nerves snapped. “As if you don’t know.”
Pain stabbed dead center in her chest at her father’s grimace of hurt surprise. She cursed Ferruccio with a new fervor. She’d never dreamed the day would come when she’d snap at her father like that. What made it even worse was that what once would have been a mere blink and tightening of lips had become a grotesque, one-sided distortion with the aftereffect of his stroke.
Her heart broke all over again at seeing the evidence of her once all-powerful father’s incapacitation. For her to be the reason behind even a moment of his pain was unbearable.
Her heart thudded as she watched him drag his weakened leg, leaning heavily on his walking stick as he limped to the first chair in his reception area and collapsed heavily onto it.
He sat for a moment, not meeting her eyes, recovering from the few steps’ effort, his breathing erratic. Then he finally rasped, “I knew only that you were meeting with Ferruccio earlier today.”
“The meeting took longer than expected.” She struggled not to let anger and bitterness taint her tone. She shouldn’t let Ferruccio’s words poison her against her father. She needed to hear how things stood from him before she made up her mind who to blame. “Do you know why he asked for me to be the one to negotiate with him?”
Her father exhaled. “If you’ve learned anything about Ferruccio, Rissa, you must know he never declares his reasons to anyone. But I had theories.”
She tensed. “And those were?”
“He’s…interested in you. He always has been.”
All tension drained out of her as if with a punch to the gut. “And yet you sent me to him.”
“Why are you so angry, Rissa?” Alarm suddenly entered her father’s steel-blue eyes. “Did he…upset you?”
“That would be the understatement of the year.”
Alarm was swept aside on a tide of fury. For a moment, Clarissa could see once again the formidable man and king who’d ruled for forty years, who’d made Castaldini a piece of heaven on earth for almost thirty of those. “What did he do? Tell me.”
As if she would. She waved it away. “What’s important here is that you knew he wasn’t interested in my professional acumen. Why did you send me to him when you knew he had a personal agenda?”
“Why would you be so against that?” Typical. He never answered questions, always volleyed one back. “I never understood why you were so…reticent with him. I thought it might be a good time to settle this. He’ll become my crown prince and your future king. And I wasn’t against the possibility of him becoming even more.”
As in her groom. Her skull suddenly felt too small for her brain. “So you thought the opportunity to indulge in some matchmaking had presented itself?”
“What father doesn’t take every opportunity to try to see to his daughter’s happiness?”
“And you thought Ferruccio, of all people, was the way to mine?”
“Who else could be, but someone like him?”
“There’s no one like him.”
“My point precisely.”
“Dio, Padre…” The lament of how deluded his belief was recoiled in her chest as a terrible suspicion descended on her.
What if this was some side effect of his illness? He’d told her he’d been forgetting things, had been unable to focus. What if this skewed thought he’d formed of Ferruccio as her Prince Charming was a delusion he was suffering from? Brought on by his brush with mortality, his current condition? What if he was scared to die and leave her alone, and he’d latched onto Ferruccio as guardian-angel material based on his power and affluence? Maybe fueled by Ferruccio’s expression of interest in her? Or maybe he’d gotten wind of Ferruccio’s pursuit of her and built this imaginary scenario around it?
If that was the case, she should let it go. How could she possibly berate him for wanting the best for her, blame him for trying to see to it the best way he thought he could?
It didn’t matter, anyway. What mattered was the real catastrophe Ferruccio had so coldly informed her was in progress.
She inhaled. “Is it true? Is Castaldini in danger?”
Her father blinked. “Ferruccio told you that?”
“Please tell me he was at least exaggerating.”
“I don’t know what he told you.” He averted his gaze as he said that. And she knew that every word Ferruccio had told her was true. “But maybe it’s time for me to tell you the truth.”
“Maybe? Dio Santo, why did you even think you should hide it from me at all? Padre, I’m a grown-up, PhD-holding professional, I’ve been elected a Council member by the people. How could you possibly keep something of this magnitude from me? How did you even manage it, when it seems everyone else knows?”
His lips twisted. His condition leant the grimace even more irony. “I may not be the king I once was, but my word still carries some weight. I demanded that no one tell you.”
She’d start tearing her hair out any second now. “Why?”
“Because no matter how much you’ve grown, how strong you’ve become, you’re still my little girl, Rissa. Because all of Castaldini’s troubles are my fault, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell you how big a mess your father has made of everything. I hoped I could fix it, and never have to admit it to you and see disillusion or disappointment in your eyes.”
Her tears gushed. She threw herself at his feet and hugged him around his waist with all her strength, sobs tearing out of her as she burrowed her face in his chest the way she had countless times during her tumultuous childhood, when he’d been the impenetrable fortress she’d taken refuge in. “You’ll never see either in my eyes, Padre. You’ll always be my hero.”
He tried to hug her back, managing to apply real pressure only with his healthy arm, the other one barely capable of smoothing her hair a couple of times before the tremors of weakness made him drop it to his side.
They remained like that, locked in the cocoon of their souldeep connection, the king kissing the top of her head and crooning to her the soothing endearments and the unconditional love that had once been the sole thing that had made her safe enough to sleep, brave enough to live.
Then he began to talk. “It began about ten years ago. I started to lose my perspective in external affairs, to slack off in internal ones. I made many enemies within Castaldini, making it easy for outside enemies to find openings through which to infiltrate our land, take a foothold. I am guilty of glossing over too much, hiding it from all but the highest ranks of Council members. Then I had my stroke. To the world, to the people of Castaldini, the only serious thing seemed to be the market crash, but that is only the tip of the iceberg of problems. I know what you’ll say, that Leandro and Durante are dealing with the financial situation, that things seem stable now.
“But it’s the calm before the storm. With Leandro and Durante regents only, with me still the king, a crisis is inevitable. Without a formidable crown prince and future king,
