Crowning His Kidnapped Princess

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MARCELOCOULDNOlonger taste his food. Even if he could taste it, he’d lost his appetite. The conversation surrounding him rang distantly in his ears. Apart from when Clara spoke. He heard her every utterance with crystal-clear clarity.

And there she sat, happily eating her dessert and drinking her wine and conversing and laughing as if what she’d relayed had had no bearing on her life. As if that incident hadn’t stolen her future from her. Because she’d never attended another school. Never undertaken any of the exams that hold the key to having a life without limitation. She’d described the flat she lived in that came with her job. It was half the size of this dining room.

How could she be happy about any of that? How could she not be filled with anger and bitterness at everything that had been stolen from her?

How could she sit there, erupting with laughter with Alessia as they tried to explain the funky chicken dance they used to do for fun in their boarding school bedroom to his bemused mother?

These were thoughts still going round and round in his head when they wished his family goodnight.

‘Well?’ Clara asked the moment the guarded doors closed behind them, slipping her hand in his. ‘How did I do?’

He swallowed back the bile that had been lodged in his throat since her narration. ‘Very well.’

‘Did they like me?’

‘Judging by their body language, yes.’ But he’d seen the private looks exchanged between his parents. As he’d suspected, his family had all been taken with Clara and her fresh, unfiltered view of her world. But those same characteristics also gave them doubts. From the way Amadeo kept trying to catch his eye, his brother’s doubts were grave.

Marcelo had warnedthem that marrying Clara into the family was a gamble, but when the alternative was a diplomatic war, they’d collectively agreed it was a gamble worth taking. They had no right to complain if it turned out to be a gamble they might be on the losing side of.

As far as Marcelo was concerned, their doubts were unfounded. They hadn’t seen now hard Clara worked in her lessons. They didn’t know how determined she was to get things right. As long as she performed like a princess in public they had no cause for complaint. Damn it, she was only taking the role as a favour to them.

Aware anger was rising in him over things that hadn’t been said or even alluded to, aware that it was a deep protectiveness of Clara making him want to slay dragons on her behalf, Marcelo expelled a long breath and tried to expel the misplaced anger with it. The dragon he wanted to slay wasn’t his family but her brother.

When they reached their private quarters, Bob set himself straight on them. After fuss from them both, he made himself comfortable on his favourite sleeping spot: Marcelo’s seventeenth-century armchair.

And then Clara set herself on him.

Throwing her arms around his neck, she rose onto her toes. She would have kissed him if he hadn’t moved his face out of the way.

Her face clouded. ‘What’s wrong?’

Removing her hands from his neck, Marcelo clenched his jaw and breathed in deeply. ‘What you were saying about your expulsion...’

‘What about it?’

‘I keep thinking about your brother. He shouldn’t have accepted it. He should have fought on your behalf.’

‘You must be joking. He fully supported the school’s decision.’

‘Did he kick you out of your home because of it? Is that why you started working at the shelter at sixteen?’

‘Not at all—I got the job off my own back. Legally, he was supposed to look after me until I was eighteen but I’d had enough of school and being surrounded by humans who hated me so I decided to get a job where I was surrounded by animals instead. They’re much nicer creatures and they never tell lies. And I was so lucky that the job came with accommodation. Andrew was delighted to be rid of me, though I’m quite sure he’d been looking forward to me turning eighteen so he could help me pack my bags and see me out of the door.’

‘Why didn’t your father make provisions for you?’ Marcelo was aware his voice had risen to match the anger rising back up in him.

‘Because he was an idiot who thought the sun shone out of Andrew’s backside. The family wealth has been passed down to the eldest child for generations and the unspoken deal has always been for that child to look out for their siblings but my father always refused to see how much Andrew hated me. I’d have much preferred to have been sent to Australia to live with my mum’s sister, but hey ho, I was stuck with Andrew. He did what was legally required and that was it.’

‘How can you be so calm about this? You could be discussing the weather!’

‘Why are you so angry?’ she asked.

‘Why aren’t you angry?’

‘I have nothing to be angry about.’

‘You have everything to be angry about. Dio, Clara, all your life, the people who should have protected you treated you—’