The Prince's Stolen Virgin

CHAPTER FOUR

BRIAR WAS ABOUT to give in to despair when there was a knock on the door. She knew immediately that it wasn’t Prince Felipe, as she had a feeling he didn’t knock. Ever.

She was proven correct when a servant came through the door after she told her to come in.

“This phone is programmed so that you may call your parents,” the woman said. “I will give you some privacy.”

She turned and swept out of the room, leaving Briar there with the phone. The first thing she tried to do was call 911, which was stupid, because she knew that it wasn’t an emergency number in Santa Milagro. The phone wasn’t connected to the internet, so she couldn’t search any other numbers, but she had a feeling that even if she could it was programmed to only connect to one other number.

She should dial them immediately. After all, except for when she was at school, this was the longest she’d gone without contact with them. And even when she’d been at university it had been...different. She’d been in an approved location, doing exactly what they’d asked her to do.

Right now she was...well, somehow rootless, even as she learned the truth of where she’d come from. On her own, in a way she never had been before, even while she was being held captive.

For one moment, she thought about not calling. It was a strange, breathless moment, followed by her stomach plummeting all the way to her toes, even as she couldn’t believe she had—for one moment—considered something so selfish.

They were probably sick with worry. And it was her fault, after all. She was the one who had approached Felipe. She was the one who had opened herself up to this. She had failed them. After trying so hard for so much of her life to make sure she could be the daughter they deserved to have, now they were going through this.

With shaking fingers, she dialed her parents. And she waited.

It was her father who answered, his tone breathless in rush. “Yes?”

“It’s me,” she said.

“Briar! Thank God. Where are you? Are you okay? We’ve been searching. We called the police. We’ve called every hospital.”

“I know,” she said. “I mean, I knew you would have. But this is the first chance I’ve had to call. I wasn’t... I’ve been kidnapped,” she said. As much as she didn’t want to cause her parents any alarm, kidnapped was what she was; there was no sugarcoating it.

Her father swore violently, and a moment later she heard the other line pick up. “Briar?” It was her mother.

“I’m okay. I mean, I’m unharmed. But I’m in...”

“Santa Milagro,” her father said, his tone flat.

The world felt like it tilted to the side. “You know? How do you know?” He had told her they would. But she realized that up until that moment she truly hadn’t believed him.

“Perhaps it was a mistake,” her father said slowly, “to keep so much from you. But we saw no other way for you to have a normal, happy life. It wasn’t our intention to keep your identity from you, not really. But we didn’t know what kind of life you would have if you knew that you were a princess that couldn’t live in a palace. If you knew that you had parents who had given birth to you across the world, who didn’t want to give you up but had felt forced into it.”

“It was selfish maybe,” her mother said, her tone muted. “But your mother and father did agree. They agreed that it would be best if you knew only us. They agreed it would be best if you didn’t feel split in your identity. But we all knew it couldn’t go on forever. We simply hoped this wouldn’t be the reason.”

Briar felt dizzy. “Am I Talia? Princess Talia. That’s what he keeps calling me. Is that true?”

“It is true.” Her father said it with the tone of finality.

“How? How can everybody just keep something like this from me? This is my life! And yeah, you were always overprotective and everything, but I didn’t realize it was because I was in danger of actually being kidnapped by some crazy prince from half a world away.” She took a deep breath. “I didn’t realize it was because I was...a princess.”

It felt absurd to even think, let alone say.

“It lasted longer than we thought it would,” her mother said, her voice soft. “And I can’t say that I’ve been unhappy about it. You’re all we have, Briar. And to us, that’s who you are. Our daughter. We wanted so badly to protect you.” She heard the other woman’s voice get thick with tears. “We failed at that.”

Briar felt...awash in guilt. A strange kind. They were distressed because of her. Because they had been embroiled in this and probably hadn’t a clue what the best way to handle it was. Of course there wasn’t exactly a parenting book called So You Have to Keep an Endangered Princess Safe While Raising Her as Your Own. It might hurt, to find all this out now, but she certainly couldn’t blame them.

“He says I have to marry him,” she said, her voice hushed.

“The king?”

“Prince Felipe,” she said.

The sound of relief on the other end of the phone was audible. “At least he’s not... His father is a devil,” her father said. “That was why your birth parents, the king and queen, sent you away from your country. Because they knew a life with him would destroy you.”

“I don’t want to marry Felipe, either, though,” she said. “I don’t want to be a princess. I just want to go back home.”

There was a pause. A silence that seemed to stretch all the way through her.

“I’m afraid that’s impossible. Now that he has you... It would be catastrophic to your birth parents...if any of this were to get out. The money that was borrowed by Verloren. Because any business done with King Domenico would be considered a blight on your mother and father. They would never recover from it. And the consequences to the country would be severe if Santa Milagro decided that the terms of the deal had been violated. The national treasury would be drained. People would have nothing. No food, no housing. No healthcare.”

As he spoke those words, she felt weight settling on her shoulders. A new one added with each thing he listed would be denied to the citizens of her home country—a home country she couldn’t even find on a map—if she chose not to comply.

“So I have to... I have to marry him?”

“Unless you can convince them there is some other alternative,” her father said. “I’m not sure what else can be done. You are beyond our reach. This is something we never wanted for you.”

Fury filled her anew. “But you knew it could happen. You knew all along, and I didn’t.”

“We never wanted you to be afraid of your own shadow,” her mother said.

“Well, I don’t want to be afraid of my own shadow. But I should have been warned to be afraid of charming Spanish men who tried to talk me up on the street.” She hung up, and as soon as she did the door swung open. And there was Felipe.

Immediately, she was filled with regret.

He crossed the room, taking the phone from her hand. Why had she hung up? Who knew how long it would be before she was able to speak to her parents again.

“I assume everything that I said would be confirmed was?” he asked.

“I assume you were listening in, based on your perfect timing.”

He smiled. “You know me so well already. We’re going to be the perfect married couple.”

“I don’t understand. Marry somebody else. Why does it have to be me?”

He reached out then, grabbing hold of her hand and tugging her up out of bed. She was still wearing nothing more than the hospital gown, and she felt a breeze at her backside. She gasped, realizing that there was nothing but a thin pair of white cotton panties separating her from being bare back there.

His golden eyes were blazing then, blazing with that kind of fire and intensity she had sensed was inside him. And more than that. Fire, and brimstone. She had the sudden sense that there was hell contained inside this man. And whether it was just the shock wearing off, or a sudden connection with the reality she found herself in, for the first time she was afraid of him. Really afraid.

She found herself being dragged over to a window. Heavy drapes obscured the view, and he flung them back, roughly maneuvering her so that she was facing the vista before them. A large, sprawling city, nothing overly modern. Villas with red clay roofs, churches with tall steeples and iron bells hanging in the towers. And beyond that, the mountains.

“Do you see this?” he asked. “This is my country. For decades it has been ruled by a madman. A madman more concerned by power—by shoring up all of the money, all of the means through which he could blackmail—than caring for the people that live down there. And in that time I have spent decades doing what I can do in order to change things once I assume the throne. Working toward having the military on my side. Toward earning as much money as I could personally to make a difference the minute I had control. I have been making contacts and arrangements behind the scenes so that the moment my father’s body is put into the dirt a new dawn will rise on this country. I never wanted to take it by civil war. No, not when the cost would be so dear in terms of life. At least, I didn’t want to take it in an open civil war. But that is exactly what I have been fighting for years. Playing the part of debauched playboy while I maneuvered in the background. You are part of that plan. And I will be damned if I allow you to do anything to mess it up. There is no amount of compassion that could move me at this point, Princess. Nothing that will stir me to change my path. I will be the King of Santa Milagro. And you... You can be the queen. You can help fix all the evil that has befallen my people, and you can improve the lives of yours, as well. Or you can go back to life as a bored sorority girl in the city. I’m sure that’s an existence, as well. And all of these people... Well, they can slide into the sea.”

She had to smooth her fingers over her eyebrows to make sure they hadn’t been singed off during that fiery tirade. “Am I really so important to your plans?”

“Everybody knew that you were supposed to marry my father. And the things he would have done to you... But if you marry me, and you do so willingly...it will mend the fences between Santa Milagro and Verloren. It will do much to fix the image of my country—and me—in the media. I need everything in my power. Absolutely everything. All the pieces that I have set out to collect. I will let nothing fall by the wayside. Including you.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I didn’t think I could possibly make that more clear. If you don’t there will be destruction. For everyone. Everyone you love. Everyone you will love.”

She blinked. “Are you going to have people killed?”

“No. I’ll only make them wish they were dead.”

“And how will that help your improve your image attempt?” she asked with a boldness she didn’t feel.

“I’m not so stupid that I would go about it in the public view. But your New York parents...they are vulnerable. And suitably low visibility. Nonetheless, I can ruin them financially. He works with American politicians. And believe me, if I offer the right incentives, I can decimate his patient base, his reputation. Because far better to have an alliance with a prince than continue to support a specific physician.”

Ice settled in her stomach. She believed him. Believed he would do that. Harm her parents. And if she allowed that...what sort of daughter would she be? They had protected her all her life. The least she could do was protect them in kind.

He smiled, and something in that smile made it impossible for her to doubt him. And then his expression shifted, and he returned to being that charming-looking man she had seen on the street in New York. “Now, you can’t possibly meet my people in that hospital gown. Rest for tonight. Tomorrow... Tomorrow we shall set about fashioning you into a queen.”

* * *

Felipe walked into his father’s room. It was dark, the curtains drawn, none of the lights on.

“Good evening, Father,” he said, sweeping toward the bed.

“Your jacket is crooked,” his father said by way of greeting.

Felipe lifted his arm, tugging his sleeves down, hating the reflex. “It is not,” he returned. “And you’re very nearly blind, so even if it was, there would be no way for you to tell.”

It was a strange thing, seeing this man in this state. He had always been fearful to Felipe when he’d been a child. And now, here he was, drained, shrunken. And still, something twisted with something sour whenever he looked at him.

This man, who had abused and tortured him and his mother for years. A slap across her face when Felipe was “in disarray.”

He could remember well his mother being hit so hard it left an instant bruise beneath her eye. And then her makeup artist had been charged with making it invisible before they went to present themselves in the ballroom as the perfect royal family.

A facade of perfection. Something his father excelled at. He had convinced his country of the perfection of his family and the perfection of his rule. The citizens of Santa Milagro slowly and effectively stripped of their freedom. Of art, education and hope.

All things Felipe would see restored. Though he would never be able to fix what had become of his mother, at least he could restore Santa Milagro itself.

There had always been the temptation to try and claim the country by force, but that would only entail more loss of life.

There was enough blood shed already. Blood that felt as if it stained his hands.

“Is that any way to talk to your dying father?”

“Probably not. But since when have I cared? I only wanted you to know something.”

“What is that?”

“I found her. The princess.”

His father stirred. “My princess?”

A smile curved Felipe’s lips. “No. She’s mine now. I’m going to make her my wife. There is nothing you can do about it. Not from your deathbed.”

“You’re a bastard,” his father said, his voice thin, reedy and as full of venom as it had ever been. But he had no power now.

“Don’t I wish that were true,” Felipe said, twisting his voice into the cruelest version of itself he could manage. Projecting the sort of cruelty that he had learned from the man lying before him. “If only I were a bastard, rather than your flesh and blood. You have no idea how much I would pay to make that so.”

“The feeling,” his father said, the words broken by a ragged cough, “is mutual.” He wiped a shaking hand over his brow. “I never was able to break you.”

“Not for lack of trying,” Felipe said. “But I do hope that I will go down in history as one of your greatest failures. The only truly sad thing is that you will not be here to see it.”

He turned to leave his father’s room. Then paused. “However, if you’re still alive by the time the wedding rolls around I will be sure to send you an invitation. I’ll understand that you won’t be feeling up to attending.”

He continued out of his father’s room then, striding down the hall and on to the opposite wing of the palace where his rooms were. It was only then that he acknowledged the slight tremor in his own hand.

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