“Hmm…” I wipe a hand over my mouth to hide my grin. “And do you feel that’s an adequate excuse for eating chocolate without permission and before dinner?”
Her shoulders sag. “No, Papa.”
Only Zayer and Sabrina cry out, “Yes!” and I can no longer hold in my smile or my laugh.
“Zayer, you cannot be as much trouble as Sabrina is.”
He gives me a curious look as if to say,But she’s my big sister. He walks over to Bellamy and puts his arms up in the air, demanding she lift him. Ever the softy, she does, and he gives me a cheeky grin that tells me he’ll forever get away with murder.
“I’m not trouble, Papa,” he tells me.
“And what about you, my princess?” I saunter over to my beautiful princess and crouch down to her height.
“I’m not trouble,” Sabrina protests with a harrumph.
“Sabrina, you are trouble. And all that means is that you have a wild, uncontained spirit that will forever challenge not only me and Bellamy but the world. Despite the gray hairs and lack of sleep you’ll give me, I wouldn’t change you, and I hope that spirit does, in fact, challenge the world.”
I kiss the tip of her nose, and some of the tightness in my chest unwinds when I see her face light up.
“Now…” I hesitate, turning my head over my shoulder to meet Bellamy’s eyes. We haven’t yet discussed what the children should call her.Bellamyfeels formal, but I don’t want to push them intoMamaor anything like that before they’re ready if they ever are. So I let it drop and turn back to the children. “Let’s make dinner and dessert. I know Oncle Rowan is especially looking forward to trying Bellamy’s favorite meal.”
I kiss each one of my children, then my wife, and leave them here in her capable hands. Rowan and Javier are waiting for me. Bellamy knows about the bloody onesie. She doesn’t know everything, and right now, with her father’s health weighing heavily on her mind, I don’t want to overburden her.
Not until I have to.
Two minutes later I’m walking into my office to find Rowan pacing and Javier behind my desk at my computer. It’s déjà vu to when Samil took Bellamy, and a shiver runs up my spine.
“What is it?”
“A diamond,” Rowan grunts, still pacing. “They found one of the diamonds from her royal tiara.”
I rub my forehead. “Her what?”
Rowan stops pacing, but it’s Javier who answers. “Her royal tiara. It was never reported as missing after the kidnapping, though the blanket was, but each diamond set in it had been certified and registered. One of those diamonds was found and when?—”
“And when we challenged our mother on this, since she’s the one who never reported it missing, her reply was she didn’t feel that was pertinent information. Not. Pertinent. Information? Is she fucking high?!”
I think Rowan is a heartbeat from completely losing his mind. Our mother is a piece of work. She didn’t attend my wedding and when I called to tell her I was engaged, she called Bellamy a money-grubbing, throne-chasing piece of American trash. I hung up on her right then and there. Since my father died and Desta was taken, she hasn’t been well. Lost to her grief.
Or at least, that was the excuse we gave her.
But after hearing what she called my future queen and learning that she didn’t report a missing tiara, I have questions. And a lot of concerns.
“Do we have documentation of each stone in that tiara as well as the registry for it?”
“Sí, yes,” Javier says. “They’re part of the royal jewels. Other than what you had fashioned for Bellamy for your wedding, nothing has been done with them since Desta’s tiara. Breanever had one made for her as your mother whisked her away almost immediately after she was born.”
My mother was pregnant with Brea when Desta was taken. My father never met our baby sister. Nor have Rowan and I. We were never allowed to meet her and were considered to be a risk to her health. My mother left with Brea, I was king at fifteen, and Althea stepped up and stayed with me as my advisor. That was that.
“And only our mother knew of this?” I question.
“So it seems,” Rowan grouses, still pacing.
“Why was her tiara even there that night by her crib? That seems…odd.”
Rowan gives me a look. “No clue. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me either.”
I meet both their gazes. “I’ve been thinking about it all day. I want to go look at the cottage myself. Maybe even go into Valerie Tower after and search through the royal jewels. Actually, I think we need to do that first. Then I think we need to have a long talk with our mother and see what she knows.”
