“Come now, darling,” Ingrid urges a still silent Rhys. “She’ll eventually find out.”
She waits for a few more seconds, then sighs when he still refuses to answer.
“I’m engaged, but not to…what was that adorable Welsh middle name he used with you again?” She lifts her eyes as if struggling to remember. “Ah yes, I believe it was Rhys. Well, I’m not engaged to him. My fiancée is a Danish count. And that’s not a step down as one might think. At least his family is still a constitutional monarchy.”
“Congratulations,” I say to her. My heart fills up with a weird relief even though Rhys and I aren’t supposed to be anything to each other anymore.
Then, I frown, realizing I still have no idea what Ingrid’s talking about. Why is she here with Rhys if she’s engaged to somebody else? Why would she think I would think a Danish count was a step down from an English doctor?
And why is Rhys refusing to talk?
I have so many questions, but Ingrid keeps going like we’re completely caught up. “Thank you for your congratulations. Though I fear that means I’ll have to move back to Europe. I must say, I’ll miss Chicago.”
She throws Rhys a cheeky smile. “And my boss is quite unhappy about having to find another executive he trusts to take my place as the VP of Acquisitions for DBCare. I can’t say I blame him. It’s doubtful he’ll be able to find another with my attention to detail.”
I tilt my head. “DBCare? That medical conglomerate that eats up clinics?” I ask. “You’re their VP of Acquisitions?”
Ingrid slides another disbelieving look toward Rhys over her mask. “Yes, I am. How naughty of Rhys not to tell you that.”
I shake my head. “Okay, you two aren’t engaged this time. So then why are you here? During a pandemic?”
Ingrid sniffs as if that question is insulting. “COVID or no COVID, I always check on all our acquisitions myself.”
“Your acquisition?” I repeat. Then I turn on Rhys. “Are you selling my father’s practice? To the company I hate most?”
Rhys finally speaks, “What I do with the practice I acquired is none of your business.”
Then Ingrid says, “Also, it should be noted that Rhys isn’t selling the practice. We already own it. You see, my family is the Bylund in Drossel-Bylund Care and his is the Drossel.”
Again, I find myself shaking my head. “No, that’s not right….”
I distinctly remember reading something about how DBCare was owned by some defunct royal family, the Drossels of Drosselholz. Basically they were the family who used to rule over the country until they were deposed after World War I and made royals in historical name only.
“But Rhys isn’t a…” I start to say.
I stop, the truth suddenly blaring in my head like a code red alarm along with his first date mention of having twelve names.
“Actually he is,” Ingrid answers with another tinkling laugh like this is all in good fun. “His formal title is Prince Aleksander of Drosselholz. But our many employees know him as Alek Drossel, the President of DBCare. And this practice is our latest acquisition.”
Wait…what?
The Fine Prince is actually a prince? And even more shocking than that, he’s the President of DBCare!
For a moment I can hear nothing. There’s only Rhys’s steel-grey eyes staring back at me, an emotionless blank.
Then I hear everything.
Ingrid explaining how Rhys occasionally uses, “one of his many names” to acquire certain well-placed practices when the doctors who own them don’t want to sell to DBCare.
The horns blaring as cars cut around my Honda, still idling in the street.
The birds tweeting happily above even as the ground seems to crack underneath my feet.
But one question shines above all the noise.
“Buying my father’s practice on behalf of DBCare, the one company you knew he didn’t want to sell to. Was this…was this all part of your revenge?” I ask Rhys.
A few cold beats. And then, Rhys finally speaks, “Yes.”
It’s officially spring now, but his voice is as cold as winter.
Chapter Twenty-One
That “Yes” echoes in my head as I return to the house.
“Where are the groceries?” A asks when I come through the kitchen door empty-handed.
I don’t answer. Just walk up the stairs in a daze.
It was only six months. But because of that six months, the one thing my father didn’t ever want is happening.
His practice is gone. It’s gone in a nefarious deal to a man who would literally move to small town Missouri in the middle of a pandemic. All to get back at me for dumping him via text.
He’d called himself a nutter during our time in the back house. I thought it had been a self-deprecating joke. But in my room, I pull out my laptop to try to figure out exactly who this psycho is.
Sure enough, there’s Rhys’s picture in the Leadership Team section with the title Director of Acquisitions below his real name, Aleksander Drossel.