The Wild Heir(104)

“Here?”

“At home.”

Home.

It’s a word I’ve been trying to avoid. It’s a word that I’ve tried to lend to this place I’m in, the Vaduz Castle, the official residence of my father in Liechtenstein and the place where I grew up.

But now that I’m here, I know it’s not home.

As much as I’ve wished it could be since I was thirteen, as much as I’ve glorified and romanticized this place, it’s not at all what I remember it being. They say you can’t go home again, and it couldn’t be more true.

But it’s not because the place you used to call home changes.

It’s because you change.

This place, this castle, it’s the same as it always was. It’s drafty. It’s dark. It’s both gaudy and opulent and dank and depressing. Jane always says this place suffers because men always rule here, not women, and that could definitely be the case. And after my mother died, I guess things just became a little colder.

But when I was growing up, it was the only home I knew, and I loved it as such. When I was sent to boarding school it’s not that my new life was awful, although it was a bit lonely, it’s that I associated home with love and if I wasn’t at home, if I was sent elsewhere, I wasn’t loved. I longed after it, after my family, like someone longs after a lover when they’ve been given no closure. You always wonder what if.

Now I’m here.

I came right here after I left Magnus because there really was no other place to go. The university was no longer my home, which meant this was the only place that hadn’t changed.

But I’ve changed and now I can’t fit my parameters of my new self around this place and it can’t fit around me. I came here looking for support and love, something to bolster me after losing the life I had planned with Magnus. But that just doesn’t exist here.

It only exists in myself.

It always has.

Now I’m sitting with my father at dinner and while I’ve appreciated how kind he’s been with me and how I’m able to talk to him now more than ever, that we’re relating to each other in a new way, as adults instead of a parent and child, I know that he can’t give me what I’m missing.

Only I can.

“I’m sorry your brothers couldn’t be here,” my father says, dabbing a napkin at his face while a servant comes and takes the plates away. “They’re rather busy.”

“So busy that they couldn’t come to my wedding?” I ask. I know I’m being blunt and judging from the expression on my father’s face, I know this is a new side of me too.

“Yes, well,” he says and then sighs. He gives me what can only be described as a wince. “I’m sorry about that too. I know if your mother were alive, she would have hit them all upside the head and forced them. Actually, I believe if she were alive, she wouldn’t have had to force them. They would have gone because they wanted to. I’m afraid it’s my fault.”

“Your fault?”

He nods slowly, tapping a finger on the table. “Yes. I suppose so. You see, I…never really learned how to become a father. I was always a ruler of this land first and a father second and it was your mother who kept me in line and accountable. After she died…that fell to the wayside. I know I wasn’t a great father to you, and I wasn’t a great father to the boys. I taught them how to be rulers, but I don’t think I taught them to be good sons, or brothers, or men in general. And you, well I didn’t know what to do with you. I just wanted the best for you. You weren’t like them and I knew you wouldn’t rule, so I sent you away. And for that, I’m sorry. So many years I’ve missed.”

I’m going to cry.

Again.

For the millionth time in the last day.

Somehow, I manage to hold it together. “So, there was nothing wrong with me?” I ask, my voice breaking.

“Heavens no, Isabella. You’re such a bright and shining star in my life. I guess I just feel because I’ve missed so many years with you, I don’t know how to relate to you, I don’t know how to be a father. But I promise you…I’m willing to try.”

I know it’s not part of the proper etiquette or decorum, but I abruptly get out of my seat and walk around the long table to him on the other end, lean over and hug him from behind.

“Thank you,” I tell him. “I promise I’ll be a better daughter.”

He pats my arm and chuckles. “You can’t get any better, Isabella. Just be yourself. And for heaven’s sake, go back home to your husband.”

I let go of him and straighten up. “What?”

I hadn’t told my father I had come because of Magnus, but I guess it was a little more than obvious when I showed up with no luggage and no wedding ring. Though I swear I didn’t leave it behind on purpose.

He cranes his neck around to stare up at me. “I was married, you know. I know what it’s like. It’s work. Sometimes it’s fun work, sometimes it’s hard work, but a lot of the time it’s work. You just have to buckle down and get through it and come out the other side. Work makes a marriage stronger and more than that, it makes you stronger.”

Suddenly I feel horrible about missing all of Magnus’s phone calls, for turning my phone off. I still don’t know what we’re going to do, and it still eats me up inside and makes me sick to think about it. But I took a vow that said we had to stay together for better or worse. This is worse than worse, but shouldn’t I stand by his side through it all? Wouldn’t he do that for me?