CHAPTER EIGHT

C RISTHIAN DIDN ’ T FUME for long. He knew how to deal with selfish, childish royalty. Let her throw her tantrums. Let her storm out of every room in this place.

He would come out on top. He’d spent his morning after breakfast lining up a minister to arrive once the roads were passable. He’d had a long call with his lawyer about all the necessary legalities of naming heirs of his own fortune.

They would deal with her family...after a time. Because he still had not determined the right approach to King Rendall. According to Zia, he would want the same thing Cristhian wanted: a marriage. Admittedly, in the privacy of his own head, Cristhian didn’t love the idea of wanting the same thing as a king, but it was the only plausible option to give his children the family they deserved.

Zia could worry about her freedom, her whims, her selfish desires all she wanted. He would not be swayed. Their children would have the support of two parents, no matter what Cristhian had to threaten to accomplish it. They would have the options of the best of everything. But most of all, they would receive the same foundation Cristhian had received.

Which meant he was in charge. He did not have to convince Zia to follow his way. She would simply follow it or...lose.

What, he did not know yet, but he would use whatever means he wished to protect his children, and their mother, no matter how selfish she might be. And now that he had the practicalities out of the way, and nothing to do but wait for the snow to stop, he called his grandparents.

He decided on a video call, as he wanted to see their faces when they reacted to the news. He’d taught them how to answer one on their phones, but that didn’t necessarily mean they would manage. Still, after a few rings, his grandmother’s face appeared on his screen.

“Did we do it right?” his grandmother asked, squinting at him.

“If you can hear me.”

“Yes, we’ve got it. Well, now. To what do we owe this out-of-the-blue call?” His grandfather looked older every time Cristhian got on a video call with them. It was a sad mark of time, and yet one his parents had never gotten to enjoy. So Cristhian tried to be grateful for what he had in them.

“I have a bit of announcement. I am to be married.”

“Cristhian!” His grandmother clapped her hands together in delight. “We didn’t know you were seeing anyone. You haven’t even brought her to visit.” It was a scolding, but it was wrapped up in love and joy for what his grandmother no doubt thought a happy occasion.

He wouldn’t take that idea from them, but he couldn’t outright lie about it either. “It is...complicated.”

“Ah,” his grandfather said in that world wise way of his. “The kind of complicated that will make us great-grandparents?”

His grandfather had always known how to get right to the point, and even though it twisted something tangled inside him, he smiled. “Yes.”

“Oh,” his grandmother said, so desperately trying to hide her disappointment with enthusiasm. “Well, aren’t we lucky? To have lived this long. You’ll bring everyone to meet us, won’t you?”

“Of course. Once we are able.” His grandparents nodded along, not letting any disdain show through. They never had, no matter what he’d done. “Zia is having twins.”

“Twins? Twins! Robert, do we have any twins in the family?”

“My grandmother was a twin!” his grandfather all but shouted, pride in every word.

Cristhian smiled in spite of himself. “Zia is a twin herself.”

“That’s excellent. She’ll know just how to raise them then. Oh, two great-grandbabies. Aren’t we lucky?” His grandmother beamed over at Grandfather. Disappointment over the nontraditional circumstances quickly and easily left behind.

Cristhian should feel relieved or warmed by their excitement, but there was a strange kind of discomfort twirling around inside him. He couldn’t put his finger on what was causing it, so he just pushed the conversation forward.

“I wanted you to know as it is likely to move forward...quickly. I will keep you updated, of course.”

His grandparents nodded, then looked at each other in that way they had that spoke of some internal communication no one else was privy to.

“May we offer some advice?” his grandmother asked gently. Because she was a gentle woman. Too gentle, perhaps, for the world she’d been thrust into. A famous son. The slings and arrows of their daughter-in-law’s family in the aftermath of such loss.

And yet she had never taken any of that out on Cristhian himself. He held this as a personal guidepost. These people on the screen in front of him, so unlike the world he lived in, and yet, the exact guide he wanted.

“Of course.”

“Your parents loved each other very much,” Grandmother said with a heavy wistfulness and a look away from the screen, no doubt at one of the many pictures she kept of his father.

“Yes, I know.”

She turned back to the screen. “It was the foundation, and why you’re such a good man, despite such...trials.”

He could not quite manage the smile he knew his grandmother wanted. He had not set out to be good , per se, and the thought she might think it settled in a bit like guilt.

“And your father was a good man for the same reason,” Grandfather said firmly. “Love is always the foundation. If you’d take any advice from us, we hope it’s that. With love as a foundation, no matter the tragedies life throws at you, you’ll find a way to endure.”

Cristhian did not want any more tragedies, but he knew his grandparents spoke of their own. One they had weathered, with love.

No, Cristhian didn’t care for that advice, but it was...interesting. So he smiled. Chatted some more about people his grandparents knew. He let them tell all their stories from church, the beauty parlor, the grain elevator coffee shop. These things were foreign in Cristhian’s life, but his grandparents always made it sound like a world he could step into if he ever needed.

Like the foundation his parents had built him, his grandparents had offered an escape hatch—once he’d been old enough to rid himself of his mother’s family’s royal shenanigans. He’d never taken it, still didn’t want to, but something about it being there...meant something.

He tried not to think about Zia, talking about her royal prison. Perhaps she had not been afforded an escape hatch, but she’d found one, hadn’t she? And still, the way he saw it, she cared for her own wants more than their children’s needs.

But his grandparents had raised a good man by loving each other. His parents, the same, if he was to be counted a good man. So, Cristhian supposed, that was the answer to his trouble.

Love .

He would simply make Zia fall in love with him. Then all would fall into place. And be well.

After a post-breakfast nap, Zia felt slightly more herself. She still thought Cristhian was a ridiculous ogre, but she was reminded she had the strength and cleverness to outmaneuver her father. What was Cristhian but a slightly different version of that?

She just needed to pace herself. To think. And didn’t this blizzard that had them stuck here without doctors or ministers give her just that kind of time?

She considered her phone. A missive to Beau would help her think through her options, but it was still risky. Beau was clever enough to outmaneuver their father and his men, but Cristhian complicated things. He was certainly smarter than Father’s men, considering he’d been the only one capable of finding Zia, which meant he might be Beau’s match in terms of sneakiness.

If she needed to escape him, too, she would need to do it without putting Beau in the crosshairs of it all. She would need to do it without anyone. She would have to rely on herself.

So, she decided the first step was to explore the castle. Get to know it. She knew better than most that a good escape required an excellent understanding of the landscape you were living in. She did not have the benefit of growing up here to know the nooks and crannies of where to hide and where to bolt.

So that was her first mission.

She left her room, but instead of taking the usual stairs down, she walked deeper into the hallway upstairs.

It wasn’t quite like the castle she’d grown up in. The architecture was rather similar, but there were no royal portraits. No cases or walls of heirlooms. Everything was rather bare. But there were grand windows—some with beautiful stained-glass scenes, some floor-to-ceiling looking out over the estate around the castle.

Outside the world was nothing but bright, expansive white. She could almost believe they’d been snowed in here forever. It looked and felt like some kind of fairy tale out there.

Except here she was, trapped with the villain rather than the hero.

She sighed. She shouldn’t think of him as either. The truth was, no matter what happened, Cristhian was her children’s father. And she didn’t know enough about him as a person to determine him a villain in that respect.

She didn’t consider her own father a villain, either. The idea of him being her adversary really gave him too much credit. He was simply...self-absorbed. He could be cruel, but only when it suited his purposes—his purpose was running a kingdom. She figured all men probably fit that mold, but she wasn’t yet sure what purpose Cristhian was acting under.

Since he did not have a kingdom to run, maybe she could find some inner core of reason inside him. Maybe if she got a better sense of him , she would know how to handle all this. How to maneuver.

Or how to escape.

She did not know if this castle meant anything to Cristhian when he was a man with estates . If it did, perhaps it would give some insight into his character, so she continued her exploration. Poking her head into any and every room. A library, an office that looked unused, a few generic bedrooms that had most of the furniture under coverings.

About halfway down the hall, she found a gorgeous conservatory. She spent the better part of thirty minutes there, enjoying the sunlight and beautiful green in contrast to all the white outside. So far, it was her favorite room.

Of course her favorite didn’t matter, she reminded herself when she was tempted to curl up in the chair and doze. She was on a mission. So, with reluctance, she left the sunny room and went back into the hallway that now felt chilly in comparison. More covered up, unused rooms greeted her as she made her way around the curve of the hallway.

Once she made it to the almost complete other side of the castle, she found a suite of rooms that she had the sneaking suspicion were Cristhian’s. She almost didn’t notice it at first, because the decor in the room was as bare as the halls. It could be any guest room, anywhere, but none of the furniture was covered up, and there were little signs of life in the sitting room.

A folded-up newspaper on an end table, a jacket hung on the back of a chair. There was a computer cord coiled on a desk in the corner, missing its laptop.

Perhaps that should have been a sign to stop her perusal—no doubt Cristhian was a private man—but instead she pushed forward. Into a sprawling bedroom. The bed was huge; the windows that looked over yet more snow dominated one wall. There was no art on the walls, just a beautiful wallpaper that reminded Zia of the blue back on the island when polar night had just begun to lift.

She saw nothing personal in the whole expanse of a sleeping area, until her gaze landed on a large dresser. On top, a framed picture. Zia moved closer.

It was a wedding portrait of two outrageously gorgeous people. Then it dawned on her.

His late parents.

Cristhian looked almost exactly like the man she believed to be his father. A movie star, if she recalled correctly. The only real difference she could note from the picture was Cristhian had more of his mother’s darker coloring than the blond and blue-eyed star.

Zia still couldn’t remember what country his mother was from, but she’d look it up once she was back in her room. Maybe that would be a clue in to him as well. Maybe if she got a better handle on the people who’d made him, she’d have a better handle on him .

She snorted, alone in his bedroom, because the idea of handling him was so ridiculous. From that very first moment in the bar, her gaze meeting his, she hadn’t been able to handle him or what he brought out in her.

But things were different now. They had to be. She smoothed a hand over her stomach, her babies, dancing around in there as if already jostling for space in whatever rooms they entered. She wanted to give them all the space they deserved. She wanted to give them everything .

Which wasn’t all that different than what Cristhian had said this morning. Maybe there was some common ground to be found. If they both wanted what was best for their children, there was room for a lot of common ground.

But it wouldn’t be in marriage. It couldn’t be.

Zia looked at the two happy people in the wedding portrait and wondered if that happiness was real or the illusion of a picture. Did happiness with another person exist? Or did it always sour into what her parents shared?

One person wielding all their power over the other. Then either fighting, or her mother’s head bowed acquiescence.

Zia wanted neither for her babies.

On a sigh, she turned and left the room. The only real insight gained from the upstairs was that Cristhian either didn’t care about decor, or he didn’t care much about or spend much time at this castle, and that he had truly loved his parents.

Zia wondered, perhaps unfairly, if it was easy to love parents who had died before you were even a teenager.

She lumbered downstairs, pressing a hand to her stomach. The more she was on her feet, the heavier she felt most days. When she’d been back at the cabin, she had always had ample sitting time. She should likely take a break from her exploring, but she didn’t want to sit with inaction and her thoughts right now. So she pressed on.

But she didn’t get far. After skipping the dining room since she’d already been familiarized with that, and then poking her head into what had turned out to be some linen closet of some kind, she came to a room with two grand doors open. It was some kind of sitting room, all dark woods and warm colors, with sunlight dappling the plush carpet. It was the kind of room meant for cozy nights and long, meaningful conversations.

A fire crackled in the hearth, and Cristhian sat in an oversize chair, a newspaper spread out in front of him.

She wanted to step back, not let him see her, but he looked up, those dark eyes meeting hers. She still could not quite prepare herself for the way her body reacted to his gaze taking her in. She wanted to be immune, but it always felt like his hands on her again, and no matter how she felt about him rationally, her body was apparently the least rational part of this whole package.

It would revel in his hands on her again, even in this state. Even with her brain telling her to get it together. And she didn’t back away or excuse herself. She stepped deeper into the warm, cozy room.

But then his mouth curved into a welcoming smile, not sharp or flirtatious at all. Just kind. This she did not trust at all.

“Come. Sit.” He gestured at a table full of food. “Are you hungry?”

She shouldn’t join him, she knew, but the room smelled like heaven, and she was hungry again. Walking around had worked up an appetite.

There was a large chair that matched his on the other side of the table, so she walked over without saying a word and settled herself in it. There were trays of fruit, cheeses, little pastries, all arranged artfully. There were three pitchers, one filled with water, the other two filled with juices. She shouldn’t let herself get used to this kind of luxury. If she was going to find her way in this, she was no doubt going to be back to square one at some point. A small cabin, an isolated island. Just her.

And your babies .

She glanced at Cristhian, who was watching her fill her plate. Was there anywhere she could run away to that he would not find? She had the sinking suspicion the answer was no.

So you will just have to figure out a way to get through to him, Zia .

It felt like an impossible task, but she couldn’t believe in impossible. Not when it came to her children. Everything had to be possible, if she just worked hard enough.

But first, she was going to eat her fill. She curled up in the big chair and took bites of everything. “Your cook is exceptional,” she said in between pastries.

“Yes, I make a habit of exceptional.”

She shouldn’t find that charming. It shouldn’t make her smile. He was arrogant and ridiculous and that was never a good combination.

“Did you enjoy your tour of the castle?” he asked. Blandly.

But she stopped midchew, because she had not been aware of anyone who might have seen her snooping about. And still he knew. Or was pretending to.

So she pretended she didn’t care what he knew. “It was very informative. I cannot decide if you have an aversion to art and any of the touches that might make a castle a home, or if this simply isn’t a space you spend much time in.”

He seemed to consider this by looking around the room they were in. Which, in fairness, had art. Books. Nothing too personal, though.

“The cottage was stripped before it came into my possession,” he said after a moment. His gaze returned to his newspaper.

“Stripped?” Zia echoed, not quite understanding his meaning.

“I may have royal blood, as you like to point out, but no one in my mother’s family is too keen on that truth. They prefer to use me or manipulate me, whatever makes them feel powerful. So while my aunt insisted I keep my title and take on Espinas Cottage, she made sure anything not bolted down was taken back to their royal seats that surely deserved such heirlooms.”

He said this without any bitterness. Like it was just a fact and it mattered not at all to him. But it had to matter, didn’t it? Not the things themselves, but the fact his own family would treat him as an outsider.

She did not care for being one of her family, of having her whole life defined by how well she upheld the Rendall legacy, but she could not imagine being young and orphaned and then feeling as though she did not belong.

Did he have no emotion about that? Or had the years allowed him to heal from it?

These were things that were dangerous for her to wonder, even more dangerous for her to know. She had to keep her wits about her if she was to ensure her freedom.

Something she struggled to remember when he lowered his paper and met her gaze with his dark one. His mouth subtly curved, the firelight giving his skin a burnished gold look about it. Like he’d be warm and safe to the touch.

Be stronger, Zia .

“Your cabin on that island wasn’t exactly full of knickknacks.”

“I ran away in the dead of night. To a polar island with limited resources. If I had access to home decor, I would have certainly bought some. But my focus was on not being detected and keeping these two healthy.” She rested her hands on her belly.

His gaze followed them. “What made you choose that island for your escape?” he asked, his gaze remaining on her stomach.

She studied him with suspicion. Why did he care? What was he trying to get out of her? Would he use her answer against her in some way? File away everything she said so he could follow her inevitable escape?

But he was looking at their children, essentially. Even if he couldn’t see them, that was why he was studying her stomach. He was thinking about children . And maybe if they could both realize that these two were the most important thing, and the adults in the situation weren’t sworn enemies, they could come to some reasonable conclusions and agreements.

She had to believe that. “I saw a video. I liked the idea of polar night. Of being able to hide away in months of darkness while I figured out what to do.”

“You did not find this polar night...depressing?”

She smiled a little, even though she shouldn’t let her guard down like this. “No. It was...cozy. I like being on my own. Deciding each day what I want to do. It was especially important to be alone to make the decisions I needed to make.”

Something in his expression darkened, but he made no scathing remark. His attention went back to his newspaper. But she began to wonder if he was even reading it, or if it was just a prop. If this was all just an act.

“I do not know what you think you’re doing, but you’re hardly going to butter me up with sweets and change my mind about everything.”

His eyebrow rose as he slowly set the newspaper aside and then turned to her. “I do not wish to change your mind. The marriage will go through regardless of how you feel about it.”

She could have groaned, but she needed to resist those urges. Take a page out of his book and offer nothing but a calm, impenetrable sense of right.

She leaned forward, as comfortably as she could with her belly right there. She tried to sound calm and rational instead of accusatory. “Let me ask you something, then. Why do you think marriage is the right choice? You clearly have not watched two people make each other miserable at the cost of their children.”

“No, I have not. Nor will we.”

She wished she could believe it would be that easy. But she had seen too much. “Just because we don’t love each other doesn’t mean there won’t be hard feelings. It certainly doesn’t mean there won’t be battles of our wills. I would like to avoid such things. Perhaps you don’t understand. Perhaps I haven’t been clear. I truly did not tell you because I was so focused on...making certain my family did not know that I did not think of how to track you down. It was not my intention to cut you out. If we can find a way to keep my identity unknown, I am happy to share custody in a careful, fair way.”

“Perhaps you don’t understand. We might not love each other now, but this does not mean we can’t.”

Zia laughed. The sound bubbled up and right out of her.

But Cristhian did not laugh at what had to be a joke as well. He did not smile. He did not wink.

He just sat there, looking at her placidly, as if he was serious.

Clearly he’d lost his mind.

Or she had lost hers.