His Princess (A Royal Romance)(103)

My God, what have I done?

Santiago de la Rosa.

My mentor. The deadliest, most expensive, most ruthless assassin in the entire world. When you need someone difficult to reach to get dead in a hurry, you tap Santiago de la Rosa. When you want someone to suffer before their end, you call Santiago de la Rosa. Others might inflict mere physical tortures, but Santiago has picked up another name in his long career. A whole string of them, really. The Saint of Agony. The Knight of Tears.

He’ll work for anyone if the price is right, do anything. I thought I was the same, but there turned out to be something I wouldn’t do, and because I refused, I brought this upon myself.

No one living has seen Santiago’s face. He always wears a mask, a simple black hood. I think he must have passed it down from person to person—I’ve talked to people who say Santiago did jobs for the mob in the forties, earlier. Maybe there’s more than one of them. I don’t know.

He’s a total cipher, even after knowing him for years.

It’ll be a point of honor for him. One of his pupils did not simply fail; worse, he refused to complete a mission.

I think about all this standing at the threshold of Rose’s house.

Karen stares at me.

“Mr. Mulqueen?”

“Yeah.”

I shake myself out of it and step inside.

“What are we going to have?”

Kids, always thinking with their stomachs. Rose looks as content as a cat in the sun on the couch. She’s changed into simple clothes—a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, no makeup, nothing fancy at all, but she’s so radiant I don’t know whether to stare at her or drag her upstairs and ravish her.

I guess I’ll feed her kids.

I feel like I’m walking through a dream.

Rose yawns behind me. She’s barefoot, wearing a baggy shirt that somehow slips off one of her shoulders. Her hair is bound in a loose ponytail, lying over the other shoulder. I can’t help myself.I flick it off and watch it sway behind her back.

“Don’t get, uh, grabby in front of my kids,” she says, blushing.

“Perish the thought. I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

I tuck her shirt back into place.

“Thanks,” she sighs. “Now, uh, dinner?”

I grin. I wasn’t really expecting to cook for them again but I thought I might have to, so I stashed some things here that would come in handy.

“What do you think you’d like?”

“I’ll ask the kids—”

“What would you like?”

She blinks. “Oh, uh, I… I don’t even remember what I like anymore.”

“What was your favorite thing as a kid?”

“My mother used to make us spaghetti and meatballs.”

“Fine.”

I shrug and start pulling ingredients out of the fridge.

“Might want to give the kids a snack, this might take a while. Then I could use a second pair of hands.”

Rose nods and fixes up something quick for the kids to eat while they watch television out in the living room, and returns to me. I have onions and garlic browning with butter in the bottom of the stockpot. The tomato paste and other ingredients will go in momentarily.

Rose hangs behind me.

“I don’t really know how to cook,” she says sheepishly. “I don’t think Russel wanted me to be anything but a trophy.”

She clears her throat. “Sorry, I shouldn’t talk about my ex.”

“No worries. What was he like? Must have been a real charmer to land you.”

She sighs and smiles thinly. “No. I was a freshman, he was my economics professor. He was so mature and charming, when my visits during his office hours turned personal, I was walking on air. I loved the attention.

“We started seeing each other outside of school. Just light social stuff at first, like we were friends. He made me feel special, mature and sophisticated. That turned into sleeping with him.”

She sighs again, deeper. “I got pregnant. He insisted I drop out. It would have meant his career. He insisted we get married. Stupid me, I obliged.”

She leans on the counter next to me.

“Here, bread crumbs and some spices. Start kneading them into the ground beef for me.”

She nods and chokes the salt and pepper into the beef like she has her ex-husband’s throat between her fingers.

“He was already f*cking another student before Karen was born. I didn’t find out until I was pregnant with Kelly. One of them showed up at the house wanting to see him.”

“Rough,” I say.

She nods.

“I should have been mad at her, I suppose, but I wasn’t. I mean, what was the difference between her and me? Would some other girl he was fu…sleeping with have been mad at me? I’m surprised it took that long for one of them to show up sniffing around after him.”

“Break those into balls.”

She nods and smirks a little. “Right. After that he apologized to me, and so on, and so forth. I was so stupid I thought we could actually fix it. I was twenty-three when Kelly was born. I didn’t know what to do. How could I be that young and have two kids? Without Russel I’d be helpless. I had no education, no job experience. I was trapped. I thought I could fix it.”

“I started working toward an associate’s degree at night. Once the kids were in school Russel insisted I find a job. I started out in a gas station. He didn’t care about the money. He wanted me out of the house so he could bring more of his students home while I wasn’t there.