Modern Romance March 2021 Book 5-8 Carol Marinelli (ebook reader computer txt) 📖

But he clearly didn’t need to hear that from her. He had arrogance enough to fill a room. Even one with an open wall to the wide star-filled sky.

Hel shivered, something deep and warm moving inside of her, but she kept her tone light when she finally spoke. “Impressive. A duchy can be a real drain on the pocketbook.”

He chuckled, as she’d hoped he would, and the sound warmed her heart. Though she refused to succumb to his charm, she’d make sure she did as right by him as she possibly could.

And she promised to remember the conviction even after they were done luxuriating in the most glorious pool she’d ever been in.

“You never told me why you hate your father so much,” he said as if they’d been on the subject.

If he’d meant to throw her off balance with the non sequitur, he was going to be disappointed. She answered without missing a beat. “I did. He was a terrible man, and an actual criminal who terrorized my mother and I.”

“Terrorized how?” he persisted.

Looking away, Hel kept it casual. “Yelling, belittling. Hitting before I learned self-defense.”

Drake clenched and released his fists, but was even-toned when he asked, “Where was your mother through all of this?”

Instantly protective, Hel’s spine straightened. “Being yelled at, belittled and taking the brunt of the hitting until I learned self-defense.” Their bond was tied up in more than just the stuff of mothers and daughters.

He pressed, “She didn’t keep you safe.”

Hel let out a dry, joyless laugh, almost more of a cough than any sound of pleasure. “She couldn’t.”

“But it still bothers you.”

“Not that.”

“What?”

When he simply waited for her to respond, she let out an exasperated breath. “She loved him,” she finally said.

Drake frowned and she understood his confusion. History was full of powerful men who were bad husbands and evil men yet somehow remained secure in the love of their wives. Though, of course, the d’Tierrza story couldn’t be so straightforward. If that had been the case it’d have been a simple thing of rebelling against them both and being done with it. Her relationship with her mother was all the more complicated for the incredible love that bound them together.

“Through it all?” he asked after a long pause, and she was astounded once more by his remarkable perceptiveness. A man didn’t come from nothing and make it all the way to the top without being perceptive.

In response, she let out a weary sigh and shook her head, sharing because he had shared so much and, though she’d only now realized it, because she respected him. “No. Not even love was strong enough to overcome his evil.” She hugged her arms around herself, hoping to regain some of the liquid warmth the pool had provided before the chill of telling her deep dark secrets had begun to seep into her bones. “She loved him from the moment she saw him. She was still a teenager, and he was actually pursuing my aunt Barbara—she was the prettier one.” The aside dripped with bitter hindsight.

“But Barbara ran away with the prince instead...”

Hel nodded. That part of the story was well known. Her aunt Barbara had become the queen and her mother the duchess, now dowager, of Tierrza.

With a long, slow blink, Hel picked returned to the tale. “My mother thought he was so handsome and dashing. He courted Aunt Barbara by the storybook, and my mother ate it all up from the stands—hook, line and sinker. She was only seventeen—young and bright, and too naive to see the obvious rot at his core. They weren’t even married yet, the first time he hit her. They’d been engaged for a month. The dress he’d instructed her to wear to an event was damaged the day of, so she changed at the last moment without telling him. She said he gave her a light slap, a little thing really, and that he’d been merely irritated, not enraged. She said at first she was stunned but wrote it off, since it was an important event. He was under a lot of stress. She wrote it off every time after, too. Until I turned sixteen.”

After the silence stretched between them, he said, “I would not have thought it possible, but your father was more evil than even I realized.”

Helene laughed, the sound not so much joyous as it was the sound of having spent years coming to terms with the fact. “He was.” Her father had been an atrocity in so many people’s lives, and there would never be enough she could do to make up for it. That kind of ill karma could only be addressed by total annihilation, and the only way she knew how to do that was to ensure that she was the end of the line.

Catching her chin and lifting it, Drake’s warm brown eyes enveloped her, lulled her the same warm water, or a cozy blanket did, safety of a different kind than self-defense provided. “So what happened when you were sixteen?”

His voice was deep and soft, and the warm water of the pool lapped at her legs. The space was intimate, made sacred by the dark confessions she’d already made.

She said quietly, “When I was sixteen, he married me off.”

Confusion danced across Drake’s gaze. The situation had been scandalous, but very public knowledge. “I read about that,” he said carefully.

Hel looked away, wrapping her arms around herself, chilled despite the heated water. “It was later annulled.”

She had known her father disdained her before that. After, she’d known it was worse: he didn’t care about her at all. He only cared about the name d’Tierrza. She was merely a tool, intentionally created and crafted to enhance the family dynasty.

Drake searched her face, the full force of his incredible intensity focused on her, and she wished she could create some barrier between them, some way to satisfy him with a simple answer.

But he wasn’t easily distracted.

“What