“Believe this: I fell in love with her. When we were in London, I was afraid I was endangering her because I thought the Ilyins were onto me, and that was why I left her and came to Chicago.”
“You broke her heart?”
Raphael closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“If you weren’t holding your child, I would punch you in the mouth.”
“I deserve it.”
“You have a type, don’t you? When you married Gretchen,I thought she looked oddly like Flicka, but I didn’t say anything. I never believed it was possible that you’d forced yourself on her.”
“I didn’t, Wulf. I swear. She initiated it.”
“You should have refused. She was a child.”
“I tried to tell her no. I swear, I tried. You know how she is when she decides she wants something. She was twenty years old. I thought I was an infatuation she’d getover, even though she was already more for me. It was after you’d moved to Chicago, months afterward. But she was so beautiful, and—”
Wulf’s tone remained conversational. “And what, damn you?”
“—and I was already in love with her. I was already in love with her determination and her spirit, in her dedication to the piano and music, in her work for charities and how she cared about what she wasdoing, not just how it looked, in her grace, in her kindness, in her sophisticated and silly sense of humor, in everything about her. I worshipped her. She was myDurchlauchtig.”
“I can’t count how many times I told you that it isDurchlauchtigste.You can’t even speak German all that well, can you,Raphael?”
“NotHochdeutsch,justSchwiizertüütsch,”the Swiss, spoken dialect, “and no, I can’t.French is my first language.”
“I don’t know you at all.” Wulfram pushed off the wall. “I need to ready my plane to return to my wife and newborn child. I will be back for Alina in an hour. Have her ready to travel.”
He left the hotel room, closing the door firmly behind him.
Wulfram von Hannover would never slam a door, Raphael knew. He wouldn’t frighten a child by slamming it, and he wouldnever be so uncultured.
And now Wulfram knew that he was Raphael Mirabaud.
Raphael had been dreading this day, this reckoning, for years. Every new betrayal—his name, his relationship with Flicka, and now their marriage—had compounded how terrible this day would be, and he couldn’t go after Wulfram right now to try to explain himself.
He only had an hour with his daughter, and he needed tolaunch the operation to rescue Flicka.
Raphael juggled Alina in his arms until she was sitting on his hip and looking at him. “We have a little while until you have to go home with Uncle Wulf.”
“Want to stay withDaddy,”Alina said, picking at his shirt collar. “Not Uncle Wulfie.”
Flicka must have called him that. “I need you to fly on the plane with Uncle Wulfie.”
“Plane?” Alina asked, herpale green eyes serious.
“Yes, on a plane,” Raphael said.
“Okay,” Alina said, but she specified,“on a plane.”
“And then I’ll bring Flicka-mama, and then we’ll go home.”
Alina looked confused. “Not Flicka-mama. Just Mama now.”
“You call her Mama now?”
“Yes. Flicka-mama is Mama.”
Raphael’s heart swelled at how Flicka had taken such care of Alina, how it wasn’t her responsibility, but shehad.
He said, “I’ll bring Mama, and we’ll all go home.”
