to know if I can ascend to the throne as a single man legally, or if I need to find myself a queen.
“Call Flanders back in here,” my father says, nodding to the door behind which his butler disappeared. “I’m ready for my dinner.”
I bow to my father, then head out the door. Flanders heads inside the King’s bedroom behind me, and I turn down the hallway to find my brother Dante. Winding through the hallways, I make my way to the office at the back of the palace where Dante spends most of his time.
When I enter, the lights are low and half a dozen monitors are blinking with spreadsheets and documents I don’t understand. Dante swivels around in his chair, flashing a smile at me.
“Big brother.” He grins. “I was wondering how long it would take you to come see me.”
“Tell me you have good news.”
“Well, my arms are still attached to my body, unlike you.” He nods to my sling. “Cara saved you, huh?”
“Twice.”
“Badass.”
I grunt, leaning on his desk. My head hurts, and I don’t know if Dante knows about Father’s plan to marry me to Cara.
“So? What have you found about the marriage issue?”
Dante lets out a sigh. His smile fades. “Haven’t made much progress. I’ve engaged an independent lawyer to look into it. I trust him,” he adds. “But it’ll take time to figure it out. The legal texts we have to look through are over a hundred years old and a lot of them only exist in the Royal Archives.”
“I don’t have time.” I rub my forehead and then look at my brother, sighing. I explain to him the conversation I just had with our father, and how time is running out.
Dante rubs his jaw with his hand and turns back to his multitude of computer screens. “I need at least two weeks, Theo. Can you do that?”
“Two weeks?”
Dante nods. “Delay. Tell Father you’ll think about it, that you need to get to know Cara or something. Make up some bullshit he’ll believe about true love and compatibility.”
I scoff, and nod. “He doesn’t believe in love.”
“I’m not so sure,” Dante shrugs.
“I’m going on a pre-coronation tour of the islands for three weeks starting the day after tomorrow,” I say. “I could ask him to wait until after that, but who knows what he’d do while I was away.”
Dante taps his chin as he thinks. He glances at me, arching an eyebrow. “What if you bring Cara? Then no one can pressure her while you’re gone. You know how Father is once he gets an idea. He could have the whole thing organized while you’re away, but not if neither of you are here.”
I chew my lip. It’s not a bad idea. Cara is supposed to leave, but maybe it would be better if she was with me. If our parents are plotting to push us together, we might be able to pretend to play along for a bit. It would give me some time to figure things out and would protect Cara from any unnecessary pressure from her family—and mine.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good luck.” Dante stares at his screens as he taps something on a keyboard. I retreat from the room, rounding my shoulders as I trudge up to my chambers.
As the thoughts swirl around my head, I have to admit something to myself. Something buried deep in my heart, in a hidden corner that hasn’t seen the light of day in a long, long time.
Marrying Cara excites me.
I can pretend that I don’t want to do it. That I feel bad about betraying my brother. That it’s wrong to marry her. Something has shifted inside me, and Cara isn’t off-limits anymore.
The simple truth is, I want her. Badly.
8
Cara
“From little old Cara Shoal to a Queen,” my sister Christine titters, spinning circles around me. “I can hardly believe it.”
“It’s not right.”
“Oh, come on,” our eldest sister, Cathy, sighs. “Mother did well to get you that match. I had to marry boring old Count Yara.”
“I’m not marrying anyone, and I’m not going to be Queen.” I sigh, kicking my feet in the sand as my sisters and I walk down the beach.
“What, you thought that the rest of us would carry the burden of caring for our family? We all had to do things we didn’t want to do. Going off to singing school wasn’t going to help mother and father provide for our family.” Cathy, ever the pragmatist, arches an eyebrow at