ROYAL ROMANCE: A Royal Renewal (The Royals of Heledia Book 3)

by Victoria Hart

  That wasn’t exactly making me feel better. I was the puppy that needed protecting? Carlo’s intentions and his ability to weasel his way into the part of my heart where I trusted people was not my fault. He knew what he was doing and he did it anyway. He knew the kind of pain he could cause for me, and he still did it.

  And suddenly, just like that, I felt the anger bubble up. I looked at myself in the mirror and thought about how much Carlo’s friendship had meant to me, and how happy I’d been – only to have that wrenched away.

  I had trusted him, and now that was gone. How was I supposed to learn to trust other people? I had been open with him, and he had taken advantage of that. And I was so ready to forgive him. I was so ready to justify his behavior.

  Yes, I realized. I was angry.

  Antonio seemed to notice the shift in my demeanor. “Are you okay?” he asked, walking over to put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Not really,” I said. “But I’m going to go through with this and get this guy locked up for what he did to me.”

  Antonio seemed to be deciding whether that was a good thing or not, his face switching between pride and concern. I wanted the right thing, but maybe it was for the wrong reasons. Was I out for revenge, or justice? Even I wasn’t sure.

  I had a friend once, and then I had none. Now, I just had a spy in my midst and no one to turn to.

  As my aunt instructed, the entire restaurant had been cleared out and the only “patrons” inside where plainclothes bodyguards. Even though I knew this, as I sat there twiddling the pendant on my necklace, I still couldn’t find a single clue. They were sitting there, eating, laughing, and talking as though they were totally legit. I wondered if Carlo would have a way to figure it out.

  I imagined him walking into the restaurant, seeing the scene around him, and then immediately turning around to leave. It would probably be easier on everybody if he did. He’d get arrested and I wouldn’t have to go through this whole charade. But, of course, things didn’t go that way.

  He appeared in the doorway, as handsome as ever, and my heart gave a lurch. He looked a little surprised that I’d managed to get there first. His tension was obvious in the set of his shoulders, as he came over to sit down. I watched him nervously, but he didn’t give a second look to anyone else.

  “Hi,” he said with a tight-lipped smile. He looked pale, and he seemed jumpy. A plate clanged in the kitchen and he turned quickly to look in the direction of the sound.

  “Everything all right?” I asked. I was supposed to be the same as ever, and lead the conversation gradually toward what I wanted to know, but the sight of him had heated my anger. I tried not to sound too cold, but it was getting harder to act normal.

  “Yeah,” he said, unfolding his napkin and laying it on his lap. “Just…a busy day.”

  I nodded, absently, and took a sip of the wine.

  “Ordered wine already, I see,” he said. “I think I could use some right about now.”

  I gave a noncommittal hum, and decided to cut to the chase. “You said you had something you wanted to tell me,” I said, feeling my leg begin to bounce with impatience. “What was it?”

  “Uh, I figured we could wait at least until the salads came to talk about it,” he said.

  “Why not now?” I asked. “There are no distractions here. Might as well get it out since whatever it is has you jumping at the smallest sounds.”

  He looked straight in my eyes, and I couldn’t hide it. He had wide eyes, and they stared at me with sudden understanding. He knew that I knew. He didn’t immediately move, like I expected him to. He didn’t get up and try to run out the door; he only sat back in his chair with a sigh. He seemed resigned, and oddly calm.

  “Would you believe me if I said I’m actually relieved that you know?” he asked, quietly.

  “It would reveal how much of a coward you are,” I said, crossing my arms.

  “I deserve that, I suppose.”

  “You suppose?” It took all my energy not to get up, not to tower over him and stare down at him from above with a seething glare. I imagined myself flipping the table over, throwing things, breaking the wine glass after I tossed the wine into his face. “Don’t you even care what you’ve done to me?”

  The anger was breaking, it was turning into despair, and I was afraid it was going to come gushing out. He looked down, guilty, his hands clasped in his lap and his eyes fixed on the table. Maybe this is exactly how he imagined it in his head, me ready to scream at him, to make a scene. By now he must realize we were surrounded by security people. He must know he wasn’t getting out of this, that he was completely surrounded and leaving this place in handcuffs or not at all.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. He knew it wasn’t enough.

  “Sorry?” I echoed, hollow and angry. “You’re sorry?”

  “I am,” he said, leaning forward and meeting my eye. “I wanted to tell you, that’s what tonight was. I was just too slow.”

  “Why now?”

  “Huh?”

  “Why did you want to tell me this now?”

  “I--” he faltered. I wasn’t going to like the answer; that was obvious. “I um...I knew there was a chance they’d—”

  “You knew they’d found you out and you were hoping to beat everyone to the punch.”

  He turned red. It wasn’t in cute embarrassment – his face was blistering ugly red in shame. He closed his eyes.

  “Was that the only reason you were going to tell me?” I asked. “You weren’t thinking I might want to know the truth about my “friend”? That I was being lied to? That everything you’ve told me up until now is a lie?”

  “I am your friend,” he said, raising his head and looking at me intensely. “I will always be your friend. I always have been your friend. That doesn’t change, I swear that to you. Everything about that was real.”

  “I want to believe you,” I whispered sadly. I knew this wasn’t in the plan. I was supposed to extract some information, see if I could get that out before anything else happened. But I couldn’t help it, there were things I needed that were more important.

  “Then do,” he said and I watched his hands twitch like he was going to reach out and take my hand. If he did that this conversation would be over, and he knew it.

  “It’s not that easy,” I said, leaning back. I nodded to one of the bodyguards behind him.

  The movement was all at once, a flurry. They surrounded Carlo and I, some behind him, their hands placed over his shoulders. He didn’t try to run, and he didn’t look surprised – just sad. He nodded, he sat still, and he listened as the guards told him his rights Italian and then in French.

  I sat there feeling empty, like when you’re so hungry and can’t find the right food to fill the craving. I hoped this feeling wouldn’t last forever; I didn’t think I’d be able to handle that. I wanted to be free of that feeling. Unfortunately, the time for pain and anger had passed. Everything else was numbness and I knew, in my heart, that was far worse than being angry or scared or anything else. I was closing myself off to feeling anything at all.

  That was never good. I’d seen it in books and movies, people who cut off their emotions and couldn’t be consoled. People would shut down and not talk to anyone, they ended up receding into themselves for days and days on end and no one could get through to them. I couldn’t understand how people could act that way, but now I did.

  Suddenly I was less confused, sitting there, watching handcuffs being placed on Carlo’s wrists, twisted and pinned behind his back.

  “Ma’am,” whispered a familiar voice. I saw Vince. “We’re heading back to the palace.”

  I nodded, and let him take my arm while I stood. Then he walked several feet behind me as we moved out of the restaurant, out through the back, away from Carlo. I was glad I didn’t have to see his face while this all happened. I felt terrible, with a swirl of conflicting emotions inside my chest.

  Vince opened the car door for me and I went to sit insi
de, he wordlessly closed the door behind me and moved to sit in the passenger’s seat in the front. We were still waiting for the driver.

  “Where’s the driver?” I asked. I was a sitting duck, waiting here.

  “Getting the all clear from the captain,” he said. “This is evacuation plan beta. We aren’t sure if there are any other operatives here we need to worry about so we’re taking all the precautions we can. He could have others with him.”

  I wondered if it was really in Carlo’s nature to lure me into a trap like that, to play the last strings of my emotions that way. I hoped that wasn’t who he was, not that it mattered now.

  Chapter 10

  I didn’t talk to anyone for a while afterwards. I went into my room as soon as I got home and shut the door behind me. No one knocked, not for a long time. It was late and I hoped Aunt Sonia was already in bed, but I doubted that. Maybe I wouldn’t have to deal with anyone until morning. All I wanted to do was sit in my room all night, reading books and watching Netflix on my laptop.

  Eventually, though, there was a knock on the door. I considered not answering. If I didn’t, I didn’t think any staff member in the palace would have the audacity to try and open the door anyway, or enter without my permission. But then again, the servants announced themselves and this person did not. So someone was coming in anyway. I heaved a giant, dramatic sigh, just for my own benefit.

  “Come in,” I called out.

  The door opened. I expected my aunt, but it was Antonio. I soured immediately and turned to glare again at my computer screen. I wanted to tell him to leave, but I knew that wouldn’t do any good. It would make me look like a child being told “I told you so.” His face was apologetic though, so he didn’t come to tell me that he was right and I was wrong.

  It’s not like that was entirely true anyway. No one had gotten hurt, nothing got blown up, no one died. It was just that the conversation was as painful as everyone had told me it was going to be.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled back.

  He didn’t leave. He stood there bouncing on the balls of his feet and blowing air out of his mouth in a long, drawn out exhale.

  “Anything else?” I asked, hiding a smile in my cheek and shutting my laptop lid. He wanted to talk and I wasn’t going to be able to stop him now.

  “I…I just wanted to apologize,” he said. “I was out of line.”

  “You didn’t say anything that everyone else wasn’t already saying,” I shrugged, leaning to grab my water bottle and take a sip.

  “Yes but I didn’t say it in a kind and helpful tone,” he said, coming to sit down in my desk chair and resting his elbows on his knees. “You need support and guidance, not people constantly telling you what to do.”

  “I also don’t need people constantly telling me what I need,” I said with a raised eyebrow and he smiled for the first time all day.

  “I stand corrected, again.”

  I smiled then, too, sadly. It might have been my first smile all day, as well.

  “How did it go?” he asked. “I know you may not want to talk about this with me. That’s fine. But I figured someone should ask.”

  “Where’s Aunt Sonia?”

  “Being stubborn.”

  I snorted. “It went as awfully as you could imagine it would,” I said. “I talked to him, and he figured out really quick what was up. He didn’t try to run, he just looked sad and kept promising me that he really was my friend, and wasn’t lying…but I couldn’t bring myself to keep the conversation going long enough to find out much.”

  “You stormed out?”

  I shrugged. “It wasn’t my proudest moment.”

  “On the contrary, I think it shows a lot of bravery.”

  “How is running away brave?”

  “You weren’t,” he said. “You decided that your time was better spent elsewhere. You were brave enough to face him and then leave him when you needed to.”

  That was one way to put it, I supposed, but I knew I hadn’t really found out what I’d wanted to know. Still, I was glad Antonio and I were talking again. Next to Carlo he might be the only person I could talk to in this whole place.

  “So you’re okay?” he asked.

  “I’m pretty sure a state of emergency would be called if I wasn’t,” I laughed.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do, and yes, I’m as fine as can be. I’m not happy but I’m not in tears or throwing things.”

  “Sometimes that’s a better response than keeping everything all bottled up inside.”

  I nodded and thought about the numbness I was starting to feel. I knew that’s how people ended up isolating themselves, by keeping everything inside and buried so far down that no one could tell what they were feeling. But I figured I was being pretty open about it.

  He headed out the door with a ruffle of my hair and one last smile. He closed it behind him, and then all the warmth that had been in the room felt like it left with him. I sighed and stared at my closed laptop.

  I occupied myself with reading and pretending I was going to go to sleep soon and pacing and watching more shows on Netflix. At least I avoided the need to consume a tub of ice cream to drown out my sorrows. I’d save that for another time when I could pretend that the reason I was eating ice cream with a pie server right out of the tub wasn’t because some boy had broken my heart.

  But I got thirsty, sometime after midnight, long after the sounds in the palace had dissipated into nothing. Not even the servants were still awake. I stepped out into the hallway and, for the first time in my life, felt like I could believe the stories my brother always told me about this place being haunted. It was eerie, the way the moonlight was bouncing off the marble floors and the way shadows seemed to be cast from all directions, adding into the one massive shadow that was the dark hallway itself.

  Everything seemed so different in the night time. It was easy to see how people would think ghosts were real when they were standing in a place like this. It was old, it felt lived in, it smelled, at times, like the years that happened here before.

  I stepped out into the hall and walked slowly, partly out of respect, and partly not to wake restless spirits. I listened to the sounds my slippers made, padding on the marble. I listened to the wind brushing against the outer walls of the palace. I thought about the ghost stories my brother used to tell, and the way he would try to scare me while we were staying here. He said witches were burned at the stake here during medieval times, and they were still seeking revenge. He said that even before that, there used to be a monastery here, and a woman was kept prisoner in a cold and shadowy dungeon, where she died alone.

  My father said these were wild stories, that he used to perpetuate a few of them himself but that none of them were actually real. But it’s not so easy to convince a child that something is just a story. The conviction of belief is something we’re taught from a very young age. After all, we’re taught to believe in Santa and in the Easter Bunny without ever seeing them.

  I walked on and thought about how I had believed in Carlo. I believed he was my friend, I believed he could even be more. It wasn’t an illogical thing like Santa, but I had done it without looking at all the facts. Maybe I’d known something wasn’t quite right, that something was off about the whole situation. He’d started showing up everywhere in my life – he just seemed to appear, like magic. I wanted to believe it was part of a grand design in the universe, something that was meant to happen. It meant we were meant to be, that it was destiny. That there was purpose, like in a Disney movie. I was a princess after all, it was hard to shake those fairy tale notions.

  I think it was that conviction of belief that blinded me to the fact that his constant presence in my life was odd. The only conclusion to his regular appearance in my daily life should have been that he was trying to insert himself there. That had turned out to be the case. Was he even a real student? Had that all been faked as well? Was he
just that motivated to get close to me?

  Then it dawned on me so brightly and so quickly that I stopped walking in the middle of the hallway: I didn’t know a thing about Carlo, not really. Even if everything he told me was true I had no way to know that, I had no way to know what he was saying was the truth. I had only his word. And his word turned out to be useless. Everything he said could have been a lie, and chances are, it was. So this man was a stranger. I could learn to hate a stranger, couldn’t I?

  I wanted to.

  My mother always used to tell me if it won’t matter in five years, then don’t spend more than five minutes dwelling on it.

  And this wouldn’t matter in five years, not for me. Carlo would be in jail, possibly. For him, this would forever change the course of his life. But for me, nothing had truly changed, nothing that was going to matter next week. He’d disappear from my life, he’d be gone from school, from my daily routine. His ability to insert himself in my life would be stopped completely. So I shouldn’t spend more than the prescribed five minutes thinking about it, and letting it consume all my thoughts.

  I was going to give myself until I reached the kitchen. I was going to think about it, dwell on it, let those thoughts happen. I was going to think of all the doomed futures. Things that would never happen with Carlo, hopes that were gone forever. I thought about that permanence, I told myself those daydreams would never be real, all of it existed in my head alone. I told myself that he was no longer my friend, that I was back down to a zero count.

  I focused on all of this. I let it consume my walk.

  Five steps left. Then four. Then three. Two more steps.

  I was in the kitchen and I forgot it. I pushed it all from my head, banished the names, banished the memories. I was here for water because I was thirsty and I walked all the way down here to get it myself because it was the middle of the night. This was my reality now. I was a college student, I was going to be queen one day, right now I was thirsty and wanted a drink of water and I was getting it. It was nice to know I had that sort of power and control.