DELANEY COULDN’T STOP shaking. She couldn’t remember ever actually shaking before in her life, and now it was as if she was little better than a leaf in a swift wind. She was actually trembling.
And she would have hated that she was so weak, but she couldn’t seem to focus on her body or the things that were happening in it. Not beyond noticing what was happening.
Not when her world had fallen apart.
Cayetano murmured something and left the room, taking his men along with him. She hardly knew the man who had turned up here and set everything spinning madly out of control, so she shouldn’t have been surprised to see him show a little compassion. But she was anyway. Or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe it was a performance of deep cynicism, because he had somehow known what her mother would say. Maybe he was simply, politely, leaving the two of them to talk now that all his facts were laid out.
Not that it mattered, because the shock waves from her mother’s surprise statement were still rolling through her. And Delaney knew without having to ask that for all his apparent compassion—or whatever it was inside a man made of stone—he was not going far.
She couldn’t think about that, either. Or any of the implications when she didn’t hear any car engines turning over outside.
Because now was simply her and her mother, here in this room, where she’d spent the whole of her life. Where she knew every picture in every frame. Where she’d played on the floor as a child, there on the thickly woven rug. Where she and her mother—not your mother, came that terrible voice inside her—sat in the evenings and worked on their sewing, their knitting, and other projects while the light was good.
This farm, this house—this was her life.
How could her mother possibly tell her to go?
“You can’t think that any of this is real,” Delaney said furiously. “No matter what it says on a test that he could easily have doctored—”
“I know that you’re upset,” Catherine said. And she suddenly seemed imbued with the strength Delaney hadn’t seen in her in ages. It made her heartsick that it was only now. Only under these bizarre conditions. “I understand. I’m upset, too.”
Delaney couldn’t keep herself on her end of the sofa any longer. She moved toward her mother, reaching out without thought and making a little sobbing sound when her mother grabbed her hands.
It was hard to tell who held on tighter.
“Listen to me,” Catherine said, her voice as fierce as her grip. “You are my daughter. In every way that matters, you are my daughter. I took you home from the hospital. I loved you. I raised you. We’re not debating whether or not you are mine. You are, Delaney. You are.”
“But you said...” Delaney croaked out, horrified when she realized the water splashing on her hands was coming from her eyes. Clarks didn’t cry. Clarks didn’t make scenes. Clarks endured. But this Clark felt as if she’d already been carried away in a tornado. “You told him...”
“I had a funny feeling,” Catherine said quietly. “And was quickly told it was my hormones, that was all. Over time I would sometimes remember that feeling, when you would sing, perhaps. Or when I would think about the fact that you don’t have the Clark chin. All Clarks have the same pointy chin.” She tapped the end of hers, round and stubborn. “You don’t even have mine. Still, these are little things. I love you, Delaney. I find myself interested in meeting the child I bore in my body, I won’t lie. But that will never change my love for you.”
Delaney couldn’t let herself think about that other child. That princess, if Cayetano was to be believed. And how could she possibly believe a word he’d said? How could her quiet life have anything to do with princesses? It made no sense.
She knew about corn. Not thrones.
“Even if it’s true,” she said, after a moment—though she didn’t think it was. But Catherine clearly did. “Even if somehow it’s actually true, that doesn’t mean that I need to go off somewhere with this man. This stranger. It certainly doesn’t mean I should marry him.”
“Weddings don’t necessarily happen overnight,” her mother said, an odd gleam in her gaze. “No need to rush into anything, I would say. But I think what we have before us is an opportunity, Delaney.”
“An opportunity for what?” Inside, she thought, to question everything? To find out I’m not who I thought I was? She could have done without the opportunity, thanks.
All she’d ever known, all she’d ever wanted, was the farm.
“I know you love this land,” her mother said quietly. Almost as if it hurt her to say. “But I have agonized over it. As my own strength wanes, I’ve watched you try to work with your own two hands what it took my father and a full set of workers and family to maintain. How can you possibly stand up to it? How can anyone?”
“It’s Clark land,” Delaney protested. “I’ll find a way. That’s what Clarks do.”
“I’m an old woman now.” And Catherine sounded firm now. She patted Delaney’s hand in the way she’d always done. A quiet chin up, child. “I have tended this land since I was little more than a girl. Sometimes I think I’d like to live in town, in the time I have left. It would be nice to walk somewhere, if I wanted. Be easy, if I wish. Sleep in late and leave the cows to do their business with someone else.”
Delaney’s heart was kicking at her, some whirl of fear and panic and too many other dark things she couldn’t name. Or breathe through, really.
She made herself focus on her mother, not whatever was happening inside her. “Mama, if this is how you feel, why have you never told me?”
“How could I tell you?” Catherine asked quietly. “You’ve already given up so much for this farm. You are young, Delaney. You shouldn’t be here, isolated and away from everyone. You have more in common with a vegetable patch than people your own age. It’s not natural. And it’s not good for you.”
Delaney sat back, pulling her hands away. “But you think some stranger showing up and saying he wants to spirit me off to play some sort of political game is better? How is that natural?”
“What kind of life will you have if you never leave the farm?” Catherine retorted. “I could never think of a way to tell you what I thought you should do. You have always been so determined. And you never asked. But it seems fate has taken care of it, doesn’t it? You have a birthright, Delaney. You already know what this one looks like. Why don’t you go and see what this new one is about?”
“Because I don’t want to go!” Delaney cried, and she didn’t care if Cayetano with his burnt gold warlord eyes could hear her. “I don’t want to go anywhere!”
Her mother—because she is still my mother, I don’t care what that test said, she told herself—reached over and patted her hand again. She had that canny look about her that Delaney had always rued. It was too much like her grandmother. It always led to truths she’d have preferred to ignore. “Is it because you truly don’t wish to go? That’s fine. No one will make you go anywhere if you don’t want to go. I don’t care how many cars he has.”
“Thank you,” Delaney said in a rush—
But Catherine held up a hand. “I wonder, though, if it’s more that you’re afraid to go?” She shook her head. “Because if that’s the case, my dear girl, then I’m afraid I will have to insist.”
It took Delaney two days to answer that question.
And she wasn’t happy about it. Any of it. She spent forty-seven hours talking herself around and around in circles. And a lot of those hours succumbing to emotions unbefitting a person who had been raised in the Midwest.
Emotions were for high-strung coastal types. Midwesterners were made of sterner stuff. Salt of the earth, in point of fact. She would pull herself together as quickly as possible, reminding herself that salt of the earth did not mean sobbing into her pillows.
But then she would remind herself that she wasn’t made of anything Midwestern at all. Because the DNA test didn’t lie, much as she wished it did. She’d researched it. Delaney was a good Kansas girl who’d been raised up right on a farm—but now she was a princess.
It felt wrong, that was all. There was no other word for it.
Except embarrassing.
A man had showed up in the yard one day and the life she’d thought had been built on a solid foundation, generations deep, turned out to be nothing more than a row of dominoes.
None of them hers.
The truth was, she blamed said man for those dominoes. She’d researched him, too. It didn’t take much. It seemed that most papers’ coverage of Ile d’Montagne and its current rebel leader were nothing short of fawning. All papers, in fact, save those actually in his country.
Delaney held on to that like it was evidence.
Or maybe because it was all she had to hold on to.
Because everything else seemed to be rolling downhill, and fast.
Catherine was moving into town. She intended to sell the land to the neighbors, to keep the farm in good hands. But when Delaney had argued that she should stay and oversee the move and the sale and the unfathomable life changes she hadn’t even realized her mother desired, Catherine had waved her away.
You’ve been seeing to me for far too long, she had said, again and again, until Delaney was forced to accept that she really, truly meant it. It’s time you go out and live.
So this was Delaney living.
Against her will.
The fleet of glossy SUVs came back up the lane far too early that morning. And this time, only Cayetano emerged.
They stared at each other, he from beside the muscular vehicle that, if anything, looked glossier and more pristine than before. She stayed where she was—on the step where she had taken herself after saying her goodbyes to her mother, red-eyed and cried out and wondering how on earth she was supposed to live through this.
And how exactly she could prove that she’d lived enough so that she could come back home.
Assuming there was any home to come back to, without the farm.
Not to mention, she isn’t your mother, came that same insidious voice inside her, forever telling her things she didn’t want to hear. Not her grandmother’s voice, sadly. She would have welcomed Grandma Mabel’s observations, however dry.
This particular voice sounded a lot more the way she imagined gold might.
If it was burned half to ash.
“You do not look excited, little one,” Cayetano said from his place beside his enormous SUV, in that voice of his that seemed to change the weather. She felt a breeze that hadn’t been there before dance over her skin.
“That’s because I’m not,” she replied, scowling at him for good measure. “Would you be excited to be torn from everything you know and forced to march off to a foreign country because someone thinks your blood will...do something?”
“Focus less on blood,” Cayetano suggested, with a faint curve to his hard mouth that she ordered herself to stop looking at. “And more on what pleasures await.”
Delaney didn’t much care for the way the word pleasures burst open inside her. Like a water balloon against the side of the old barn.
“If you’re talking about the whole marriage thing, forget it.” And she couldn’t understand why she wished, immediately, that she hadn’t said that. That she hadn’t heard the word pleasures and mentioned the marriage that was never going to happen. It was...unseemly, somehow. She hurtled on, her cheeks hot. “My mother thinks that I need to go and see my birthright. I keep telling her I’m happy with the one I already have, but she insists.”
“Are you refusing to marry me?” Cayetano asked, but not as if the prospect made him angry. There was none of that haughtiness. Or even a particular sense of the threat he posed. Instead, he looked as if her refusal amused him.
It was disconcerting.
“I am.” She said it as bluntly as possible, so there could be no mistake. “I am absolutely refusing to marry you. Because the very idea is absurd. I don’t know you.”
And again, that little tug in the corner of his mouth sent a terrible heat, far more intense than the flush on her cheeks, cartwheeling through her. Once again this man felt like a fever.
She ought to tell him to do something about his infectiousness, but she didn’t quite dare. Or maybe the truth was that she liked all that cartwheeling.
“Allow me to tell you something about me, then,” he said, as if he could see her turning cartwheels inside. As if he knew. “I love a challenge, Delaney. I have yet to meet a challenge I couldn’t get the best of. Better you know that now.”
That was an unambiguous warning.
And there was a flash in his gaze that made the skin over her bones seem to draw tight. She was suddenly aware of herself in a way she never had been before. Right there on the porch steps of the comfortable old farmhouse, she felt...lush, somehow. Her breasts ached and felt heavier than before. There was a shivery sensation that started at the nape of her neck and wound its way ever lower, down the length of her spine, spreading more of that shimmering lushness as it went. Strangest and most wonderful of all was that between her legs, she felt hot and bright.
Maybe it wasn’t her fault that she’d never paid much attention to the boys she’d grown up with. Maybe the problem was that none of them had ever looked at her and made her feel like a whole weather system.
As if, that voice inside her whispered, the moment you met this man you became someone else. Not because of your blood. But because he changed you from a farm girl into a princess with a glance.
And she felt it. She felt different, down deep in her bones. As if no matter what happened, even if she returned here the way she wanted to, she would never be the same.
But Delaney also knew, in a flash of insight that felt like truth no matter how odd, that she must not, under any circumstances, start talking to this man about weather. Whatever she did, she needed to keep how profoundly changed she felt to herself.
“I expected your mother to see you off,” Cayetano said, and there was a note in his voice that made her wonder how long she’d been standing on the porch like this. Gazing at him.
It must have been at least a minute or two, because he was no longer standing beside his vehicle. He was standing in front of her. She was sure that if she inhaled, his scent was there, a faint hint of spice and heat that made her...want things.
Mostly Delaney wanted to lift her hand to her cheeks, to test the heat there, but she thought that would be a dead giveaway. And she was not going to tell him about her weather issues. No matter how close he was.
She scowled at the bag Catherine had insisted she pack, there at her feet. “We’ve already said our goodbyes. We don’t need to perform them out here for you to see it.”
“I understand,” he said smoothly. “Parting must be difficult.”
It might kill her, actually—but Delaney refused to cry anymore. And not where Cayetano Arcieri could see it. She focused on him instead. Today he was wearing another one of those suits that made her reconsider her stance on suiting altogether. Because on him, there was no denying it looked good. Even out here on the farm, where he should have looked silly wearing such formal clothes.
Nothing about this man was silly.
But, no matter how good he looked, he was still the reason that she was being forced to do this. She picked up her bag with very little grace, and then practically bit her tongue to keep from reacting when he simply...took it from her hand. Then dropped it back on the ground.
“My woman must necessarily carry many burdens,” he told her in that way he had, like he was inscribing stone as he spoke. “Such is my lot in life, and thus hers. But she does not carry her own luggage as long as I am alive.”
He moved to usher her toward the vehicle, lifting a finger in the direction of one of the other tinted windows. And that lifted finger was a call to action, clearly, because another car door opened immediately. When she glanced back over her shoulder, her bag was being loaded into one of the other SUVs.
But there was no time to concentrate on such practical matters, because Cayetano was closing her inside the vehicle he’d exited. The interior was dark. Cool. And noisy—
Until she realized that the racket was inside her. It was the thunder of her pulse through her veins. It was her heart, deep and loud.
And when Cayetano swung into the deep seat beside her, that didn’t help.
I’ve made a terrible mistake, Delaney thought in a panic.
She only realized she’d said that out loud when Cayetano shifted in the leather seat beside her. He reached over and took her hand in his, a nurturing sort of gesture that astonished her. She was...floored. So much so that she couldn’t seem to do a thing save freeze in response.
He didn’t squeeze her hand the way her mother might. In fact, the longer he held her fingers in his, the heat of his palm skyrocketing through her, the less nurturing she found the whole thing.
She expected him to say something. To make another one of those statements of his, so matter of fact, as if the world would arrange itself before him as he willed it. Simply because he wished it.
But he said nothing. It was only when she heard her own breath come out in a long sigh, from somewhere deep inside her, that she recognized the uncomfortable truth. The simple act of him holding her hand was...calming.
It wasn’t only calming. It was a great many other things and a significant number of weather changes, but above and around and in all of that, it was calming.
Nothing could have confused her more. How could anything about a man so elemental be calming? How was it possible?
It took her a long time to lift her gaze to his, but when she did, she caught her breath all over again.
Cayetano’s burnt gold eyes blazed. And there was something about the hard stamp of his mouth that made everything inside her feel overly fragile. Perilous, even. As if she wasn’t sitting down in plush leather but teetering over the side of some great height, so high she didn’t dare look over to see the ground that must surely be rushing toward her—
He dropped her hand, but it was not until he pulled a buzzing cell phone out of his pocket that she understood why. Even then, she had the most bizarre urge to protest. To reclaim his hand. To touch him as if this was something she did, leaping into strange cars with strange men who wanted impossible things from her. Dark, overwhelming things involving thrones and vows, no less.
And maybe a weather system or two, came that voice.
This time sounding amused, the way her grandmother would have been if she’d been around to see her usually unflappable granddaughter so...flapped.
Cayetano called out something that made the car begin to move, and then directed his attention to his call, stretching out his long legs before him as he sat back.
And Delaney could not understand a single word he said, rapid-fire, like poetry at top speed. French, she thought, though she’d only ever heard French spoken on television. Or no, possibly Italian. Because she sometimes watched cooking shows.
But she couldn’t help feeling, now that the urge to protest the loss of his attention was mostly gone, that his attention being directed elsewhere felt like a reprieve.
She needed that as the SUV turned around, then headed back down the lane. She needed to be herself again, even if it was for the last time.
Because this car—this man—was taking her away from everything she’d ever known.
You can’t really want to sell the farm, she had protested.
I would have sold it after your grandmother died, Catherine had replied with that steel that had reminded Delaney of when her mother hadn’t been the least bit fragile. It was all you had. But I want you to have more, Delaney. You deserve more.
It’s because I’m not yours, she had dared to say. Earlier this very morning, standing stiff and feeling unwelcome in the same kitchen that had once felt like an extension of herself.
You are mine, Catherine had replied fiercely. You will always be mine. But I will not let this cursed farm stand between you and an opportunity like this.
I have no interest in being some kind of trophy wife, Delaney had protested. You should know that.
Then don’t become one, Catherine had replied. She had even laughed, like a fist to Delaney’s heart. Be whatever and whoever you wish to be. Just promise me you will give this adventure a chance, Delaney. That’s all I ask.
She’d had no defense against that. Against her mother’s heartfelt plea—even if Catherine wasn’t technically her mother. In all the ways that mattered, she was and always would be. How could she say no? Until Cayetano had showed up here, she had assumed she would never leave the farm. And so she’d often been wistful, watching far-off places on television, trying to imagine what it would be like to sink her toes deep into exotic white sand beaches. Or climb distant mountains.
Or just...be somewhere else, where no one knew anything about her unless she told them.
And every time Catherine had caught her being wistful, Delaney had always assured her that she was all about the farm. Always and forever about the land. Because what good was wistfulness when there was a growing season to consider?
Someday, her mother had liked to say, you’re going to see the world, Delaney.
And they’d both laughed, because the only world Delaney had ever been likely to see was on television.
Until now.
Just promise me you’ll give it a chance, Catherine had said this morning.
I promise, Delaney had whispered, because how could she do anything else?
And then she’d sobbed when her mother had hugged her, as if it was the last time. As if this was a kind of funeral. Hers.
Giving up something when you don’t know what it is isn’t much of a sacrifice, Grandma Mabel had told her once in her usual crisp, knowing manner. And the truth is, it’s only the choices that hurt a little that make us any better.
Well, this hurt.
A lot.
Delaney could repeat those things to herself over and over. She could even accept, somewhere deep down, that they were true, and maybe—in time—the acceptance would bring her solace.
Maybe she was setting off on an adventure and the real reason she was so unnerved was because, deep down, she was as excited as she was apprehensive. Maybe she thought admitting that was a betrayal.
She didn’t know.
But the grief sat on her all the same, heavy and thick, until the farm was out of sight.