life he could lead. Or he could watch his family history and fortune be stripped away by those who hate him so much they’d rather see him dead. That’s who the Byrnes really are. They are unfit to lead, but it’s more than that. It’s their cruelty. Surely, Auggie has told you about what happened before he left Aldayne.”
I gulped. He hadn’t, but I wasn’t so sure I should let her know that.
Fortunately, she wasn’t waiting for me to answer. “Imagine would what happen to any Quinn the minute they step into power. They’d strip Auggie of everything and Giselle,” she started, but stopped herself, her hand on her heart, as she considered the repercussions. “Think of the Tremwells, your friends, Audra and Gavin. The Byrnes are the ones who wanted to enslave people who looked like them. And now your sister is going to become a Tremwell. To what end, if the Byrnes had their way?” She let that hang there before she loaded the big gun. “And what of people like little Dashiell? What do you think would happen to sweet little children who happened to wear the wrong thing in this New Aldayne?”
“You’re acting as though it would turn into Nazi Germany or something,” I said.
“Or something, indeed,” she replied. My gut seized. “This decision is bigger than what castle you might want to call home, or the ‘rules’ you might have to abide in the future. This one decision could save all the people you say you love.”
“What makes you think he’ll listen to me anyway?”
“He’ll have too much to lose if he doesn’t.” She paused. “Do you know why you in particular were hired to write this silly book?”
“I would presume it was because he thought I’d do a good job.”
She chuckled. “Come on, now. You’re smarter than that. How much have you written so far?”
I gulped. “I was going to start writing after the tour.”
She nodded. “Was that your choice or Auggie’s?”
“It just… sort of happened.”
She stood and walked back around to her desk. “So, you have spent the last five months flying city to city, no doubt being romanced by my grandson, who has kept you too preoccupied to write a book that he had paid you well over two million dollars to write.” She fixed her steely gaze on me. “That doesn’t seem at all suspicious to you?”
My throat felt like it was going to close in. “Just what are you suggesting?”
“Do you know about the deal I had made with Augustine?” I nodded. “I gave him his freedom at eighteen, to spend the next decade or so to sow his wild oats. But the price was he had to return to Aldayne and rule after my Silver Jubilee.”
My stomach sank. “You mean now?”
“He has to complete his training, but essentially, yes,” she confirmed. “He knew that this was his last hurrah with the music, so he planned a world-tour. Desperate to keep his responsibility at bay, he hires a unique girl completely unqualified to be a queen, seduces her, impregnates her and voila. He has an out.”
All of it rang a little too true. I had always believed that the tell-all memoir was his way of making himself unsuitable for the throne. It never even occurred to me that a romance with someone like me would have done the trick, all while sparing him from sharing his story.
It gave him complete control.
“Freedom matters to me,” he said once upon a time. “But I can’t have that. So, I settle for the next best thing. Control.”
I gulped hard as the pieces fell into place. The way he kept coming back, the more I fucked up. The way he chose me over someone like Monica, who not only would have fit into the role of queen, she likely would have relished the idea of it. Instead, he had me, good ol’ Peaches McPhee, who spent the entire tour a laughingstock for the public thanks to an unplanned pregnancy that, oh yeah, he knew about also.
“You were paid to get him out of being king,” she spelled out implicitly, in case I needed it. I didn’t. “Not to write a book.” Her gaze was relentless. “I’d wager he hasn’t shared much of any personal history with you, has he?”
That hit below the belt. I just lifted my chin. “If that’s true, and he doesn’t love me, what possible leverage do I have?”
“I didn’t say he didn’t love you. Maybe he does. Maybe you have