Her gaze returned to his, and she smiled. She liked the comment; he could tell.
“I didn’t come here to rehash today.”
“Okay. I can think of more fun things to do.” He smirked.
She shot him a goofy grin. She pushed up to her knees and shuffled forward, coming to stop between his legs. Resting her hands on his thighs, she leaned forward and kissed him, quick and intimate. Squeezing his thighs, she backed away and came to rest on the opposite side of the love seat. He warily watched her.
“I was with my parents in Caldonia. We’d been on a goodwill mission for three weeks. It was my first time away with them. Jamie had completed his first trip the year before, and then it was my turn. They’d sat with us the year we turned sixteen and mapped out their plan for bringing us into the fold. We were obviously familiar with life at home, at the palace, with the government. We’d been quizzed on domestic policy as part of our studies since we began primary school. But foreign policy was something we were to learn as adolescents and young adults.”
Tristan tried not to breathe too heavily, even as he realized the import of this conversation. He didn’t want to spook her, but he wanted so badly to pull her into his arms that he had to restrain himself. Fighting against his impulses—not a strength.
“I digress.” She sighed, her hands restlessly rubbed up and down her thighs.
He found himself hypnotized by the movement. Her long, delicate fingers smoothing along her legs.
“We were scheduled for an appearance. I’m actually not even sure where we were supposed to be,” she mused, obviously lost in the memory. “Funny, I thought everything about that day was indelibly etched into my brain.” She shook her head, clearing the cobwebs. “But the day before, my father told me there had been a change in the itinerary. The consulate didn’t think we should go to the place we were scheduled.” She bowed her head, rubbing her hand along her forehead. “I can’t believe I don’t remember where we were supposed to be,” she murmured so quietly that Tristan knew she was speaking to herself. Shaking her head, she looked up. “But the change had come from our own government, so there was no concern. In fact, I remember Father confirming with the palace.”
“Schedules.”
“Right, schedules are important to me now.”
Her hands made another track down her legs, and he moved. He stepped down and walked toward her. He scooped her up into his arms before he sat with her on his lap. One of her hands automatically landed on the back of his neck, and he took hold of the other one. She gazed up at him and smiled gratefully.
“As you know, my parents were assassinated that day. What no one knows is that it happened right in front of me and that the terrorist group who killed them held me captive for three days.” Her eyes looked beyond him now, like she had suddenly left him in the room with her body while her mind was lost in the memory. “I don’t know many details. They say you get a surge of adrenaline in emergency situations, that your instincts just kick in. Only one of my parents’ security guards, Joe, survived the attack. What I know is from his account.”
Tristan thought of the folder in his safe for the hundredth time since Robert had given it to him. Could Robert and Jamie know more than Ele? For the first time, he wished he’d read it instead of waiting for her to tell him.
“I was in the car with them. But in a teenage act of rebellion, I hadn’t worn the hat I was supposed to wear with my outfit. I thought if I just showed up right before we were due to leave, I would get away with it. But my mother sent me and Joe back to the room. We were leaving the lobby; I was literally five steps away from the Rover when it blew. I was thrown back. I couldn’t hear and was disorientated. I remember that part. But when the men came to shoot my parents as insurance, they noticed me. No one knows why they didn’t just shoot me. But they didn’t. They put me in the back of their van and held me in a basement.
“There was nothing traumatic about the captivity. No one bothered me. I know they made some demands, but my grandmother did not bend. Instead, they sent a team in to rescue me. On the team was a twenty-five-year-old sharpshooter who ended up locating me and carrying me out.” She looked up at him. “You know him as Robert.”
For some reason, that didn’t surprise him. There was something almost paternal in the way Robert cared for her.
She stopped talking, apparently done with her recitation. There were hundreds of thoughts bouncing in Tristan’s head. Her eerie retelling left him cold. She might have been telling him about the M & M from earlier or what she had for breakfast. There was no emotion, no connection.
“Did they catch the kidnappers?”
“Shot dead in the rescue.”
“Good.”
With a half-smile for him, she tucked into his chest. “That’s it,” she said so low that he could barely hear it.
He wanted to call her on it. Her recitation, robotic and emotionless, downplayed the utter devastation of the story. That she never spoke to anyone about it, never got help was a complete travesty. It explained some things but not others.
Why didn’t they ever make her ordeal public? She could have been the badass heroine instead of the pathetic princess. She would have garnered more sympathy and understanding if the people knew what she’d endured.
“So, that’s why you and Jamie don’t travel together.”
“One of the reasons, yes.”
“Why can you travel with Juliana then?”
Ele’s head snapped up. “I told you what happened to me. But the rest of it, they’re not my secrets to tell.”
His hand carefully grasped her chin, and he lifted her head up. “You need to talk to someone about this. Someone who can help you deal with what happened and the consequences you are still trying to handle.”
Ele shook her head. “No. Telling you was fine, but I don’t need to talk to anyone else. Plus, it’s getting easier.”