Approval moved into his eyes. “She probably loves that more than the ring.” His eyes shifted back to them, seeing Anna pull out a top with a scarf.
I noticed he was different with me than his children. I’d heard him interact with his daughter in her apartment, and he was so kind, gentle, affectionate. He was nothing like he was now, as if there was something about me that brought out this side of him. He wasn’t even like that with Damien.
Why?
“I noticed you aren’t wearing your ring.” He didn’t glance down to my right hand where my skull diamond usually sat. “Does that mean you turned it in?”
“Not yet.” I absentmindedly rubbed the naked knuckle, feeling slightly off-balance without the weight in place. “Still tying up loose ends. But I have a successor in mind.” When I realized what he’d said, I turned back to him. “How did you know about the ring?” The Skull King always wore a piece of jewelry that symbolized his power. My brother and I got our hands on the rings and wore them as representation. But I didn’t see how he would know that—unless Damien told him.
He turned his gaze on me completely, his eyes focused. “This stays between us.” He lowered his voice further, making sure the other three didn’t overhear us.
I nodded in agreement.
He leaned toward me, his elbows against the armrests, the loose skin on his arms covered with old freckles. “Because once upon a time…I was the Skull King.”I didn’t see Catalina the same way anymore.
Her father’s secret changed everything.
After my family went home that night, I left all the dishes in the sink to clean tomorrow, but I didn’t care about that right now. As much as I’d enjoyed having Balto and Cassini over, celebrating our first Christmas as a four-member family, my mind had been somewhere else.
Now I had a secret I could never share.
Without having to ask, I knew Damien had no idea.
If he did, he wouldn’t hate me so much. It was a secret Richard kept from his family, and he confided in me because he knew I would understand. That was why he was different with me, why he gave me a chance when Damien never would. It was why he spoke to me so easily, connected with me when we seemed to have nothing in common.
It all made sense.
When my family was gone, I was finally alone with her.
She set the glasses in the sink and turned to me, her eyes a little sleepy from the wine she’d drunk throughout the entire day. “Well, I think that was a nice Christmas.”
I didn’t listen to a word she said. I came closer to her, cornering her against the kitchen counter until my hands gripped the edge on either side, giving her no way out, even though she would never run from me.
She stilled, her back straightening with tension, the words dying in her mouth because she knew now wasn’t the time to speak.
I breathed hard as I stared at her, looking at those green eyes like they were buried treasure. She was already the love of my life, the woman who stole my heart on the night she basically quoted Beyoncé and threw me off my game. I couldn’t remember the moment I fell in love, but now I understood why. I’d always been in love with her, felt that way before we crossed paths, because those feelings had been programmed at birth. “We’re meant to be together.” I bored into her gaze with mine, needing her to understand what I was saying, needing her to believe in destiny the way I believed in it—with my own heart.
I loved the daughter of a Skull King—and it all made sense.
She was everything I wanted in a woman. She was hard like steel, feisty like a madwoman, argumentative like a pain in the ass. She didn’t put up with shit because she was royalty, a daughter of a king.
She was meant for me.
Fucking made for me.
But I could never tell her why, never betray her father’s confidence, and I would carry his secret even when he was in the grave.
She stared at the intense expression on my face, her body still rigid because she could feel the pulsing emotions inside me, the chaos inside my mind. But then her eyes softened at my words, the way I meant them with every piece of my heart. “I know…”
I wanted to believe her, but there was no way she could believe it the way I believed. “I mean it. The universe made you for me. Made me for you.” My hands moved to her face, cupping her cheeks, looking at her with such an intense form of arousal that I’d never thought I was physically capable of feeling. All our other nights together seemed tame compared to this.