Royal Heir (Westerly Billionaire #3)(62)
“Would the truth change how you behave? Rachelle has told me all about your relationship. Not much of it was good.”
She’d been offended, of course. There were the expected threats, some even involving the contacts she was inviting to the ball she was still organizing with his father.
“What brought you here, Mrs. Westerly? What’s your endgame?”
“I told you—Rachelle.”
“She doesn’t believe that, nor do I.”
“I don’t care what you believe.”
He’d finally lost his patience and growled, “Rachelle loves you, but she won’t let you near anything she cares about. If I were you, I’d ask myself why.”
Their exchange had ended on that sour note. Like everything else he’d tried to accomplish that week, it hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped. His people had followed a money trail connected to Petek’s death back to Vandorra, but they were still working on who had hired him and then killed him off. Which meant the threat to Rachelle might come from any direction. She was presently better protected than he was, but Magnus wouldn’t sleep well at night until he knew why Petek had been hired to follow Rachelle.
All that was forgotten, though, each afternoon when he held Rachelle in his arms again.
In a week that felt like he could do nothing right, she was his reason to keep trying. The more he got to know her, the more he could not imagine his life without her in it. Tonight at the orphan reception, he would present her to his father in an official capacity. Magnus had made his choice, and if their week together was anything to go by, Rachelle had made hers as well.
He had little experience with labeling his emotions, but the more time he spent with her, the less he wanted to be away from her. Often while he was sitting in a meeting, his mind would wander to her, and he ached for her. Ached. He hadn’t known something could feel so good and so bad at the same time.
As Magnus drove toward his palace and Rachelle, he decided he’d attempt to put that feeling into words for her. She’d like that.
Or she’ll tell me how I should have said it.
He hoped she never made things easy for him. She was perfect just the way she was.
And since there was very little chance that he would change, he saw a future full of fiery debates and passionate makeups. The images that followed that thought had him speeding back to her. If he played it right, there was time for one more argument before the reception.
Chapter Twenty-Two
That evening Rachelle and Magnus entered his father’s palace through the front gate, met by surprisingly respectful photographers. After she thought about it, she realized she should have expected nothing less. His family made the laws here.
A member of the royal household welcomed them into the palace and briefed them on the location of the guests as well as the order of the planned events. There would be time to mingle with the guests before the arrival of the king. King Tadeas would say a few words, then circulate as well. Dressed in a dark-blue suit, Magnus looked like the businessman she’d grown accustomed to him morphing into each morning, but he held himself differently in this space. He became who he needed to be—someone of sophisticated etiquette and composure.
The reception was not, as Rachelle had originally feared, an act of manipulation. Planning for the event had started months before she and Magnus had even met. This formal cocktail party honored those who had completed building several satellite orphanages in the rural communities of Vandorra. Magnus had explained to her that their ultimate goal was to keep children, unless there was a reason to remove them from the area, as much a part of their original community as possible. Their goal was to build networks of support around the most needy rather than yanking them away from everything they’d known because it was easier. Magnus never took the easy road, and he didn’t look away from those who needed him. One day he would be a hell of a king.
Being on the arm of such a man would have intimidated Rachelle a month ago. She would have wondered why he wasn’t with a more beautiful woman or someone with better social graces. She would have felt like a fraud had he draped her with diamonds, but she’d chosen a modest, long-sleeved, dark-floral dress from a department store and paired it with classic pointed designer pumps. Yes, it was more formal than what she normally wore, but enough of her personal style that she felt comfortable in it.
As they made their way into the reception area, Magnus lowered his head and said, “Your grandmother is likely already inside. If you wish to show her respect, we should start with her.”
Although Rachelle had done her best to avoid Delinda for the last week, not wanting to give her a chance to fill her head with negativity, she nodded. At the end of the day, Delinda was family. “I’d like that.”
Rachelle introduced herself to each of the staff she encountered until she caught Magnus watching her. Only then did she realize the staff looked surprised by her friendly greeting. “Was that wrong?”
He smiled. “No, it was pleasantly right.”
Upon their entry, the volume dropped significantly. No one rushed to greet their prince, but several looked as if they wanted to. Some of the house staff dispersed around the room, and Rachelle guessed they’d instructed the crowd to wait to be approached by Magnus.
As expected, Delinda was not standing alone. She was surrounded by a healthy number of men and women, both young and old. Even in Europe, Delinda’s name opened doors, and the flock around her seemed to understand that well.