Page 52 of Daddy's Reluctant Queen

I can’t say that I blame him. He’s clearly looking out for your best interests. You’re lucky to have someone in your camp loyal enough to you to be honest about that. You’d be surprised how many people in my office would love to see me crash and burn…

This letter seems much morecasual. And as I thumb through the others, I can see a lot of that playfulness in her tone. I wonder if he ever wrote her back. Or if he got the letters and just called her to talk. Seems like something he’d do. I pick up another letter.

Titus,

I’ve thought about everything you said over dinner and I think you’re right. I hate that I have to admit that, but after thinking about it, I can’t really deny the truth when it’s right in front of my face.

You and I together don’t make sense. We just don’t. I’m a District Attorney.If anyone ever found out about us

We don’t have to rehash everything, and I’m not going to force you to do it. You made it very clear what the danger is and how we’ve been so careless. At the very least, this baby deserves better than living a life of constant fear. So, I’m deferring to you in this. We’ll split up now and choose safety over love.

But just because we can’t be together, that doesn’t mean I can just turn off my feelings for you. I love you, Titus Malkin. And I’ll always love you.

—Angela

Whoa.Titus was messing around with a D.A? And the baby… Luka’s mother was the D.A.? That might actually be a worse than being a rat. Are all these letters from her? Why would he keep something like this around? Why didn’t he do as she suggested and destroy them?

Oh, but no. He can’t destroy these letters. This isLuka’s mother. Maybe there is a future where he can find out about her in some way. I’ll bet these letters are all he has of her.

I look through the countless letters until I come across a photograph. It’s from one of those photobooths on the boulevard. Titus sits with a sort of smirk on his face in the first one. A beautiful woman with long, blonde curls sits on his lap, leaning into him with a lazy smile.

The next few are just as sweet, and dare I say, wholesome. The longer I look at the photos, the more I see Luka. The same sparkling blue eyes and the same shade of butter blond ringlets?—

“What the hell are you doing in here?”

I jump as the bass in Titus’s voice rumbles through the room. I turn to see him standing in the open doorway, his eyes wide with both surprise and anger.

And here I am sitting at his desk with one of his keepsakes in my hand.

Shit.

18

TITUS

She sets the photo down in the drawer, her face going pale. I step into the room, closing the door behind me. “You are unbelievable,” I growl at her. She turns around to me fully.

“I’munbelievable?” she says. “These letters?—”

“You had no business going through my things. What in the hell possessed you?—”

“The D.A., Titus? You were sleeping with the D.A.?”

The accusation nearly stops me in my tracks. I walk over to her and close the drawer. There’s part of a pen stuck in the keyhole. Dammit, I’m going to have to put these letters in a fucking safe.

“That is none of your business,” I say to her as calmly as I can. “Get out of my room.”

She stares up at me with those big baby blue eyes and gives me a firm, “No.”

“No?” I scoff. She’s lost her fucking mind. “Get. Out.”

She shakes her head. “No, I think we need to talk about this.”

I grab her by the arm and yank her to her feet. “I don’t need to talk about any of this with you?—”

She twists her arm out of my grip and takes several steps back from me, her feet falling in a defensive stance and her hands are up, palms to me. “Titus, she’s Luka’s mother, isn’t she? The girlfriend who was killed for being too close to you?”

I go to grab for her again, but this time, she slaps my hand away and takes another step back. Her training has kicked in and she’s ready to defend herself against me.