“Pasta,” she said, smiling, making her way to the table and taking a seat that faced the water. He didn’t need a view. He only needed to see her.
“I gathered, when you said it was my favorite.” It was one of the first meals he had at the palace. A simple pasta dish with red sauce, and after everything he’d been through it had felt like salvation. It still did in many ways.
And she knew it. Of course she did. Because Emerald could never be accused of being a spoiled princess. Her actions, even now, were evidence of that. He might not agree, he might wish to kidnap her, take her far away from all of this, but he knew that what she was doing was for the greater good.
It was just that he didn’t care much about the greater good. Not in the face of her safety.
He moved slowly to the table, taking his position across from her, and putting his napkin in his lap. He had a vague memory of when he had first come to the palace. Slightly feral, and uncertain of how exactly table manners worked.
His father never included children at dinners. Which would always have colleagues—people he had discovered later were from crime syndicates.
The kids had always eaten in the playroom. When he’d been young, he’d found aspects of his childhood to be truly wonderful. But he’d been in danger, and he’d never known it.
Not until they’d had to run away.
Not until it had been too late.
The king and queen and Basilia had taught him. How to be civilized. How to be less feral. At least in appearance. The truth was, his foundation would always be what it was. He would always be the son of a crime lord. He’d thought his childhood was fine, because he didn’t know better. He did now. There were things his father had instilled in him, shown him, encouraged him to do, that had been twisted, wrong and vile. They were baked into him, part of the formation of his being. And he would always be a product of a childhood that had encouraged him to embrace his baser instincts.
He kept it on a leash with her. That leash felt dangerously close to breaking now.
“I remember the first time I saw you,” she said. They never talked about this. The truth was, they were in each other’s lives every day, and they didn’t often discuss the past or memories. They had lived through many of them together. He had spent the first twelve years of his life in Romania, and after that he had been with the royal family. He had been with Emerald. The boat, the water, the fact that everything was about to change, that, he assumed was driving these conversations.
He wasn’t sure what to make of that.
Or if he should indulge her.
But he decided to. Because there were other things he could not indulge, and so he would indulge in conversation.
“And what did you think?”
“I thought you were amazing. And quite possibly a merman.”
That almost made him laugh. The sensation was so foreign, he didn’t quite know what to do with it. “A merman?”
“Yes. You came right out of the sea. I know you don’t remember when we found you. We were walking on the beach near the palace, and there you were, washed up on shore. Mother picked me up and tried to hide my eyes, because she thought you were dead. Onyx ran to you. Before my mother or father could stop him. He found that you were alive.”
He had heard the story recounted to him before, but never by Emerald. He found himself fascinated. He wished that he had the memory, truly. Of that first moment when they found him. When he had been saved.
But it was lost to him.
“When they discovered that you were breathing, my father picked you up, and they began to run back to the palace. We had doctors there, and they immediately called for emergency equipment, more medical people to come and check you out.”
“I remember waking up in bed,” he said.
He wouldn’t speak of the shipwreck itself. “Warm and safe. I was sure that I had died. That I was in heaven, though I did not expect heaven to have bedrooms.”
“You didn’t?”
“I thought you just sat on clouds.”
Emerald and Onyx had been sitting on the foot of his bed when he woke up. Onyx looking grave, Emerald excited, her eyes shining brightly. “You’re awake!” Hers had been the first voice that he’d heard in his new life.
“We brought you spaghetti, with marinara sauce and meatballs. And you ate it like you hadn’t eaten for months.”
“It’s funny to me that you remember that.”
“How could I forget?”
