Cherished (22 page)

The fact that her mother was still alive to have tea with made her chest ache because she couldn’t imagine the alternative. And it was a point she reminded herself of on a daily basis.

No matter what Xander had done, he’d saved her mother. In the end, no matter how heartbroken she was, how humiliated she’d been or the things that she’d done, none of it mattered in the face of her mom receiving lifesaving treatment.

“I’m so glad to have you home,” Rose Montforte said, smiling over her cup of tea at Talia.

Talia smiled back, delighted to be able to genuinely smile. In the two weeks she’d been home, everything had felt so forced even though the joy she felt over seeing her mother again was certainly real.

“I feel as though you’ve changed so much, and I can’t put my finger on how,” she added with a slight frown.

Talia raised one eyebrow. “I was only gone for three months, Mama. How much could I have changed?”

She nearly choked on the question because the answer was pretty simple. She’d changed a lot. Maybe she’d grown up even. Or maybe she’d lost some of that youthful enchantment that came from feeling like you were untouchable. Perhaps everyone had to go through that at some point before they grew older and more jaded.

Rose tsked as she took another sip. “I don’t know, but I see it.”

Then her eyes widened and she hastily grabbed for the television remote and started clicking madly. The volume rose and Talia swiveled in her seat to look behind her to see what had grabbed her mother’s attention so rapidly.

“Oh look, darling. There’s Xander! Cristofino has been making the news so often lately. It looks as though things are going to work out. Why only a few days ago, the prince’s mother and sister returned from Australia where they’ve been residing since the king’s assassination. Such a sad state of affairs. It’s high time we’ve gotten good news about our home. It makes me so homesick. Perhaps if things settle there, we can think about returning soon, yes?”

But Talia was riveted to the television and barely heard her mother’s chattering behind her. She only had eyes for her dark-eyed prince, who suddenly seemed so much larger than life on the TV screen. So untouchable. Beyond her reach. Someone a girl like her should have never imagined being able to have.

The announcer’s words hit her with the force of a car crash. She went numb from head to toe as she stared dumbly at the screen, listening as the reporter droned on about how it was expected that the coronation ceremony for Alexander would be forthcoming in a few days.

She had refused to watch anything pertaining to Cristofino since her return from the island. She loved her homeland and felt a deep devotion to it. It was of grave concern that so much turmoil had been visited on her home soil. But if the television was on and Cristofino was so much as hinted about, she rapidly shut it off or changed the channel because she couldn’t bear to know what was going on with Xander.

She listened to the momentous announcement that the royal family would be restored, that Xander would be crowned king and assume the duties of the reigning monarch, just as his father before him had.

There was much celebration. The people of Cristofino gathered in the capital to dance in the streets. The royals had been welcomed home with jubilation and the insurgents had finally relinquished their military hold. Their reign of terror and intimidation was at its end.

Cristofino was free.

She should be as jubilant as her people were, but she felt dead on the inside.

All the words he’d whispered while making love to her. Worthless. All the times he’d told her he had no intention of letting her go. The attachments he’d allowed her to form with his men. And worse, she’d thought her feelings had been reciprocated.

A part of her understood. He’d made the right decision. How could he turn his back on his entire country for her? Just a girl. An ordinary girl. No one special. Certainly no one of nobility.

Xander would marry someone of his own ilk. Perhaps a princess of a neighboring country. There had been talk before the rebellion of an alliance with St. Francio and a marriage between Xander and Princess Charlotte. Perhaps now, with Xander as king, those talks would resume.

What a fool she’d been. She’d never felt so gullible and stupid in her life, and she made a vow right then and there as she watched
Xander address the people of Cristofino that she’d never allow anyone to make her feel this way again.

“Talia, are you all right, darling?”

Her mother’s worried voice broke through some of the utter numbness that had settled over her. She turned, taking in her mom’s expression of concern.

“I’m fine,” she said calmly. Then she leaned forward, inching her way to the edge of her chair so she could reach over to grasp her mother’s hands. “Let’s go away, Mama. Wouldn’t that be so much fun?”

Rose looked startled and then she set the cup down and grasped Talia’s hand with both hers. “Go away? Where?”

“On holiday. Just you and me. We should celebrate. You’re feeling so much better. The doctors have said that you’re fully in remission. Your markers have looked good for the last year. And yet here we sit in this care facility when we could be out seeing the world.”

A flicker of excitement lit up her mother’s eyes. She grasped Talia’s hand just a little tighter. “You think so? Oh, that does sound like a lovely idea. But could we really do it? It all sounds so intimidating.”

Talia smiled. “I think it would be great fun. I’ve always thought it would be nice to visit Italy and Spain. We’ve been in France for four years now, and we’ve never even set foot out of the country and so much is right here and so close. A mere train ride away.”

For a moment her mom stared at her with a complete look of befuddlement. Then more excitement danced in her eyes and she lifted Talia’s hand, all but shaking it in her grasp.

“Let’s do it. Oh, Talia, it would be such fun and I know how much you’ve wanted to travel. I’ve always felt so guilty because I know if it weren’t for me, you would have already been out exploring the world.”

Talia leaned forward, pulled her mom into her arms and hugged
her fiercely. “Never say that, Mama. I wouldn’t change a single thing. You’re more important to me than anything else in the world. I would have done anything to keep you here with me for many years to come. And just think, now we can see the world together.”

For a long moment, Talia held on tightly to her mom. She was so grateful to have her. Even though her mother had no idea what had transpired on the island or of Talia’s current heartbreak, just being here with her mom and knowing she was going to be all right held Talia together.

She would make it. She would be all right. The Montforte women were a resilient bunch. Her mother was living proof. If her mom could kick cancer’s ass and walk away the victor, then Talia could certainly survive a broken heart.

Chapter 25

“What the hell do you mean, you don’t know where she is?” Xander demanded.

He stared at Garon, Sebastien and Nico, his pulse about to beat right out of his temples.

“She’s gone,” Garon said. “The utilities have been disconnected in her apartment, though when I had the manager let me in since it’s in your name, it didn’t appear as though she’s moved out. Most noticeably, however, is that when I went to the facility where her mother has an apartment, I was told that Rose Montforte no longer resides there and that she has moved permanently. No forwarding address or information was given.”

Xander swore. “Goddamn it, I sent you to bring her back. Here. To me. This is unacceptable. She’s nowhere in Paris?”

Sebastien shook his head. “Not that we can find.”

“What did you expect, Xander?” Nico asked, his lips twisted into a snarl. “You completely botched this entire thing. There are at least a hundred other ways you could have handled the situation
and yet you let her walk away believing that we cared nothing about her.”

“You shut the fuck up,” Xander seethed. “I could not, would not, expose her to any danger. I couldn’t bring her here. I didn’t want her to remain on the island any longer, not when I was going to be thrust into the world spotlight again. Those bastards murdered my father. They would absolutely have used her against me. They could not know anything of her existence. It was the only way.”

Nico bit out a curse and turned away, his posture stiff and unyielding. His anger and censure was no less than Garon’s and Sebastien’s. The last two months had been ones he never wanted to repeat. Talia weighed heavily on all their minds. And now she was gone.

“You find her,” Xander said through clenched teeth. “I don’t care how long it takes, how much it costs, you find her and you bring her home.”

Talia finished sugaring her cup of hot tea and cupped it in both hands as she stared over the stunning view of the Italian coast. The water was so dark blue that it resembled a painting. The quaintness of the small cottage she and her mother were renting brought her comfort. It made her feel cozy and secure and after two months, she realized that she was finally feeling some measure of peace.

The nights were hard for her. Often she lay awake, remembering how it had been in Xander’s arms. How it had been when all four men took turns pleasuring her. Even with her mother’s warm companionship, Talia had never felt quite so alone.

She was glad now that she had saved and had spent sparingly the allowance that Xander had provided her while she was attending university. It allowed for her and her mother to travel extensively
before Talia would have to decide where to settle and find a job. She knew now that she would never return to Cristofino.

And she had absolute zero guilt in using the money received from Xander to pay her and her mother’s travel expenses. It was the very least he could do for how much he’d made her suffer.

A knock sounded on the door and she turned with a frown. Her mom had gone down to the market, insisting that she could go alone. Talia had worried about her being able to carry her purchases back by herself, but Rose had laughed and waved off Talia’s concern.

She was healthy. She was whole. She felt better than she had in years. She was going to enjoy life and indulge in normal, everyday activities. Already she’d made friends with the elderly couple who lived in the neighboring cottage and she often spent mornings having tea in their neighbor’s garden.

Talia hurried toward to the door, thinking that her mother likely had her arms full. She pulled open the door. “I knew you shouldn’t have gone by yourself—”

She came to an abrupt halt, going completely still as she stared into the faces of Garon, Sebastien and Nico. Her stomach immediately knotted and her first impulse was to slam the door in their faces. Garon likely anticipated such a move because he immediately inserted his foot next to the frame so she’d be unable to do just that.

“What do you want?” she asked in a voice cold enough to freeze the Mediterranean.

“Let us in, Talia,” Sebastien said in a quiet voice.

“No.”

Garon raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“I don’t have to obey you any longer,” she bit out. “That contract is voided, remember? I’m no longer your submissive plaything for you to toss around whenever it pleases you.”

Nico winced at the bitterness in her tone. Hell, she hadn’t even realized she was still so bitter. She’d actually been feeling rather
zen about the whole thing in the last few days, but now that they were here facing her, rage built like a volcano about to erupt.

And it pissed her off even more that whatever errand they were on, Xander was nowhere to be seen, but then he was likely newly married and on his bloody honeymoon.

She shuddered at the thought.

The one absolute she’d held to during their travels is no news, no television and no damn Internet. It had been freeing because what she didn’t know couldn’t very well hurt her.

“We’ve come to take you back home,” Garon said.

She stared at him like he’d lost his mind. “This is my home. At least temporarily. At least until my mother and I decide where we’d like to travel to next.”

“Your home is with us,” Nico said quietly.

“Oh that’s rich. Real bloody rich.” And then a thought occurred to her and she looked at them in astonishment. “Xander has no idea you’re here does he? He’d probably have a cow if he knew you were trying to get me back to Cristofino.”

They all stared at her with perplexed expressions.

“Talia, Xander
sent
us,” Sebastien said impatiently.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” she clipped out. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have better things to do than to sign up for more humiliation.”

“I know we hurt you,” Garon said in a gruff voice. “And you have every right to be angry. But Talia, please, just listen to us. Come back to Cristofino with us so Xander can make this right.”

“There aren’t enough words in the dictionary for him to ever make it right,” she said, sarcasm lacing every word.

“Talia, what’s going on? Who are these men?”

The three men whirled around, enabling Talia to see her mother standing just inside the wooden gate holding two bags from the market.

Nico and Sebastien sprang into action, each reaching for one of the bags.

“We are representatives of His Royal Highness, Alexander Carrera of Cristofino,” Nico said in a formal voice as he lifted the bag from her befuddled mother’s arm.

“Well,” Rose began, clearly at a loss as to what to say. “Why are you here and what do you want with Talia?”

“His Royal Highness wishes for you both to be presented at the palace as soon as it’s possible to arrange the transportation,” Sebastien said smoothly. “It is a matter of utmost importance. One of national security, one might even say.”

Talia rolled her eyes and shook her head. What a load of crap.

Her mother’s eyes widened and then she looked straight at Talia. “Well, we must go, of course. It all sounds quite important. We can’t let His Highness down. Not after all he’s done for our family. And for you, Talia.”

Talia clenched her teeth so hard her jaw ached. “Mama, why don’t you go in and fix these nice young men a cup of tea. I’m sure since they’ve traveled so far, they’d love refreshment.”