her, tearing at her, but some small part of me... I have always felt guilty of it, but deep down I blamed her, too. For running instead of standing up to them.”

Zia watched him, surprised to find this moment of pure vulnerability. He was coming to some new conclusions and allowing her to be a part of it. She wanted to reach out and comfort him, and she would have held herself back. Even now, she would have held herself back.

But he’d comforted Beau. So she reached out and took his had in hers, as he had done for her sister.

“Sometimes running away is the only option we have. Sometimes, there is no standing up, no matter how much we’d like to.”

He looked at her then. Still caught up in his past, but she knew he saw the connection, and because she did, she felt even softer toward him. She had never realized until this moment, and maybe he had not fully either, just how much running represented something horrible to him.

“I did not realize that perhaps she was not able to stand up to them,” he said, his voice low, strained. “No matter how she tried. And my father tried. To protect her from it, but he couldn’t, either. Because it wasn’t them. It was her.”

She tried to drop his hand. Every time she thought she glimpsed some human part of him... “People are not to blame for the ways their brains and bodies betray them.”

But he squeezed her hand so she could not pull away. And then he held it gently. So gently it seemed wrong to pull her arm away.

“No, that is not how I mean it, Zia. I did... I think. I loved my mother more than anything, but still I blamed her for that. Somewhere. Deep down. Until I saw your sister and understood.” He swallowed, as if some deep emotion was clogged there in his throat.

Which in turn made her own throat feel tight. That a man so bent on control could acknowledge that maybe...maybe he was not always right, maybe he didn’t always understand every little thing.

“No one could protect my mother, and that was wrong. My father tried with all he was, but he couldn’t... He wasn’t given the time to accomplish this goal,” he said, some conviction and strength returning to his voice. “I know you don’t want to marry me. I understand you think I will rule your life as your father has. But, Zia, I will protect you. I will protect our children. I will protect Beaugonia and anyone else you’d like me to.”

Her heart began to beat double time in her chest. She knew he could lie if he wanted to, but he spoke with a fervency she did not know how to take as anything but truth. The kind of promise she’d never been given before.

“I can make certain we marry, Zia. I can make certain I protect you no matter what. But if you could see my side of things, it will be easier. For everyone. If you can agree, without a fight, without an escape attempt, we can make a world that is better for our children than what we ended up with.”

She should be offended that he thought she couldn’t say no, that she couldn’t escape, no matter what, but he was talking to something bigger now. Protection.

Of the babies. Of Beau. Of her .

These were words and promises she’d wanted. These were words that made everything she needed to do okay. Her babies and Beau free of her father. It should be enough, but...

“Because you hate what royalty did to your mother? Because you could not protect her, and she could not protect you?”

His dark eyes studied her, like he was taking in every line and curve of her face. So much so she thought maybe there would be...some other answer. Maybe she even held her breath hoping for some more .

“Yes.”

It was less than she wanted from Cristhian, and still more than she’d dared hope for when it came to a future marriage. It was what she’d tried to live her life for. To protect Beau, and then these babies once she’d learned of them. So how could she say no? He was offering her a way out of the walls that had held her and the people she loved captive.

Maybe there would be new walls involved, but in protecting everything she held dear, did it matter? He was offering more than she’d had under her father’s thumb, and maybe in that there would be some space for her own say.

“All right.” She tried to manage a smile, but couldn’t quite get there. “I’ll marry you.”