A Royal Without Rules

Adriana left her bedroom then, twisting her hair up into a knot as she walked through the villa in search of her morning coffee. She felt lighter than she had in years. She smiled down the hallways toward that closed-off parlor, and took her time descending the grand stairs.

Last night Pato had been called upon to entertain visiting dignitaries and royals from across Europe, all in town for the wedding. When the long evening was over and they were alone in his car, he’d pulled Adriana to him. He’d tucked her beneath his arm, arranged her legs over his lap and rested his chin on the top of her head. Then he’d simply held her. When his driver started up the hill toward the Righetti villa, he’d hit the intercom and told him to simply keep driving.

They’d driven for a long time, circling around and around the city. Pato had played with her hair idly. She’d closed her eyes and let herself enjoy the luxury of time to bask in him. He’d held her close against his heart while the city bled light and noise all around them.

Inside the car, it had been quiet. Soft. Perfect. And Adriana had never felt more cherished. More loved.

She didn’t notice the strained silence in the kitchen until she was pouring herself a cup of coffee. She turned to find her father staring at her, an arrested expression on his face she’d never seen before. Even her mother looked pale, one hand clutching at her heart as if it were broken, her eyes cast down toward the table.

“What’s happened?” Adriana asked, terrified. She left her coffee on the counter and took a step toward the table, looking back and forth between her parents. Was it one of her brothers? “Has there been an accident?”

Her mother only shook her head as if she couldn’t bear to speak, squeezing her eyes shut, and Adriana went cold.

“You know what you’ve done,” her father stated in a hard voice. “And now, Adriana, so does the world.”

It took her a moment to understand what he was saying—and that he really was speaking to her with all that chilly animosity. And when she did understand it, she shook her head in confusion.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“I blame myself.” Her father pushed back his chair and climbed to his feet, looking far older than he had the day before. Adriana felt a deep pang of fear. Then he stood there for a moment, his hard gaze raking over her as if she was something dirty.

And she knew, then.

That familiar, panicked cold bloomed deep inside her, spreading out and turning black, ripping open that same old wound and letting the emptiness back in.

He knew about Pato.

“Papa,” she said softly, reaching out a hand toward him, but he recoiled. Her throat constricted when she tried to swallow, and she slowly dropped her arm back to her side.

“I knew you were too beautiful,” he told her in that terrible voice, and Adriana felt it like a knife, sinking deep into her belly. “I knew it would ruin us. Beauty like that is only the surface, Adriana, and everything beneath it is corrupt. Sinful. Twisted. I saw it myself in Sandrine, in her contempt for propriety. It runs in this family like a disease. I knew it was in you since the day you were born a girl.”

She felt unsteady on her feet, as if he’d actually cut her open. Perhaps it would have been better—less painful—if he had. And she was too aware of her mother’s continued silence in place of her usual unspoken support, weighing on Adriana like an indictment.

“There’s no Righetti family disease,” she said when she could speak. It was hard to keep her voice calm, her gaze steady as she faced her father. “There never was. We’re only people, Papa, and we all make our own choices.”

His lip curled, and he stared at her as if he’d never seen her before now. As if she’d worn a mask her whole life, until today, and what he saw beneath it disgusted him. It made her feel sick.

“Tell me he forced you. Coerced you. Tell me, daughter, that you did not betray your family’s trust in you willingly. That you did not follow in the footsteps of all the whores who sullied the Righetti name before you and take Prince Pato—” he spat out the name as if it was the foulest of curses “—as your lover. Tell me you are not so stupid as to open your legs for that degenerate. Tell me.”

Adriana didn’t understand how this was happening. Her head pounded and her heart felt like lead in her chest, and she didn’t know what to do, how to make this better. How to explain what it was like to be free of her chains to the man who’d helped fashion them, because he wore so many of his own.

“He’s not a degenerate,” she whispered, and it was a mistake.