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

really outdone yourself this year, Papa. Already raised two million and we haven’t even had dinner yet.”

He said nothing in response.

He wouldn’t have, had he been alive, either. Speaking about money was gauche and two million a paltry sum. He would have raised four by this point in the afternoon had he been around to run things. His permanently raised eyebrow said as much.

Not up to the standard of the d’Tierrza name.

Though just a memory, the oft-repeated words remained an acid refrain.

Her father had been old-fashioned, autocratic and hateful. She’d only learned the last in her teens. He cared about the family line and that alone.

A daughter was a bargaining chip to be played to the family’s best advantage, nothing more. A wife past childbearing years, even less.

He had encouraged Helene, named after the beautiful cause of the Trojan War, to be lovely and amenable, a prize all men would covet.

So she had become loud and opinionated and learned to fight.

She’d also gone out into the world and gotten involved, gotten dirty, done everything she could to prove that Helene d’Tierrza was the furthest thing from the marriage material her father wanted her to be as was possible.

It hadn’t been enough.

Nothing, not even truly diverging from her “correct” path to become a royal guard, had truly been enough to get back at him, to balance the scales. Not when he’d been alive and certainly not now that he was dead.

Not when he still cast such a long shadow over her life. Over her mother’s.

She couldn’t even believe they were doing an event in his name. There was nothing honorable about her father’s legacy—it was only criminal.

She could literally recite a list of crimes.

But she never did, merely carried it around with her—a small penance for the ills he wrought on the world, and the only one she’d been allowed. On the point that the d’Tierrzas were important to national security, it seemed the world agreed with her father.

She and her mother kept their dirty laundry hidden in the dark and everyone benefitted. And maybe if she dedicated every living and breathing moment to serving justice, it might make up for the lie...if not the actual sins of her father.

Besides, the money they raised went to charities across the entire island nation.

That wouldn’t have mattered to her father, though. Only the d’Tierrza name mattered to him. Nothing else. No other name, not even that of the royal family, could be allowed to outshine it.

God help you if you had the misfortune to be born with that name.

The charities mattered to her, though. People mattered to her. She was related to him in name only, and if she’d at first cultivated heart and honor just to spite him, in the end, those qualities had been too pure to pollute and had instead molded her. Including the voice that told her all of this was wrong.

Hel broke her stare, unfolded her arms and lazily downed the remainder of her champagne. Effervescent and smooth, it bubbled gently down her throat while she contemplated the perfect crystal stem twirling between her fingers. Then, without turning her gaze back to the statue, she stopped twirling the glass and flicked her wrist, the action decisive and controlled.

The glass sailed toward her father’s likeness, spinning end over end in a perfect circle, before it crashed into the marble statue, shattering on impact. Bright clear pieces of crystal caught the light as they fell, filling the space with her own personal rainbow, all to the sound of tiny brittle stars cracking on the ground.

Suddenly, she heard a throat clear and the scuffing of feet on the paving stones behind her. In an instant, she snapped into full alertness, her wobble and dead father abandoned.

Behind her, the stranger quickened. She moved faster, feinting to the right and dropping into a crouch, before a large hand came around to catch her around the mouth. Her dress seam split as she executed the move, but she ignored it, spinning around to shoot her heeled foot out at the shin of her would-be abductor.

The person anticipated the move, though, jumping out of both her reach and sight. She tried to leap upright but lost precious time, slowed down as she was by her torn evening gown. Their arms, large and strong, came around hers, holding her tight in an iron grip.

This was exactly why she refused to wear dresses. She wouldn’t have been caught if she’d had pants on.

She slammed her head back toward her attacker’s face, but once again the stranger anticipated her move and shifted their head to the side in time to avoid her. Arms tightened around her. She lifted her feet, surprising them with her entire body weight. There was a grunt behind her, but the person held on, the powerful grip loosening only a fraction.

The fraction was all she needed.

She twisted down and out of the hold, dropping to the ground at the same time as she swept his feet out from under him. She could see that he was a man now. He landed well, but the move managed to give her enough time to put space between them and take a reasonable, if narrow, fighting stance.

He leaped from the ground effortlessly and advanced toward her, and for an instant, she was frozen.

He was stunning.

Well over six feet tall, his skin shone a rich, dark brown. His suit was impeccably tailored but not of Cyranese cut or style. Instead, it nodded toward their Sidran neighbors to the south with a long jacket and short collar.

In all her life, she had never been stopped short by another soul, and yet this man had paralyzed her. It wasn’t his clothing, though it fit him flawlessly, highlighting his perfect proportions. The bulk of the people who inhabited her world had been wearing bespoke couture since they could first toddle. It wasn’t his height. Her father had been a tall man and her cousin, the current king and her lifelong best