“I agree about going to the cottage, but do you honestly think she knows anything?” Rowan shoots back at me.
“Yes,” I say bluntly. “And I want to know what else she’s hidden from us.”
Rowan freezes, and I can see his mind working as his eyes wildly move about my office. “You think she’s the mastermind behind it?”
He’s incredulous, but I can’t help my resultingI don’t knowshrug. “Why wouldn’t she report the tiara? Why was it there in the first place?”
His hands meet his head, his dark head pointed down at the ground. “I don’t know,” he admits after a quiet beat. “I know that if it were one of your children, we’d put every piece of information we had out there with the hope that something would catch and lead us to their recovery.”
I take a seat on the end of my desk, folding my arms over my chest. “If it had been one of my children, I would have put a bounty on that tiara, because think of what it’s worth. I would have moved heaven and earth to find them. Do you remember heaven and earth being moved?”
“No. Nor any mountains either. I remember a brisk search, Father’s funeral, you becoming king. After that…”
“Desta was gone.”
“Yes.” He nods, his jaw locked and his eyes hard. “Desta was gone.”
Because the more I think about it, it feels like my mother went from a “complete family” to “your father is dead, Desta is gone, Brea is sick, and we’re cursed.” I remember a man—or child, in this case—hunt. But it lasted all of a couple of weeks, and then I was crowned king, and life went on.
My mother had Brea two months later and retreated. Brea had some rare health condition, and after my father’s death and sister’s kidnapping, she had her tucked away from us. That was all we were told. Her condition, something she had been born with, was deemed life-threatening and easily susceptible to illness.
I never thought about it until now. It never once crossed my mind.
But I don’t remember there being a massive search for Desta. And now I want to know why.
5
SEBASTIAN
Imanage to make it through dinner and dessert, which were both delicious, and the film, appearing completely in the moment with my children. And for about eighty percent of it, I was. Sabrina sat on my lap and Phaedra snuggled in next to me, both girls laughing their little butts off the entire movie. Zayer was all over Bellamy, and that suited her just fine.
It was everything this night was supposed to be.
Except for the dark thoughts that wouldn’t relent. They were all over Rowan’s face as well, and for as dark as I can be, Rowan is the opposite. Nothing gets to him and sticks for long.
Except this.
The tiara threw us both, leaving us with far more questions than answers. I’m supposed to be on an island. I’m supposed to be on my honeymoon, but right now, all I want to do is get in a car and drive down to that cottage and tear it apart. And after that, I want to drive to my mother’s residence and interrogate her until she gives up whatever it is she’s hiding.
But how can I leave Bellamy when her father’s health isdeclining? How can I leave her not even a week after we’re married?
After the diamond was discovered, we had the police and special investigators shut the rest of the cottage down and remove themselves from it. They’re analyzing the blood on the pajamas, and once the identity of that is known, Rowan, Javier, and I will go to the house and to my mother.
But until then…
Bellamy exhales a loud yawn as we close the door of the girls’ room after tucking them in. Zayer didn’t make it through the end of the movie and Bellamy put him down about half an hour ago.
So now it’s just us, walking hand in hand down the hall toward our bedroom, but before we reach our suite door, I lift her up in my arms.
A smile lights up her beautiful face as she asks, “What are you doing?”
“Carrying my wife over the threshold.”
She emits a small, fluttery laugh. “You did that already.”
I give her a rogue grin. “Not here, I haven’t. I also haven’t made love tomy wifein our palace.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want you to make love to me.”
