Chapter Eight

He was rifling through my mother’s cupboards, cursing in Driedish, instead of answering my question.

What the hell was he talking about? Christian was trying to kill my sister? I mean, yes, he left Thea at the altar, but it was a bit overdramatic to equate that with murder.

Finally, he pulled two bottles of wine out and mumbled, “This will have to do.”

“Are we having a party?” I asked.

He ignored me and plunged a pocket knife into the cork of one of the bottle’s. It was the most savage wine opening I had ever witnessed. I shivered and took a step back.

“It’s not even nine o’clock in the morning,” I said as he started drinking straight from the bottle.

When he finished guzzling, he wiped his mouth and gave me a look of disbelief. “You just tried to mace me. Now you preach proper comportment?”

It was an excellent point. I thought I had walked away from all the requirements and rules of my former royal life, but these things were deeply ingrained. Old habits revealed themselves in all sorts of inconsistent ways.

Like the way I was acting with Hugh Konnor right now. Staying here, talking to him, expecting that he might treat me like an equal and answer my questions like a reasonable person. What was that old saying? Something about being insane and expecting different results after people showed you who they were?

Hugh Konnor had shown me who he was nearly ten years ago. He did not respect me enough to speak to me like an adult. It was useless trying to reason with him, especially when he was a member of the royal security staff, who were the very people I wanted to avoid like an incurable STI.

“Are you going to tell me what you meant about Christian and Thea?” I asked again. “Because, if not, I’m leaving.”

Konnor’s eyes narrowed on me. “Why would you leave? You just got here.”

He had a point. I thought quickly. “I don’t like you. I want to be alone.”

“Where are you going?”

I pushed away from the wall and headed back the way I had entered this morning, intending to go to the bedroom I had slept in, collect my (Christian’s) bag and exit my mother’s villa like a civilized woman of the world.

Hugh Konnor couldn’t stop me. Except, of course, he could.

I made it as far as the bedroom. I had the bag in my hand. I turned. He was at the bedroom door, a hand on each side of the frame. “I’ll ask again. Where are you going?”

Standing like this, arms outstretched, he loomed huge. Threatening. His sleeves had pulled back more and the black ink on his forearms seemed sharply outlined.

And the look on his face…stern. His golden-brown eyes were deadly serious.

My heart started to pound. It was the struggle of my life. Obey. Or rebel. Listen to the authority of those trying to “protect” me, or…

Not.

Who are you? I asked myself the same question the day I decided to walk away from Stavros’s funeral. The answer had come back immediately, like it did just now.

“It’s one hundred percent not your business,” I told him, with my chin up, trying to invoke as much authority as possible. “Please stand aside.”

He stared at me for a moment and a shadow crossed his face. Then he changed his posture. He dropped his arms and stepped away from the bedroom door.

Wow. That really worked. Since I’d lost my title, I’d become even more fearsome. I was unstoppable. No one could argue with me now. I clutched the leather bag to my chest and half ran, half walked past Hugh and down the hall, through the living area and out of the front door while my Jedi mind trick was still working on the stubborn bodyguard behind me.

The Tuscan sun that had seemed so gently reaffirming this morning now glared into my eyes. I felt exposed, as if spotlights had flipped on to track my escape from prison. Of course, I resented the fact that I hadn’t had a chance to think up the best ways to hunt down Christian but maybe Hugh was doing me a favor. I was taking a leap of faith. I’d go to Rome, see where the trail led, without being burdened with this stone monolith with a misplaced sense of duty.

Two cars were in the gravel drive. So Hugh had followed me by car. He could do the same right now, I supposed, but I threw the thought away. I didn’t have time for strategy. I would figure it out as soon as my foot was on a gas pedal.

I threw my bag in the front seat, followed it and reached into the dash, where I had left the keys the night before.

They weren’t there.

I ducked down, searched the floor, between the seats, and tried to ignore the hollow panic that was growing inside my gut.

I knew where the keys were even before I turned and looked.

Hugh Konnor stood in the drive. He opened his palm and my keys dangled from a finger. But he wasn’t taunting me with them. The look on his face was sympathetic. Bordering on pity. “Come inside. Please.”

The kind word was not what I wanted. None of this was.

“I can’t let you leave,” he repeated. What was this—the third time he’d said it? If I knew anything about Hugh Konnor, I knew that he was a man of his word. He always meant what he said. I should have believed him the first time.

Hugh Konnor was not letting me go.

I swore loudly and got out of the car. In a sort of rebellion, I left my bag in the front seat. If he wanted to treat me like a princess that he could order around, then he could fetch it for me.

My mother must pay her groundskeeper handsomely, because as soon as he realized that there were visitors at her villa, he arrived with baskets of provisions: fresh eggs, cured meats, a still-warm loaf of bread and a carton of winter vegetables.

Hugh set about making breakfast. I sat at the table in the kitchen and watched him. If a man was holding me captive, I wanted to see everything he was doing. If he reached for a cell phone, a knife, a bottle of wine, I wanted to know.

This is Hugh Konnor, the voice inside my head reminded me. You know him.

I did. And I didn’t. Ten years ago, I thought I knew him. Then I learned I didn’t. Our relationship had been short and confusing and, in the end, humiliating.

And now this. He was still confusing me, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Cooking Breakfast. My stomach rumbled at the smell of toasting bread.

My next steps were plain, then. Eat a much-needed breakfast, discover what it was that Hugh Konnor needed from me, convince him to let me leave without alerting anyone who cared about my location. And then I’d be on my way, tracking down Christian and/or finding a secret spot to live again. Which reminded me, I needed to send a message to Elena and Signore Rossi, whenever I could access the wi-fi and I didn’t have the Bear Man looming over me.

I didn’t offer to help—with the coffee or setting the table. Another small, bratty rebellion. He prepared the food and brought me a plate and a cup of coffee—black, as I liked it. Because we have no cream, I reminded myself. Not because he gives a shit about your coffee preferences.

He sat at the table with me and, for the shortest of moments, I was disconcerted. Konnor was a bodyguard, and a member of the palace staff did not sit with the royal family. Ever.

I shook my head at myself. Officially, I wasn’t a royal at all. I had not been since my elopement and since my beloved, punitive grandmother had stripped me of my royal titles. But somehow, that reality had been different when I lived with Stavros, then during the last few months in Varenna. I had been living a fantasy life—someone else lived with a handsome, moody race car driver—not Princess Caroline of Drieden. Then it had been Lina DiLorenzo living a quiet, reclusive life in Varenna, not the woman who had once been fourth in line to the throne of one of the oldest monarchies in Europe.

Now, sitting at a table with someone—a flesh-and-blood, brooding someone—from my past, the loss of my identity—or perhaps my identity regardless, was once again a startling reality.

I was no longer a Driedish princess. And Hugh Konnor could sit anywhere he wanted. He could do anything he wanted to…including keeping me hostage.

What would the repercussions be, really? If I called and reported this behavior, would anyone care, back at the palace? And why was he doing this, anyway? He was clearly only making up these tales about Christian. Probably just wanted to control me, like the rest of the palace staff—

“You’re not eating.”

Hugh’s voice startled me from my thoughts. “Oh.” I blinked and refocused on my plate. He was right, of course. I hadn’t even picked up a fork.

“It’s not like you not to eat.” Hugh’s gruff observance reminded me of our history. And my usually healthy appetite. My cheeks warmed as I realized it looked like I was either a food snob or trying for some sort of hunger strike, neither of which was like me, truth be told.

“I’m sorry,” I stuttered. “I’m a bit distracted, since I’m being held against my will.”

Hugh’s brows drew together, as if he was confused. I decided I had to clarify. “You know. When someone doesn’t let you have the keys to your car, it’s generally considered kidnapping.”

His brows rose, an expression of understanding now. “Oh, I see. So for the first twenty-seven years of your life you were actually being kidnapped? All that time with the chauffeurs and the limousines? Right under our noses?”

“I…” My mouth snapped open then shut. “You’re deliberately twisting what I’m saying.”

“No. I’m accurately interpreting what you said, Your Highness.”

My gut tightened at that honorific. “I’m not—” I restarted. “I mean, don’t call me that.”

“Old habits, Your Highness.”

“Just call me Caroline,” I said through clenched teeth.

His head dropped, but I could see his jaw tightening, like he was trying to keep himself from heaving up his breakfast.

“That’s right,” I drawled. “I forgot how much you can’t stand me. So much so that you won’t even use my name.”

He raised his eyes and they met mine. “It wasn’t right then and it’s not right now.”

The reminder of what I had done ten years ago wasn’t necessary. To be honest, the past was a thick, heavy thing sitting on the table between us. Maybe that was why I didn’t lift my fork or drain my coffee cup, as I normally would. We had other things to deal with, Hugh Konnor and I.

I decided to be the adult in the room. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He picked up his coffee and drank heavily. Apparently, I was the only one whose appetite was affected by our shared history, which seemed about right. Then he said, “Yes. We need to talk.”

Suddenly, my mature aspirations were a very, very bad idea indeed. Ugh. Why did adulting have to be so hard?

“Fine.” I said, wincing at the incoming awkwardness.

“Christian Fraser-Campbell. What do you know about him?”

My eyes flew open. “Really? You want to talk about my sister’s ex-fiancé and not the reason why you hate me?”

Now he was the one looking distinctly uncomfortable. “I don’t—”

I cut him off. “You do hate me. Otherwise, you would have taken my virginity when I asked you to.”