“Do you truly have no interest in who your birth father is?”
She spun to face him. Emerald fire snapped in her eyes. When he’d overheard Daxon and Alaric’s argument and realized that Daxon not only had a secret daughter but was angry that one of his paramours had given birth to an illegitimate child, he’d known that marrying Daxon’s daughter would cement his plan of revenge. Yet he’d also been confronted with what he’d known since he was ten years old: that his marriage would be a formal business arrangement. Aunt Alecine had told him plenty of times how her one attempt at love had resulted in his family’s banishment.
A childhood memory clawed at him: Alecine hanging a red gingham blanket over the cracked window of the dingy one-bedroom apartment they’d barely managed to afford after fleeing Linnaea with nothing but the clothes on their back. It had been both a cheery splash of color against the drab walls and a stark reminder of what little they’d had. It had only lasted for a year, but it had been the hardest year of his life. Going hungry some nights had paled in comparison to knowing his mother had chosen her life of luxury over her husband and son, that their great love story had failed the test.
That year had been the catalyst for his nearly two decades of planning, of building up wealth as he watched Linnaea crumble into poverty. He’d resolved that on his thirtieth birthday he would go to Daxon and make him an offer, a financial agreement that would elevate Linnaea out of its looming economic depression while making Daxon beholden to the man he had banished as a child. Given that Daxon had not only forced Alecine, his former mistress, and her family to flee their home but had cut off their access to their finances and spread the word as far as Vienna that Alecine was a thief not to be trusted, putting a financial spin to his revenge had seemed appropriate. Still, Cass had always known that there was a risk that Daxon, whose pride was as legendary as his numerous affairs, would turn him down out of spite.
Enter Briony. He had been at a political summit in Paris, unaware that Daxon and Alaric had been invited until he’d arrived to represent his adopted country on behalf of Aunt Alecine’s husband. He’d taken a call out in the hallway and seen Daxon and Alaric stalk by, their faces dark, voices low and heavy with anger. He’d followed and, once they’d disappeared into a small conference room, stationed himself outside the door.
“...the right thing to do. By all accounts, she’s in dire financial straits.”
“I didn’t even know she existed until you did your little pet project.”
Daxon’s voice had roughened with his illness, the angelic quality that had supposedly seduced scores of women now a harsh rasp as he snapped at his son.
“That’s not my problem,” Alaric had replied in a tone that could have frozen hell. “But if you—”
“Tell you what,son. If she can save the country from financial ruin or find me a cure, I’ll reach out. Otherwise, I want nothing to do with a bastard child.”
Just like, that puzzle pieces had fallen into place. A week later, Cass had instructed his plane to land at the private airport near the Linnaean palace. He’d been greeted by a contingency of Daxon’s palace guards and taken straight to the king himself. Every time he remembered the selfish buzzard’s face dissolving from smug satisfaction at having arrested a member of the Adamos family to fury mixed with grudging acceptance that what Cass was offering was a deal he couldn’t afford to pass up, he savored the thrill of having finally bested the man who had ruined not only his life, but his father’s and aunt’s lives as well.
Cass had known there was a good chance Daxon would say no, convince himself he could somehow still drag the country out of the hole he’d dug for it with his relentless spending.
But it was that same pride that made Daxon say yes when Cass presented his offer. If Daxon didn’t accept Cass’s financing and offer of marriage, not only would Linnaea continue to march toward an economic depression, but word would eventually leak of Briony’s existence. How, Cass had asked, would Daxon handle the press fallout, that he’d known about his daughter struggling to make ends meet in some godforsaken little town while he dined in the lap of luxury?
“You’re blackmailing me?” Daxon had demanded before he collapsed into coughing.
“I don’t have to,” Cass had replied silkily. “Your son is already furious that you would deny her. How long do you think it will take before he reaches out to her if you don’t? What if he leaks it to the press? Or she does, once she learns the truth? Compare that to not only embracing your long-lost child but forming an alliance that will save the people of your country?”
He’d arched a brow as Daxon’s reply was lost in another hacking cough. Slowly he’d advanced on the old man. For a brief moment, as a child, he’d feared the legendary Daxon Van Ambrose, the man with so much power he’d driven Cass’s father from his own home and sent his mother fleeing to her wealthy relatives in Paris.
But every step he’d taken toward the throne, toward the hunched figure of a dying coward, had emboldened him until he’d been less than a foot away.
“How long do you have left, my king? A year, maybe less?”
The glare Daxon had thrown at him had confirmed that the disease was spreading faster than any doctor could contain.
“How will you be remembered? As a savior? Or as the devil?”
Briony would help Cass not only achieve his revenge but bring Linnaean back from the brink of ruin. In turn, he would rescue her and her family from looming poverty.
Besides, what woman wouldn’t jump at the chance to become a princess?
He’d never once been tempted by notions of love or romance. Family, duty and honor mattered above all.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” she demanded. He stood his ground as she advanced on him and jabbed a finger at his chest. “You waltz into my bar, flash your money and make me feel...”
“Make you feel what, Briony?”
“Special,” she finally snapped. “Like you were interested in me and found me attractive.”
“I am interested, and I do find you attractive.”
She snorted. “Sure. And I’m a long-lost princess, my birth father is a king, and you’re a prince who can rescue my home country by marrying me.”
“You truly think I would make up an elaborate joke like this, propose marriage to you, just to hurt you?”
It may not be a joke, but you’re still lying to her. Using her.