Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79938 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79938 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“I’ll take over in a few hours.” He should have said he’d drive now, but the truth was that his head pounded hard enough that it was a wonder it didn’t fly right off his shoulders. Theo needed a handful of meds and a couple hours sleep and he’d be as good as new.
Mostly.
“Works for me.”
Theo touched Meg’s knee. “How are you holding up?”
“Oh, you know, I’m peachy.”
Right. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. He motioned. “Come here, princess. We both need some rest while we can get it.”
She unbuckled her seatbelt and moved to the center seat. Once she had buckled herself back in, he arranged the blanket around them and tucked her against his side. The tension bled out of her as the space between them warmed. She shivered. “God, this is the most insane experience of my life, and that’s saying something. What the hell did they do—shoot us?”
“Not us. One of the tires.” Galen didn’t look back. “It’s not an impossible shot, but it took a lot of skill to set it up so that the tire would go out right as we hit a curve and send us into the ravine.”
“They really want you dead, don’t they? I thought you had until your brother’s coronation.”
He should shield her from this, but even lies of omission tended to blow up in his face when it came to Meg. Better to put all their cards on the table and let her decide for herself. “They think you might get pregnant.”
She shot up fast enough that she almost clipped him in the jaw. “What?”
Galen took the entrance ramp onto the Autobahn and picked up speed. “If you get knocked up with Theo’s kid, then it bring other factors into play.”
“Why? If Theo isn’t in line for the throne right now, then why would his kid be a factor?”
Theo sighed. “Because my uncle knows he’s spun a web of lies and my brother is barely more than a child. He’s not going to be married and settling down anytime in the next few years, even if he wasn’t taking the throne. That leaves our sister as his only heir, followed by Phillip. And Phillip has no kids of his own. You mentioned a civil war, but having our line die out would cause a civil war. There are two lines who could argue that they hold enough royal blood to be next in line after Phillip, and neither of them are going to compromise. It would be England’s War of the Roses all over again. While there are members of both families that would be happy to see that happen, the majority of them prize Thalania and their business interests over their ambitions. If they know that I have an heir, they might be willing to support me despite the evidence Phillip provided. I’m a known quantity, and even though you’re not one of the marriage candidates they’d been pushing on me since I hit twenty-one, it wouldn’t matter. Stability is everything.”
“So many strings.” She gave a sigh of her own and resumed her position tucked against his side. “I think I’m going to try to sleep now.”
He’d said something wrong again. Theo held Meg close and let the hum of the car’s engine sooth his eyelids shut. He never usually had a problem talking to people, especially women, but from the start Meg had cut through the bullshit. She didn’t like words twisted into games, didn’t get off on the push and pull of power plays the way some women did.
She didn’t want his money, but she wanted him.
She didn’t seem too keen on the fact he was a prince, but she didn’t blink at his unconventional relationship with Galen—or that they wanted her to be part of it.
She’d agreed that this should be temporary, but every time he said something that supported that agreement, something shut down in her hazel eyes.
The truth washed over him in a slow surge. She doesn’t like the thought of this ending. She might not want to keep them in any real way, but it would hurt her to walk away.
He stroked a hand over her temple without opening his eyes. It would be so easy to get her to stay. No games. All he’d have to do is tell her the truth. I’ve gone and fallen for you, princess. I think we both have. It would be a long road, but at the end of it, it would be the three of them together.
Theo couldn’t do it.
His wants didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. He wasn’t his own person. He wasn’t free to choose.
That truth had never mattered all that much to him. It was just the way things were. He always knew things with Galen would get complicated, but they’d always been complicated in their own way. That was just another truth he worked around as necessary.