FELIPE HAD CERTAINLY created headlines on his wedding day, but they were not the headlines he had hoped they might be. No, rather than photographs of the happy couple, the news media was filled with photographs of him storming into the chapel and demanding everybody leave. A repeat of the night his father had passed away, and proof that he was no more stable than the previous ruler, at least, so said a great many of the papers.
His lungs were burning as he walked up the stairs to the tower. He didn’t know why he was going to the tower. One of the things his father had done early on—shortly after his mother had killed herself—was drag Felipe back up to the tower. He had demanded that he stand there. Demanded that he look out the window and see that there was no longer anything there.
“There is nothing,” his father had said. “No ghosts. No bodies. She is gone. And she isn’t coming back. This place holds no power. Emotion has no place here. And it certainly shouldn’t sway you as a ruler.”
Felipe laughed cynically as he remembered that. Of course his father would say that emotion had no power. But he didn’t mean anger. He didn’t mean rage.
It struck him then, with clarity—a disturbing clarity—that he held a similar worldview. That love didn’t count. That happiness was something that could easily be destroyed. Those were the emotions he had banished from himself. All while retaining the kind of toxicity his father had carried around with him.
He walked across the room, making his way over to the window. He wrapped his fingers around the bars. Briar had left him, and it was for the best that she had done so by going out the front door and not flinging herself from a tower.
He also despised that she had taken his words and thrown them back at him. That she had done exactly what he had been trying to get her to do. He had wanted her to leave, in the end. But he had thought that...
Perversely, he had hoped that in the end that love, that he felt was such a folly, that he considered a weakness, would prove to be the thing that was strong enough to hold her to him. It was wrong, particularly when his aim had been to get her to call the wedding off, and yet, part of him had hoped.
He had goaded her. He had pushed her. And in the end she had made the right decision; he knew it because he didn’t possess the kind of softness in him that she deserved. He knew only how to break things. How to break people.
Pushing his hand through the bars, he rested his palm on the window. “I am sorry, Mama. I truly am.” And then he pounded his fist against the glass, watching it crack, splinters embedding in his skin. He relished that pain. As he had done earlier. As he had done for a great many years. Punishing himself because his father was no longer able to do it.
And, oh, how he loved to break things. Because the old man wanted order. And Felipe wanted to defy that.
And then you straighten your shirtsleeves like a naughty boy.
He pounded his forehead with his bleeding fist then lowered his hand slowly, his heart threatening to rage right out of his chest.
For the first time he wondered if he was not like his father. He wondered if he was merely controlled by him. If he had allowed the old man to gain access to him. No. He was going to make his country better. He was going to atone.
And yet you let him steal your ability to love, with all that fear he gave you. You let him cost you Briar.
He gritted his teeth. No, letting Briar go had been a kindness. Because as she had said to him it would only damage them both in the end if the two of them were to be together.
He thought of her, of everything she had told him about the way she had grown up. So afraid that she would be found unworthy. So desperate to prove her value.
All she had to do for him was simply breathe.
The thought of her... Well, it created a pain in his chest that was so severe it blotted out the pain in his hand.
What was it? All of this pain. He wasn’t supposed to be able to feel anything. He had made sure. He had promised himself.
He curled his fingers around the window bars again.
He had promised her.
He hadn’t been brave enough to follow her. And so he had done what he thought was best. He had sent the most vital part of himself with her. Had consigned it to the grave. Because he had failed her. In the end, it had been his fault.
He clutched his chest, unable to breathe. His heart. His heart. Of course, he knew that his heart was there physically. It was the metaphorical heart he had long since surrendered. But if so then why did it hurt so badly now? Why did it feel as though he was going to suffer cardiac arrest because he didn’t have Briar with him? Why did standing here in this room, the room where he had witnessed his mother’s death, feel like he was submerged under water and he couldn’t breathe? Like his chest was going to explode. If you didn’t have a heart...then why the hell was it breaking?
Why was he standing here imagining days filled with darkness? Days without her soft hands touching his skin. Without her looking at him as though he was a person of value. Without her telling him that he mattered? Why was he imagining those things and not the loss of all his political alliances? Because that was all she should mean. It was all she should have ever meant. He should be mounting an attack. Plotting revenge against her for taking herself away from him and ruining his plans. He did not allow such things. He never had.
But the problem was, she was already perfect for him. She didn’t even have to try. And without her...without her he was nothing.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, and without thinking, he dialed Adam’s number. Felipe was not the kind of man who depended on the kindness of friends or strangers. Indeed, he had done his very best to never need anyone’s kindness. Mostly because he had grown up with none, and had never assumed it would be there when he needed it.
But he needed something now. And he didn’t know where else to turn.
“Adam,” he said.
“I’m surprised it took you this long to call. Considering your wedding was just dramatically called off.”
“Yes. Well. I didn’t think I needed anything to deal with that. She’s gone. What’s done is done. There’s nothing I can do to fight that. Nor do I want to. At least, I didn’t think so.”
“I see. It turns out you’re not so happy to have lost your fiancée?”
Felipe felt like he’d been stabbed in the chest. “No. And I’m not thinking about the political ramifications. All I can think of is her. She is... She is impractical for me in every way. She’s young. She was innocent.” His body warmed just thinking of how far she had come in the past weeks. “She is soft and giving. She is everything I’m not. I shouldn’t miss her. I shouldn’t want her. And yet...”
“I could have told you that it is a grave mistake to take beautiful young women captive,” Adam said, his tone dry. “I have a bit of experience with that.”
“You were also the most humorless, angry man I had ever met before Belle came into your life. How did you change? I need to know. I need to know if it’s possible.”
Adam hesitated for a moment. “I was content to go through my life feeling nothing,” he said finally. “The loss of my first wife was more than I could bear. At least, I thought so. I thought I had been damaged beyond the capacity for feeling. I wanted to be. But Belle came softly, and because of that I did not know I needed to arm myself against her. I was so certain that as her captor I held the upper hand. Ultimately, she was the one who captured me. Her love changed me. And the fact that I had to become something different to be worthy of it. It does not just happen as you sit idly by, Felipe. You must choose it. You must choose love instead of darkness. Because that’s the only way that it can win in the end. But once you do... Light wins every time. It swallows the darkness whole.”
“Perhaps your brand of darkness, Adam. I fear mine might have the power to absorb the sun.”
“If that is how you choose to see it, if that is the power you choose to give it, then I believe it. Light and dark exist in the world, Felipe. Good and evil. Love and hate. We must all choose, I suppose, which of those things we give the most power. Which of those things get to carry the most weight. In the end, I chose love. Because anything else was to submit to the unthinkable. A life without Belle. If you can imagine life without Briar, then I suppose you don’t need to change at all. But if this present darkness that you’re in feels too suffocating, too consuming... Turn on the light, my friend.”
* * *
“Talia.” Queen Amaani walked into the room. It could be no one else. After a week in Verloren she could recognize the other woman by the sound of her footsteps. There was something about the way she glided over the tile, even in heels. She was like an ethereal being.
And Briar looked like her. She was her daughter; there was no denying it.
She was also the daughter of Dr. Robert and Nell Harcourt from New York, who had raised her and loved her and done their best to protect her from a threat they’d had no power against.
Living at the palace in Santa Milagro, then coming here, truly underscored that fact. How much power the players in this game possessed, that Dr. Harcourt and his wife did not. It was strange, though. That realization didn’t make her feel more indebted.
It made her feel...
Well, she felt as if it was the proof of love she’d always been looking for.
It had always been there. She’d just put so many of her own fears up in front of it.
She turned to face the queen, her heart pounding hard. “Briar,” she said. “Call me Briar, please?”
The other woman’s beautiful face looked shocked, but only for a moment. Then she smoothed it into rather serene calm. “If that’s what you prefer, of course.”
Briar smiled, knowing the smile looked as sad as she felt inside. “It’s more... I’ve been thinking a lot. About who I am. And what I want. I’m so happy that I’ve been able get to know you and...and I’m sorry—” her throat tightened up “—I’m sorry that we couldn’t have known each other better. I’m sorry that it...is this way. But I was blessed to have a wonderful upbringing with the people you chose to care for me. And... I became the woman they raised me to be. I wanted to be Talia for you. I wanted to please you. But I need to be Briar.”
Felipe had always seen her as Briar. Always. Even when she’d told her mother and father to call her Talia, he had known.
He had known long before she had.
Funny how that wretched man could be so insightful about her behavior, and have such a huge blank when it came to his own.
Then the queen did something unexpected. She knelt down in front of Briar, her hands on Briar’s lap, her face full of sadness. “I know. And it is... The reason we chose the Harcourts was because we had known them for years. Because we trusted them. Because we knew that they would help you grow into the woman you were meant to be. I’m sorry we failed you. I’m sorry you suffered at the hands of that madman...”
“He’s not a madman,” she said, surprised by her own vehemence. “He’s...lost. And he’s hurt. But he’s...” Tears filled her eyes. “I love him. And I would be with him still except...it couldn’t be like it was. With him convinced he had forced my hand. With me trying to earn his love. It has to be different. If he comes for me again, it has to be because he wants me. Not because he wants a wife he thinks will make him look good. And I need to go with him because I love him. Not because he kidnapped me from a hospital.”
The queen’s eyebrows shot up. “From a hospital?”
Briar sighed. “It’s a long story.”
The queen rose to her feet and sat in the chair next to Briar. Then she snapped her elegant fingers. A servant appeared. “Tea,” she said. Then she turned her focus back to Briar. “I have time for long stories. The two of us have much catching up to do, Briar.”