‘I came because I understand—intimately—the disorientation of having nothing to ground you to a world that has been thrust upon you. I wanted you to have something—’
‘Something to ground me?’
‘Yes,’ he lied. Because he’d come here because he hadn’t been able to fight it. The need to be close. The pull. But he would fight it now. He would fight it with everything he was.
‘And when you came in here the past caught up with you?’
‘Not the past, Charlotte,’ he said. ‘You.’
‘At St John’s I came to find you, didn’t I?’ she said.
She’d sneaked past the resident care workers and sought him out. She’d found him asleep and she hadn’t had to say anything. Together they’d crept into the gardens, hand in hand, and hidden under that oak tree.
She’d told him everything. And when she had voiced all the secrets she’d been told to keep quiet—never to tell outsiders—he’d simply held her. He’d let her feel all the feelings she’d kept at bay her entire life.
‘It is not the same,’ he said.
‘You let me grieve for the life I should have had and for the person I should have been.’
And together, over the following weeks, they’d made a plan. They’d chosen a different life.
‘I am not grieving,’ he said.
‘Okay,’ she conceded. ‘But did you ever think that maybe the past has caught up with me, too? That my dad—his betrayal, my past, our past—is something we should talk about? Something I need to talk about?’
‘Your father was a fool.’
‘My father led us here.’
‘I came back to England for you—because of you. Not your father,’ he denied. ‘But this—the past—cannot impede our engagement announcement tonight.’
‘But I am your past,’ she said. ‘How can you separate the two without confronting what that means?’
‘It means nothing.’
Exasperated, she asked, ‘Why is today so important to you?’
‘Imagine eyes, hundreds of them, watching you, knowing your name and everything about you when you know nothing of them. Then imagine standing before them, waiting for them to accept you.’
‘It must have been hard...’ she whispered, scared for the boy he’d once been. Alone. Craving acceptance. She knew the bitter taste of rejection from those who should have accepted her unconditionally. Turning their backs on her. Betraying her.
‘Under the command of the King they had to respect his wishes and accept me. Did they want me? Absolutely not. To them, I was a bastard. Raised by a whore who had shared in hedonistic delights with my father.’ She physically recoiled from his words, and he quickly added, ‘The truth is the truth and I will not hide from it.’
‘But your mum...?’ she gasped, not knowing what she wanted to ask, exactly, but knowing she wanted to defend her. While they’d been in care together Akeem had spoken of her with nothing but pure idolisation. These words now did not reflect the woman he’d loved.
‘I was my mother’s son, but I am my father’s heir.’ he explained cryptically.
She called him out. ‘Was?’ she asked. ‘Not am?’
‘She is dead.’
‘So is my dad—but I’m still his daughter.’
Bearded jaw twitching, he regarded her with intense eyes before answering. ‘I was a stranger to the Taliedaaen people, to their way of life and their struggles. Did they respect me? They had no choice. I am of royal blood, and rightful heir to the throne. Did they respect my mother?’ he asked, and waited for her reply.
But she didn’t have one.
‘No,’ he answered for her. ‘She fled her home in shame. She had no power. No privilege,’ he snarled, his lips folding back to reveal perfectly white teeth. ‘Here in Taliedaa I am my father’s heir, and they will respect you, Charlotte, because I will command it.’
‘You will command it the way your father should have done for your mother?’
‘This is nothing like that. Their relationship—’
‘Your father and mum had a relationship?’
‘Whatever they had,’ he dismissed heavily, ‘the people did not want her. They did not want me, but I need them to want you.’
‘How do we do that?’
‘By convincing them we are real. Not fire and passion, but stability and strength. Not pomp and heirs and titles but something else—something real. Something my father never offered to his people or his country. He offered them false promises. Nothing but mistress after mistress. As his Queen stayed hidden in her quarters until she died, childless. You will not be that kind of queen.’
Eyes wide, she stared. ‘You want me to have a baby?’
‘No!’ he denied, the word vehement.
His eyes flashed and her stomach tugged.
‘I need them to want change. Appreciable change. You are that change.’
‘I am?’
‘If I had sent you home after what my men saw, doubt would have shadowed me as I took my rule. This is the first step to showing them I will not rule as my father did. That pleasurable pursuits are not my aim. That the changes I suggest are for the good of the people, the country. Stable. Honest. Good.’
‘Like your mum?’ She didn’t know where the question had come from, but here she was, asking it. Defending his mother. A stranger who’d given up her life in Taliedaa to raise Akeem in England. That was strength. Giving up everything she’d known for her family. Her son. A bit like her. Charlotte had given up everything for her family. Her dad.
His eyes flashed. ‘My mother was defenceless—powerless in my father’s world and in yours. I am neither of those things here.’
No, he was a vision of animated strength. ‘But you think you were defenceless before? In England?’ she asked, as the question formed in her mind. ‘Powerless?’
He flinched—only slightly, but she saw it. The shudder. ‘The boy I was when I was with you was weak, Charlotte. Unwanted.’ His nostrils flared. ‘Untamed.’
She’dwanted him, but the look in his eyes told her to keep that to herself, so she asked, ‘Do you have something to prove because of your dad’s actions? Or because of who you were before you were a prince?’
‘Both,’ he confirmed, and her heart broke a little for him. They were so similar and so different.
‘A bit like me...’ She tried to smile but her lips twisted uncomfortably. ‘I have wasted so much time, and I have so much to prove, too.’
His face contorted. His full bottom lip flattening his jaw. ‘I cannot let this—this need you have to compare our lives—get in the way. I need you to be—’
‘To be the future Queen. And you’ll be him?’
He frowned. ‘Him?’