She kept her chin up and her knees steady, and she didn’t let herself cry at all.
When the elevator doors slid apart, Flicka walked between the three men like they were an honor guard instead of her captors.
They led her to a small suite in the hotel. Two men peeled off to guard the door.
Moritz led Flicka inside.
Her father sat in a high-backed chair in the middle of the living room, sipping coffee. Sunshine streaming in the window glinted on his silver hair and dark blue suit.
She sucked in air and bellowed,“What the hell do you want now?”because anger sounded better than fear.
He looked up, his dark blue eyes scanning her, “Friederike Augusta, please come in and sit down. We need to talk.”
“We donotneed to talk. Have your goons give me back my phone so I can call Dieter to come and take me back to the hotel.”
The frown lines on his forehead and around his mouth creased. “I have some lamentable news—”
“Oh, I’ll just bet,” she sneered at him. “I don’t care what youthinkyou do or don’t know. I have a wedding to run. I don’t have time to listen to your idiotic chatter about how you don’tlikeRae, how she’s acommoner,how she’s notworthyof Wulf, or whateverstupidrubbish is going around in your snobby, elitist head. You said all that shit about Pierre, too, and Pierre will be one of the few ruling sovereigns left in the world. Unlikeyou,because our familylostits kingdom.”
Phillipp von Hannover, Prince of Hannover, sighed. “No, Flicka. It’s not about Rae or Wulf. It’s about you, and about Pierre.”
Just a ploy, she was sure. It was just another damned ploy to get her to disrupt Wulf’s wedding. “Are youstillharping on him? Why can’t you just leave usalone?”
Her father held out an envelope. “I’m sorry, Flicka. There’s a flash drive with all the pictures and documents in there, too.”
She snatched the envelope out of his spotted hand and ripped it open.
Pictures inside showed Pierre with other women, having drinks with them, or with his arm around their waists, or dancing. The women looked like adults, even late-twenties adults.
Flicka raised her head and looked her father right in his dark blue eyes.“So?”
“These were both before and after your marriage,” Phillipp said. “There are date stamps on the photos. The documents are official copies.”
She shrugged. “I don’t care.”
“But you should—”
“No, let me tell you something, jackass:Butt out.”Some of Rae’s Western colloquialisms had wormed into Flicka’s speech, and in this case, pithy, earthy jabs worked beautifully. “I love Pierre and he loves me, but we have an understanding. We have a mature, sophisticated, modern marriage because we love each other. Our love is the most important thing, not where he puts his body parts. I don’t care if he sleeps with other women or men. I don’t care if he screws his way across Europe, Asia, and Africa and has additional lays in the Americas, Australia, and Ant-frickin’-arctica. As long as everyone’s of age,I just don’t care.”
Her father hadn’t flinched. Indeed, his labored sigh seemed sad. “You need to look more closely at the pictures.”
“These women are obviously adults, and Pierre hasneverhad a thing for kids.Thatwould have been a deal-breaker.” Her anger at her father, built up over decades of his neglect and indifference, erupted in her. She wanted to walk across the room and slap the old man. “You weren’t therewhen we were dating. You weren’t there formy whole life.”
She advanced a step toward him, shaking the pictures like she wanted to grab her father’s throat and throttle him. The photos rattled like she wanted her father’s teeth to shake loose in his head when she jerked him around.
She yelled, “Younever sawhow wonderfully he treats me, how he will doanythingfor me. We didn’t have the wedding in Monaco,his own country,because he wanted to makemehappy and because he understoodmycommitment to my foundations and charities. He did battle withthe Pope himselfso he could marry me.Pierre loves me,andI don’t carewhat you think of him.”
Her father’s frown looked sadly sympathetic. “You need to look at the documentation. I’m sorry, Flicka.”
“You’re trying to poison my relationship with Pierre. You’re just a bitter old man who never loved anyone and doesn’t want anyone else to have love, either. Iknowthat Pierre loves me.” She did know it. She emphasized that sheknewbecause it was the lynchpin to her whole life. “He protects me, and he loves me, andhe wouldn’t ever hurt me.”
Her father’s voice was quiet, almost gentle. “No, Flicka. I did love your mother, but she didn’t love me. She married me for money and the title, and I don’t want you to make the same mistake. Please, look at those pictures.”
His sadness sounded like Wulfram’s when he had come into her bedroom when she had been six years old to tell her that their mother had died the night before. Wulf had been as heartbroken as she was, and she could hear that same gravity pulling down her father’s voice now.
Flicka looked more closely at the pictures, and then she looked at the copies of official paperwork in the envelope.
Her knees weakened, and she sat on the couch across from her father.
