Only Love With A Billionaire (Only Us Billionaire Romance Book 4) Page 8

  Instead, he turned to his training for direction, for how to deal with challenges.

  Assess. Address. Dismiss.

  He didn’t think the last part would be easy, certainly not the second time around, but he’d start at the beginning.

  Assess. It was just the two of them. On a roof. No threats, other than the damage he’d already done. His heart was in shreds because of that and his father’s passing. That was what he’d address. It was the most logical and the least likely to cause her more pain—that burden was his alone to bear.

  “Thank you for being there with my dad and me.”

  “Of course. Mr. Park and I spent a lot of time together, especially after you left. It was comforting in a way. We got close. He told me things about you I’d never known.” If she didn’t look so sad, perhaps she would’ve cast him a cheeky grin. Maybe the burden of grief wasn’t only his.

  “I miss him already,” she said.

  Nope. Definitely not his alone. His father had touched many lives with his jokes, his reliability, his patience, and of course baking.

  “What was it that you were singing to him?”

  “It’s a prayer. A Concordian tradition. My parents didn’t have anyone to sing them to heaven since they’d died suddenly, but my nanny used to sing it to me every night before bed. She came with us from Concordia and told Oliver and me that when she sang it brought our parents closer to us just for a little bit, so they could watch over us while we slept.”

  It was quite possible that the shadow of his father’s death doubled her sadness at the memory of her parents. She’d rarely talked about them—not that she’d really known them. As a kid, he’d hardly thought about how she didn’t have her real mother and father. The queen was always larger than life for them, a mother figure in a way, but certainly not particularly maternal. He’d never known his biological mother either and that was definitely an off-limits topic with his dad.

  “I guess we’re both orphaned now. We can run away with Peter Pan,” she said softly, referring to their favorite childhood story.

  The conversation meandered to their joint love for the classic tale and how they’d planned to join the Lost Boys.

  “You always wanted me to be Wendy,” Ava said.

  He chuckled. “That’s because she was hot. Well, to a ten-year-old.” Despite the waves of emotions between them on that rooftop and the cool air, he couldn’t ignore the fact that Ava was hot in the present. Gorgeous, stunning, breathtaking. There weren’t words to describe her beauty. Henry hoped the man who’d take her hand in marriage would find the words and write poetry about her. That was what she deserved.

  “I suppose I thought Peter Pan was cute.” Her voice was coy, flirtatious.

  “If I remember correctly, you had a bit of a crush on him.” Henry chuckled.

  “Ten-year-old me had a crush on him.”

  “I remember you used to always make me take off my glasses and pretend to be Peter.”

  She paused then asked, “What happened to your glasses anyway? I guess all this time I was looking for the wrong person—a scrawny kid with dark hair and eyeglasses.”

  “I suppose we both changed.” She had no idea how much that was true for him. Those were more secrets he couldn’t tell. He’d been trained to be an iron giant, a human fortress, and a stealth operative—all of which meant he had to keep his mouth shut. However, he could speak in generalities. “I had corrective surgery.” But he’d kept his glasses in an actual box hidden away in his flat, along with sparse memories of the past. Ones he simply couldn’t let go.

  “I always loved Nana, the Newfoundland dog nanny.” Ava nearly giggled. “I’d wish my nannies were dogs.”

  “But you were afraid of dogs.”

  “Looking back, I think I’d built that up in my head. Peanut was pretty sweet. The first thing Oliver did when he moved to the castle in Concordia was to get a dog. Actually, I think they have ten now.”

  “Any kids yet? Oliver Juniors, Wendy, Johns, or Michaels, running around?”

  “No, but he can’t have those names. I was going to use them for our—I mean my kids.” She went silent.

  From beyond the castle, the low hum of cars on the motorway shushed by. A helicopter whirred overhead and out of sight. Henry wondered what missions he was missing. What he’d missed with Ava in the past and since she was getting married, what he’d miss in her future.

  “Yeah, things change, I guess.”

  He wasn’t ready to dismiss what they shared or the moment that they had. He was willing to hang onto it until the sun came up, at least. “I always thought it was funny how in old movies like Peter Pan the parents weren’t all that involved. I mean, wouldn’t you realize if your kids flew from their rooms at night?” Maybe he thought as much because it was his job to notice details, big and small.

  “I don’t know. We certainly snuck around our fair share. Though not so much anymore. The queen has eyes on me no matter where I go or what I do.” She sighed.

  “Well, we’re here now.” At the same time, she shifted in the chair to face him and it squeaked. He wasn’t sure if she heard his comment.

  She asked, “What about your mother?”

  “My father never talked about her.”

  She looked at him a long while and his heart thundered in his chest. He thought of the kiss in the coffee shop, the way her shirt clung to her skin at the bakery and the way she looked right then under the starlight. Downright dreamy.

  “Your father said her name,” Ava said, breaking the spell.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lucinda Mayweather.”

  “How do you know that’s my mother’s name?” Henry asked.

  “You have the same eyes.” Hers glittered in the near darkness.

  Chapter 11

  Ava

  Like they’d done so many times, Ava and Henry snuck through the palace in the still, dark of the night. Of course, there were guards posted in various places, but Ava knew shortcuts and passages to avoid being seen. If they did spot her, generally, they overlooked it unless she was trying to leave the building. Though someone must’ve reported her little excursions abroad to the queen.

  Henry was as quiet as a cat and even caught the door to the palace library to stop it from squeaking as they entered.

  The dusty smell of old paper and leather filled Ava’s nose. When she was growing up, if she wasn’t outside or in the hidden rooms of the palace, chances were Ava would’ve been found in the library. In fact, during the days she’d outwardly clung to the hope that Henry would return, she’d spent as much time in there was possible because she knew that was one of the places he’d look if he’d returned.

  The benefit to going to the library was she had no longer had an excuse to ignore her school work. She’d never been a slouch, but when they were teens, Henry provided a lot of good distractions. During his absence she brought her marks up, landing her a seat at the University of Oxford. She was grateful for her education but would’ve preferred that Henry had never left.

  The other bonus was that she’d become familiar with the literary and reference collections as well as the artwork in the library. Careful not to turn on too many lights, lest she drew attention to their presence, she slid silently past the long table for study, the seating areas and bookshelves, and toward the back by the window.

  Ava clicked on a light, illuminating a painting of a woman with dark hair streaked through with hints of red. Her eyes were also dark and it was almost like they were looking back at the viewer, rather than simply being painted on canvas. She bore the pride and elegance of a noblewoman.

  Henry stood in front of the painting for a long time, studying it. His lips turned down. “Well?” he asked by way of explanation.

  “Meet Lucinda Mayweather Countess of Bracken Moor in the Scottish Highlands.”

  “Seems like a lovely woman, but—” Henry clasped his hands and stepped back as though distancing himself from the image.

  “It’s just a hunch, but I think she’s your mother.” Ava went on to highlight the resemblance.

  Henry’s hand landed on Ava’s shoulder. It was heavy and sent a thrill of warmth through her. She fought against a shiver of delight. When they were teenagers there was no denying their physical attraction and that day spent together proved that her body had not forgotten.

  “I appreciate your thoughtfulness and enthusiasm. I don’t know a lot about my father’s past, but my mother wasn’t part of the royal family. She’d died during childbirth and Dad, loyal to the monarchy, would’ve mentioned if his wife was royal.”

  “So you don’t think you could be related?” Perhaps it was too soon after Mr. Park’s death to bring it up. She should’ve waited, but there was no telling when Henry would vanish again.

  “My father wasn’t a man of means. They couldn’t have been together.”

  “But he was from Scotland.”

  “Which means my mother could be any number of women out of thousands.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but Ava didn’t want to give up hope that the name David spoke could lead them to understand something important about him or Henry or maybe life in general. Or perhaps that was the dreamer in her—the girl who’d travel to the fictional Neverland or Shangri La any chance she got to escape the trappings of the palace bubble.

  “My father was sick. Likely, his thoughts were muddled. He was just saying things. Nonsensical things. He wasn’t making sense, talking about true love and marriage. He just said a random name he probably remembered at that moment, Princess.” Henry’s tone was defensive but gradually softened.

  She wanted to believe that true love was real. Perhaps Lucinda had been David’s sweetheart. Maybe his dying wish for Henry to marry his true love was beca
use he hadn’t done so.

  Belatedly, Henry’s answer to his father’s dying request came back to her. It was a whisper. Hardly words at all. He’d said, “I can’t.” Ten years had passed. There was a good chance he’d found his true love outside the palace walls.

  He repeated it then as though in sync with her thoughts. “I can’t.”

  “You can’t what?” she asked, waiting for him to fill in the blank.

  Henry couldn’t marry?

  He couldn’t marry his true love?

  He couldn’t...what?

  “I can’t do this,” he said at last.

  “You mean you don’t want to figure out what your father meant or who you are? Well, I want to.”

  “No, Ava, you don’t.” The sentence was punctuated with finality, warning.

  Although he was as big and buff as one of the palace guards, he was also Henry. She had as much dirt on him as she did on her brother, though mostly it had been forgotten amongst the strong feelings she’d developed for him over the years.

  Still, she knew he didn’t like to put his feet on the squishy bottom of a lake, he wasn’t a fan of bumble bees, and no chance he’d go into the woods after dark.

  Fortunately for her, she was brave. As she was no longer a child or teenager, some may have said she was reckless or dumb—particularly true when she’d waded across a river in Bali barefoot at twilight as swarms of wasps buzzed in the trees above.

  Ava didn’t want to think about what Henry’s words of denial meant. She floated across the dim room, careful to avoid chair legs and lamp stands. There were several libraries in the palace, but that one was her favorite because it also contained the royal family tree and countless books, biographies, and logs of aristocratic history.

  Even though the tree didn’t catalog her biological family, she felt somehow connected to it, to something bigger than simply being an orphan.

  When it was clear Henry wasn’t going to return to the palace and playing pranks and kissing him was no longer an option, she’d taken to riding horses and when the weather didn’t cooperate, she’d read. Of course, she had other duties, but sleepless nights often brought her to the library where she’d escape into epic love stories—both fictional and real. There was also a share of tragedy in the family histories that almost seemed too unbelievable to be true. Second to the queen, she’d learned quite a bit about royal lineages.

  Unfortunately, she hadn’t paid attention to the lines of succession in her own country or the laws that governed heirs and heiresses.

  Henry still stood in front of the painting. Maybe it was moving him, drawing him into the mystery of his ancestry. Then he broke away, shaking his head.

  “You know, the queen has a major obsession with the royal heritage. You may have heard her mention Genevieve. A bothersome woman who claims she’s of Concordian descent. I believe she’s only been to my homeland once and that was to try to ruin Oliver and Penny’s nuptials.” Ava went on to describe her encounter with Genevieve at the ball when the queen named the royal-in-waiting who she’d selected to marry Oliver. Ava’s stomach suddenly churned with anxiety.

  She would be next.

  Next to marry.

  Her limbs practically shook.

  Henry appeared next to her, planting his hand on her low back as though to steady her. Perhaps they’d thought the same thing. That pesky hope of his return, which had led her on for a decade and then let her down, reared up. She gritted her teeth.

  He guided Ava to the mural on the wall, outlining the vast family tree.

  “Where are you on there?” he asked.

  “I’m not. Yet.” She swallowed hard. Chances were the queen would have her wed a member of the British nobility. Beatriz’s aim was always for gainful relations among nations and because Ava was Concordian, that meant she’d marry someone from England.

  “I suppose both our family trees are pretty small.” Henry’s breath whispered across her skin. He smelled like mint and man and cookies.

  A smile tried to appear on her lips, but like that stubborn hope, she forced it away.

  “You don’t know that about your family,” she managed to say.

  “My father never introduced me to any aunts or uncles. I didn’t play with cousins growing up.”

  Ava lifted onto her tiptoes to where the branch of the mural would’ve held the more distant relations. The mural was of an actual tree, rooted in a meadow. The branches were realistic with labels indicating the various births and marriages over the years. Penny and Emma’s names had recently been added, along with their husbands’, but they were quite a way up on the tree and the artist who’d added their names must’ve needed a ladder.

  She pulled over a chair to get a better view and stepped onto it. Turning to Henry she said, “I could eat a scone off your head.”

  “Come back down here, and I’ll eat a scone off your head,” he teased, indicating he was taller when the chair wasn’t involved.

  “Would you eat a scone?” she asked.

  He shook his head sadly.

  Henry had missed out on all of his father’s confections, notably birthday cakes and his famous cookies. David Park shared many recipes in his best-selling cookbook, but several were missing. She wondered if she could get ahold of them to give to Henry as a gift—not that he would actually eat sweets as it turned out. Who knew investment bankers were so strict with their diets?

  Ava stretched and said, “There they are. Emmaline and Penelope.” Her eyes skimmed the branches. Part of her wished her name was printed there, so she’d truly belong to the family, but not because she was being forced into an arranged marriage.

  He kept a light hand on her waist so she wouldn’t fall. His touch made her belly squeeze and she felt unsteady.

  Her gaze landed on a dusting of white, but it wasn’t paint. “Henry, look at this,” she said, pointing.

  He lifted his chin and leaned in. “That’s odd. It looks like flour was smeared on the wall.”

  It was as though someone had dipped their thumb in the white substance and smeared it over the name. When Ava brushed her fingers over it, it fell away, revealing the name Lucinda and the line connecting her to a partner read unknown.

  Their eyes met, swimming with questions. Then as Henry helped her down, his fingers wrapped around her waist. Warmth flared inside of her. His eyes darkened.

  The air in the room seemed to go the way of the past, along with everything that had stood between them.

  As she lowered onto her feet, still hand in hand, his pulse raced as fast as hers—as powerfully as hooves galloping along the trails surrounding the palace.

  “It’s late,” Henry breathed.

  She lifted her chin. “Or early.”

  The hands on the grandfather clock against the wall indicated it was past midnight but before dawn.

  The energy vibrating between them grew thick, building in intensity as the seconds ticked by.

  Facing each other, they had a choice.

  Henry could’ve leaned in. Ava could’ve met him halfway.

  He could have kissed her. She could have let him.

  Instead, he shuddered a breath and repeated, “I can’t.”

  She nodded. Maybe it was another woman. Perhaps he had personal issues. The hope inside her crept into the shadows. “Thank you for offering to get a pumpkin spice drink with me earlier.” What she meant was thanks for kissing me.

  He was quiet, which told her what he wasn’t saying, what she wished he’d say. I’m glad you kissed me back.

  She nodded and said, “Goodnight,” before sweeping from the room, but it may as well have been goodbye. There was no telling if or when she’d ever see him again.

  Her heart pounded, taking off at full gallop, and didn’t stop until the next morning when she actually got in the saddle and took Topsy, her favorite horse, for a ride.

  Chapter 12

  Henry

  Henry had become a master at falling asleep under unusual circumstances: on a train in Russia, while staking out a bank in Romania, and in a submarine off the coast of Tierra del Fuego in Patagonia. He also had the unique ability to sleep with one eye open—to be aware of his surroundings while also getting some rest at the same time.