“But clothes and parties aren’t real. Clothes and parties are frills … window dressing. I’d rather someone like me—want me—for me, than for what I have in a bank account.”
Makin suddenly smiled and shook his head. “You’re like a little dog with a bone. You’re not going to drop it, are you?”
She looked at him for a long moment before smiling reluctantly. “I’m sorry. I guess I did get a little carried away.”
“I admire your strong convictions.”
Her smile stretched wider. “You know, you’re not all bad, Sheikh Al-Koury. There are some good things about you.”
“Just hours ago you were saying I was a power monger.”
She blushed, not sure if she should laugh or cry. “Haven’t forgotten. And I haven’t forgotten that we’re not friends. And that we don’t like each other.”
His lips curved faintly. “You’re incorrigible. I don’t think anyone could control you.”
“Many have tried.”
For a moment he just looked at her, his hard features set, his gray eyes narrowed. “You can’t move to England. You’d be miserable.”
“No.”
“You would. You’d be living in a fishbowl. You couldn’t go anywhere without a half dozen paparazzi following you.”
“Not in the country.”
“Most definitely. You are Princess Emmeline d’Arcy. Once the media discovers you are pregnant and single, you will never be left alone. The tabloids will haunt you. Photographers will shadow you. The paparazzi aren’t going to disappear just because you want to live quietly.”
“Well, I can’t stay in Brabant, locked behind the palace gate, under my parents’ thumb. It’s not healthy.”
“Don’t you have a home of your own in Brabant?”
“My grandparents left me an estate in the north. It’s quite pretty, a small castle with gorgeous grounds—orchards, a rose garden and even a small wood with a lake for fishing—but my parents have said that it’d cost too much for me to actually live there. Staffing it, running it, security. And so it’s mine, but unlivable.”
“I thought you said you had some money of your own now? That you’d come into your majority?”
“I do, but it’s not enough to fund the running of a château, and my parents won’t help cover the difference, nor will they ask the taxpayers to help. And I do agree with that. Our people don’t need me being a burden. That’s why I thought that I would just go somewhere else, like England, and find a small place that I could afford.”
“I think your citizens would be hurt if you left them. They love you.”
She thought of the large crowds that turned out every time she made an appearance, all ages, waving flags and carrying flowers, of all the little children who lifted their faces for a kiss. “And I love them. They have always been so very good to me. So loyal. But now I am pregnant, and it will bring them shame, which doesn’t seem right. I was to have been their perfect princess, a replacement for my aunt Jacqueline who was a most beloved princess. She’s been gone longer than she was alive, and yet they still mourn her.”
“She was stunning.”
“She was so young, too, when she died. Just twenty.”
“But now you create a new life,” he said firmly. “A new royal baby for your citizens to love and adore.”
Emmeline throat ached with emotion. “But I’m not royal—”
“What?”
She nodded. “And Alejandro is a commoner so the baby won’t be given a title, or be in line for the throne. That’s how it works in Brabant.” Her voice broke. “That’s why I had to marry King Patek. I had to marry a royal, a blue blood. And obviously I can’t marry Zale now—can’t marry any royal—and so I’m no longer in line for succession. Which means, my child won’t be, either.”
“I don’t understand. How can you not be royal? You are King William and Queen Claire’s daughter—”
“Adopted daughter.” Emmeline’s eyes met his. She hesitated, struggling to find the right words when none of them felt good. “They adopted me when I was six days old. Apparently I’m a bastard, which even today brings Claire, my adoptive mother, endless shame.”
He looked dumbstruck. “Do you know anything about your birth parents?”
“Only that my birth mother was a Brabant commoner. Young, pregnant and unwed.”
“And your father?”
“No one knows anything about him.”
“You can’t find out?”