And if she wanted to keep her vow, if she didn’t want to be putty in Drake’s hands for the second time this evening, she needed to think of anything else.
Desperate, she reached for something she thought might get him talking, and get that look—intense, possessive and as tangible as a hand at the nape of her neck would have been—off his face. That look that felt like the home that she’d been waiting for her whole life.
“You told me how you got a private island, but how does a poor exile become a foreign-born aristocrat?” she asked. And she wanted to know. It was an incredible feat, particularly following the trauma her father had inflicted.
“Calla was a gift from King Amar for saving his son’s life.”
“A duchy is a pretty grand gift, even for saving a son. How old were you?” The idea of a king granting a young man a duchy was as medieval to her as Cyrano was thought to be throughout Europe.
Drake gifted her with one of his cocky smiles.
“Twenty-six, and, at the time, Calla was not without its...challenges. King Amar needed a man with naval experience he could trust to take care of the kinds of problems that Calla had, and when I came along, he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Even if it was a twenty-six-year-old hothead who’d seemingly come from nothing.”
She whistled. “What could you take care of as a young whippersnapper that had stumped a king?” she challenged.
Coming closer, his grin was wide, without a hint of irony. “Pirates.”
“I should have known,” she groaned.
“Calla had been in the possession of the crown for a number of years following the stripping of titles of the previous duke. By the time I came along, however, they’d turned it into a disaster. Caline was uninhabitable, the bay choked with debris and toxic algae, the arable cropland lying fallow and without irrigation, and everywhere you looked, pirate factions made it impossible for regular people to build lives.”
It sounded like a scene from a movie.
“Calla?” Hel asked, astounded. That sounded nothing like the warm and welcoming city she’d experienced.
He nodded. “It took most of the money I earned in the navy, all the way through being an admiral, but once I dealt with the pirates, new residents moved into the area, bringing new commerce along with them. It was only a matter of time before word spread that Calla was once again one of the most highly desirable locations in all of Sidra, and instead of draining my accounts, she began to return on my investment. Tenfold.”
Hel smiled. He was proud and he’d earned it. Unlike herself or her cousin or any of the other aristocrats she knew, Drake had built that himself. Not his father or grandfather before him. There was another difference between him and her father. He’d truly created the legacy he was proud of, and in all of that, had not let success corrupt him. He knew hard work and was willing to do it himself—it was a rare trait among the men she’d come of age alongside.
But he clearly didn’t need to hear that from her. He had arrogance enough to fill a room. Even one with an open wall to the wide star-filled sky.
Hel shivered, something deep and warm moving inside of her, but she kept her tone light when she finally spoke. “Impressive. A duchy can be a real drain on the pocketbook.”
He chuckled, as she’d hoped he would, and the sound warmed her heart. Though she refused to succumb to his charm, she’d make sure she did as right by him as she possibly could.
And she promised to remember the conviction even after they were done luxuriating in the most glorious pool she’d ever been in.
“You never told me why you hate your father so much,” he said as if they’d been on the subject.
If he’d meant to throw her off balance with the non sequitur, he was going to be disappointed. She answered without missing a beat. “I did. He was a terrible man, and an actual criminal who terrorized my mother and I.”
“Terrorized how?” he persisted.
Looking away, Hel kept it casual. “Yelling, belittling. Hitting before I learned self-defense.”
Drake clenched and released his fists, but was even-toned when he asked, “Where was your mother through all of this?”
Instantly protective, Hel’s spine straightened. “Being yelled at, belittled and taking the brunt of the hitting until I learned self-defense.” Their bond was tied up in more than just the stuff of mothers and daughters.
He pressed, “She didn’t keep you safe.”
Hel let out a dry, joyless laugh, almost more of a cough than any sound of pleasure. “She couldn’t.”
“But it still bothers you.”
“Not that.”
“What?”