European Billionaire Beaus: The Complete Series

by North, Leslie

  “Some news has come to light regarding Felicity Callard.”

  Rafael’s heart stopped; he was sure of it.

  “Say that again?”

  “Details have…surfaced, and some of them…” Now Salem looked pale. “Some of them could be viewed as rather scandalous by the general public.”

  His mind whirled. Felicity Callard had blown into his life like a hurricane nearly three years ago, and just when he thought they were going to tip right into a permanent union, she disappeared.

  No—it was more accurate to say that she ran. One moment, she was with him in Stolvenia. The next, she’d had to go back to the United States to be with her sister, and had insisted on breaking all contact with Rafael. He’d thought she’d change her mind, that she’d reach out when she was ready. She hadn’t. So that had been that.

  At least that’s what Rafael told himself, along with everyone else. He was over her. He had forgotten her.

  Rafael cleared his throat, trying to school his face into a more neutral expression. “How was this discovered?”

  Salem straightened his tie. “We have an informant in one of the opposition papers. They have the story, King Rafael. At least, they have part of the story. And it’s going to break.”

  These days, Rafael badly needed to avoid scandalous breaking news, and for obvious reasons. An opposition group had taken root in Stolvenia claiming that all the nation’s problems could be solved by dissolving the monarchy. The idea had spread like a cancer, undermining the people’s trust in Rafael’s leadership. An upcoming referendum would decide the issue once and for all, and with the date fast approaching, any scandal could be fatal.

  Polls currently showed a small majority of the country sided with the royals—thanks in no small part to the massive popularity of his brothers’ whirlwind romances. But that just made the opposition more desperate as they dug for a game changer.

  Salem was hedging.

  “What are you not telling me, Salem?”

  The intelligence officer looked him in the eye, steeling himself.

  “She had a child. Your child.”

  Salem picked up a printed photo from the folder and slid it across the desk to Rafael. He took it in his hands. It was a photo of a little girl, maybe two years old, with blonde ringlets, huge blue eyes, and an infectious grin. She stood on a checked blanket laid out on the grass—a park or lawn somewhere. The sun caught in her hair, and she looked like she was laughing. Her small hands held a little bubble machine and the bubbles flew upward in front of her. Rafael could almost see the scene playing out in front of his eyes, almost hear her laughter ringing in his ears.

  “My child,” he repeated slowly, emotions circling themselves in the pit of his gut. His child. Felicity had become pregnant with his child, and she’d hid it from him.

  Why?

  He looked back up at Salem, but the man looked more nervous than ever. Rafael’s stomach sank. “There’s something else, isn’t there?” He let out a harsh laugh. “What could be more scandalous than a king with a secret family?”

  “It would be more of a blow,” Salem said cautiously, “if the opposition had reason to believe that the royal family had been…complicit…for generations.”

  Hot indignation flared. “How could any other generations have been involved in Felicity Callard spiriting my daughter to the United States?”

  “They have some kind of evidence that your mother, the queen, was involved.”

  Rafael felt the blood drain out of his face. “My mother?”

  Salem shifted his weight uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Signs point to some kind of payment, arranged between the queen and Felicity. It would explain…” He cleared his throat again. “It would explain her rapid departure from Stolvenia.”

  “And hiding my child from me.” Rafael’s stomach churned. His mother had been dead for over a year, but that wouldn’t matter to the press. “Do we have our own evidence?”

  “We’re working on it now, sir.”

  In the meantime…in the meantime, he stared at the photo of the little girl, his mind racing down all the corridors of possibility and coming up against the same dead ends.

  He had a daughter.

  He had a daughter.

  And he had never seen her.

  He might be over Felicity. His feelings for her might be long gone, fled back to America with her. But a child changed everything—absolutely everything.

  He folded his hands on top of the desk and put on his best poker face. He couldn’t let it show how much this was affecting him. Not here. Not now. Not ever. Being king meant he had to view every situation for the way it impacted his country. His personal feelings had to come last.

  “Where is Felicity?”

  “A city called Des Moines, Iowa,” he said carefully. “She’s been living there for the last three years, working in Human Resources for a care facility called Westwood Crossings. It’s where her sister, Joy, lives.”

  “When does the story break?”

  “This week, at the latest.”

  Rafael instantly understood what this meant. Somehow, some way, he needed to take control over the story and frame it to help Stolvenia rather than hurt it. He needed to meet his daughter. And he needed to save the monarchy.

  “What do you need from me, Your Majesty? What do you want to do now?”

  Rafael looked up from the photograph. “Have my staff ready the plane.”

  1

  Felicity was a prisoner in her own home.

  Back when she’d fallen in love with Rafael, she’d wondered what it would be like if they stayed together, got married, built a life together as royals.

  Now she knew. You had no privacy.

  Not that she had any privacy now, even as just the mother of a royal child.

  Those years of keeping Hope’s father a secret were over. The whole world knew. And the whole world had gathered around the small apartment she shared with her daughter, Hope, banging on the front door at all hours. They were relentless. She couldn’t walk past the living room window without them shouting questions up at the closed panes.

  Felicity thought that when Rafael’s mother, the queen of Stolvenia, passed away, the fear would stop. She wouldn’t have to worry that anyone was watching her. She couldn’t believe she’d been so wrong.

  Another thundering knock sounded at the door, hard enough to rattle the wood on its hinges.

  “Do you think you should look at other living arrangements?” Joy asked.

  “Like what?” This had been the largest apartment Felicity could afford on the salary from her human resources job, and it was a one-bedroom. She and Hope had to share, which was becoming increasingly difficult. Hope was a light sleeper, and she woke up whenever Felicity turned over in bed. Felicity rubbed at her eyes. It was Saturday, her day off, and she’d had some wild hope that the press would take the day off, too.

  No such luck.

  “You could tour other complexes,” Joy suggested, reaching down to pat Hope’s head that rested against her knee. “I’d donate to the cause, but—”

  “Don’t even think about it.” Joy’s disability payments just covered her place at Westwood Crossings, and more often than not, Felicity found herself pitching in extra hours to cover the cost of the care her sister needed. She still suffered complications from the car accident that had orphaned them when the sisters were nine, and they’d cobbled together a tenable situation. Felicity wasn’t going to disrupt it by starting a big move.

  She couldn’t go outside, anyway. They were surrounded.

  “There’s no crossing the moat, Joy,” she said.

  Hope picked up another teddy bear from the floor and held it up to Joy with a big smile on her face. Joy accepted it with a grin and bounced it around in a little dance to make Hope giggle. Felicity felt the familiar rush of love at the sight of them playing together. Her family meant everything to her—and she’d do anything to keep them happy and safe. That meant she’d find a way
to get them through this. She just…wasn’t sure how.

  They were going to have to wait out the weekend. A judge wouldn’t be able to hear her case for a restraining order against the crowd outside until Monday, and Felicity doubted she could get one anyway, since the apartment complex wasn’t technically private property. There was very little Joy could do about it. Felicity had brought her here until the afternoon after her sister had insisted on helping, but her company was all she could give.

  As Felicity watched, Joy leaned forward in her chair to speak softly to Hope. She and her twin weren’t identical, and though their appearance was very similar, Joy was the prettier one by far. Her blonde hair fell in naturally gentle waves down her back and she’d always been so skilled at makeup.

  Felicity ran a hand over her own hair. It was in the functional bun she always wore it in for work, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d put on makeup. It was busy in the human resources department at Westwood Crossings, and when she wasn’t in her office, she was with Joy or caring for Hope.

  Hope was as flawless as Joy. Felicity couldn’t resist crossing the room to make a minute adjustment to the small pink bow clipped in Hope’s hair. Her heart swelled with love. Honestly, she’d thought teething was going to be the toughest thing about this age, but it wasn’t. It was the worry. Was she spending enough time with Hope? Did she keep waking up all night because they were too separated during the day?

  And then there was the matter of the crowd outside.

  Joy’s transporters would be able to come and go, but Felicity herself couldn’t. The thought made her feel restless.

  She leaned down and kissed Hope’s cheek, then straightened up with a sigh. On Monday, she’d have to face the crowds whether she liked it or not. She couldn’t afford to be fired for a no-show when money was so tight that one flat tire could blow up her entire budget.

  “Loud,” shouted Hope, and at that moment Felicity realized the crowd outside had gone quiet.

  She could practically hear the wind in the trees.

  Her heart beat faster. Why the sudden silence? Had something awful happened, or was it a miracle?

  There was one solid knock at the door, and Felicity thought wildly, it’s an angel. There could be no other explanation.

  She straightened her shoulders. The knock was so different from the way the reporters pounded their fists on the door that she felt drawn to see who it was. Felicity squared her shoulders, filled with a strange hope, and went to look through the peephole.

  What she saw on the other side wasn’t a reporter.

  It was Rafael.

  * * *

  Rafael held his breath as the door flew open, revealing Felicity’s petite frame. Her blue eyes were wide, and she stuck her head an inch outside, searching for reporters.

  He was frozen.

  She was still just as gorgeous as she’d been when he first met her—and when she had left him behind. Her hair was pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck, but tendrils had escaped around her face. He was torn—he wanted to look at the woman he’d loved, and wanted nothing to do with the woman who had broken his heart.

  But he did want to see his daughter.

  Felicity looked from side to side, then beckoned him in. “Come in, come in.” Then her eyes moved past him to the six men who had taken up their positions in the hallway. “Wow,” she breathed. “Nobody’s getting past them.”

  “No.”

  She stepped back, and he stepped inside.

  They stood there together in the apartment’s narrow entryway. She was so alive. She was so…present. She stood right in front of him, close enough to touch.

  She seemed to come back to herself, shaking off the stress of the reporters, and went into the apartment.

  He followed close behind.

  The main room they stepped into was a living room, separated from the kitchen by a pass-through bar with two barstools perched neatly in front of the countertop. Neat piles of envelopes were pressed up to one corner.

  Rafael tried his best to catch his breath.

  He turned back toward the living room, his heart in his throat, and there she was.

  There they were.

  Felicity stood in the center of the room, the little girl from the picture in her arms. She held Hope almost defensively, with her body turned slightly away from him, and once more shock rippled down Rafael’s spine. He thought he’d been prepared, after the long plane ride from Stolvenia and across the United States, but the sight of them together still knocked the breath out of him. Hope looked so much like her mother, with big blue eyes alight with curiosity. But there was also something of him in her face, too. He’d know it anywhere.

  Rafael tried to shake himself out of it. What was he supposed to do? He didn’t want to overwhelm his daughter, or get too close, and the questions clanged in his mind.

  But his emotions didn’t matter. What mattered—now and always—was what was best for his country. And right now, he was looking at the future of Stolvenia—the heir to his throne.

  “This is Hope,” Felicity said softly, and then she took a tentative step toward him, then another, and Rafael forgot to breathe.

  Felicity kept coming forward until they were within arm’s reach.

  The future of Stolvenia, he insisted to himself. His only heir. She was a guarantee that the monarchy could continue, if only he could keep it together long enough to give it to her.

  But all those weighty concerns dissolved under Hope’s curious gaze. She stared at him frankly. “Hi,” said Hope. “Hi, hi.”

  “Hello,” he said, and then, without thinking, he stuck his finger out at her, almost as if they were about to shake hands.

  Rafael was mortified. It was such a babyish gesture. What had he been thinking? But before he could pull his hand back, Hope reached out and wrapped her own fingers around it.

  He kept perfectly still.

  Hope wriggled against her mother. “Up,” she said. “Up.”

  The little girl reached for Rafael.

  He took her in his arms. What else could he do? She had asked, and he obliged, and he was rewarded with her little face beaming at him, a dimple in one cheek.

  “Hi,” she said again, softly, and then she rested her head against his shoulder.

  One breath, he was a man. The next, he was a father. It was almost as if he’d known her all along.

  2

  “Tent,” Hope commanded, pointing back into the living room toward her small play tent. She leaned away from Rafael, and though he wanted to keep holding her, he set her gently on the ground. She ran for the tent. “Go in my tent!” she said, gleefully, happily, as if the rest of the world didn’t matter. To her, it didn’t.

  Felicity made a sound behind him, and he turned back.

  “I’ll stay with her,” said Joy. “If you two want a minute to talk.”

  It was a good idea. They needed to formulate a plan. With every moment that went by, Rafael felt the presence of the crowd outside more sharply, pressing in on his consciousness. There were simply too many people out there for a security team of six, especially now that he was with Felicity and Hope, along with Joy. He followed Felicity into the kitchen area. It wasn’t truly separated from the living room, but a happy squeal from Hope told him she wasn’t paying attention to them any longer. She was so changeable, going from one thing to the next so quickly. How was that going to fit in with his plan, with his life?

  Felicity faced him, blue eyes worried. “Rafael, I’m—I’m sorry about all of this.” She bit her lip, and he was struck by how quickly his attention could zero in on such a small thing about her. She had the most luscious lips he’d ever seen on a woman. “This whole thing is a mess, and I feel responsible.”

  He steadied himself with a breath. “My people are still gathering the evidence about the situation.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to name what his mother had allegedly done, but he did add, “Knowing my mother, I’m sure she was…forceful in
convincing you to leave. But why didn’t you come to me?” Anger flashed. “All you had to do was reach out to me, and you didn’t.”

  Felicity covered her face with her hands. “I know, Rafael. It just seemed simpler to…go along with it. She implied that she’d discussed it all with you—that you were on board with everything she said. I wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth, but…” She trailed off, then steadied herself. “I didn’t think it would come to this.”

  “You don’t have to explain right now,” he said, though everything in him was aching for Felicity to give him an explanation that made the pain of the last few years lessen. “In fact, I think we should set all this aside for later. There are more pressing concerns.”

  “Like what?” Felicity glanced toward the front window.

  “Things back in Stolvenia are not exactly…settled.”

  Felicity frowned. “I’ve read a bit about it in the news, but—”

  “There’s going to be a referendum. The people are going to decide whether to remove the monarchy from power. Now that the opposition has seized on my secret family—and the payments from the monarchy to keep it quiet—they’re trying to frame this as proof that the monarchy can’t be trusted. We need to redirect the narrative.”

  Felicity was shaking her head. “What are we supposed to do? What am I supposed to do—”

  “There’s also the matter of Hope.”

  She went silent, looking up at him levelly. “What about her?”

  “She’s going to need security.” That was the part that Felicity didn’t seem to understand—not yet, anyway. He could feel the anxious energy coming off her in waves, but he imagined that like most people, she expected for all this to blow over. “As my daughter, she’s the next heir to Stolvenia. She has to have appropriate housing, a team of people ensuring her safety—”

  Felicity took in a deep breath and leaned against the counter. “There’s no way, Rafael. I can’t afford anything more than this apartment—where would I put a security team? How could I pay them? How will I ever—”