Make sure I’m dressed?
I glanced down at my tattered denim shorts and braless breasts covered by only a thin red tank top.
Isla Reyes: ¿Eh?
Mamá: Tenemos invitados.
Oh.
We have guests meant I had to look presentable. My appearance and that of my three siblings has always been a direct reflection on our parents and always will be.
After slipping on a lightweight, pink sundress and a pair of ballet flats in a neutral shade that matched the natural tan of my legs, I quickly ran a brush through my long, thick, ebony hair that was still snarled from sleep, and swept it over one shoulder. The sudden command to come downstairs didn’t give me any time to put on any makeup, so I slicked a deep, red gloss over my lips in an effort to brighten my appearance a little.
Just before I slipped out of my room, my phone buzzed again.
Mamá: Prepárate, cariño.
I arched an eyebrow.
Brace yourself?
What in the hell was that supposed to mean?
As I made my way down the wide, curving staircase, I couldn’t help wondering if some kind of additional repercussions from my deep, dark secret had surfaced again despite Papá supposedly handling it for me.
Killing someone has a tendency to do that.
Even if it was in self-defense.
At least, I was told it was self-defense. I don’t actually remember doing it.
Upon stepping into the great room, however, it was immediately apparent that prepárate had nothing to do with the alleged self-defense killing that I can’t remember, and everything to do with the fact that he was suddenly in my home again.
Malachi Sterling, the Duke of Corwick.
My childhood best friend, my first boyfriend, and the love of my life, who had abruptly and without warning ended our relationship and cut off communication with me ten years ago.
All of the oxygen sucked out of my lungs. I stopped short in the doorway to the great room, and my knees turned to jello so quickly that I had to grab the edge of a side table to keep from collapsing.
Despite the fact that I honestly believed I was on the cusp of a heart attack, I had to pull myself together. These guests demanded even more propriety than was typically expected of me, because Malachi wasn’t alone.
His parents were perched rigidly on the ornate sofa on either side of him.
Andrew IV and Deirdre Sterling, the King and Queen of Corwick.
Despite all of my personal secrets, there were none in this room about Malachi’s and my history. I’ve known all three of them, plus their other son, Philipp, my entire life. Long ago, these people had loved me. Something huge changed, and it’s as much of a mystery to me as the missing time period during which I killed someone in alleged self-defense. Because of that, the Royal Sterlings merely kept their seats and regarded me with unreadable eyes and stiff upper lips.
Mamá came to my aid and met me in the doorway, pressing her palm to my back and guiding me into the room.
“Relaja tu cara,” she whispered into my ear, and I instantly followed orders, forcing my face into a neutral, pleasant expression.
We paused between the opposite couch and the large armchair where Papá was seated, looking way too delighted for such a meeting.
I offered a slight dip of both my knees and my head. “Your Royal Highnesses.”
Andrew and Deirdre nodded in acknowledgement. Malachi merely stared. Hard. Like he was trying to spear me with the steely-pewter of his irises, his sharp, distinguished, stubbled jaw pulsing while a strand of his tousled, inky-black hair fell over his eyes. He never looked at me like that before.
The last time he looked at me, he was twenty years old and had tears in his eyes.
“I can’t deal with this separation anymore.” Large, but soft, warm palms splayed across my cheeks while he kissed my tears away. “I’ll drop out and rescind my title, and we’ll run away together. We can go somewhere deep in the middle-of-nowhere USA, where nobody will ever find us.”
“You know we can’t do that,” I eked out past a lump in my throat. “You only have a year left, and then you’ll be able to move back here while I finish. We can do this, Malachi. It’ll be over before we even realize it, and then we’ll be married and never have to be apart again.”
He lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me deeply, lips parting and tongue probing as he pushed my back against the wall. His driver was waiting patiently at the curb to whisk him off to a private airstrip where he would board one of his family’s planes back to Corwick. Malachi took advantage of the fact that his transportation was at the mercy of his own personal timing and hiked up my skirt to my hips. After two seconds of blindly fumbling at his belt and fly, my hand was wrapped around his thick, rigid cock as I hastily guided him to thrust into me. We’d had our “goodbye sex” less than an hour prior, but such was our inability to keep our hands off each other and how hopelessly in love we were.
The last time we ever made love, it was Malachi fucking me against a wall while I mewled and moaned and wept against his neck.
“I love you so much,” I cried. “I’ll miss you every second.”
“I love you, my Isla,” he returned through gritted teeth. “World without end and beyond my last breath, I will love you.”
Ever since childhood, Malachi always had the most poetic way with words.
“Tell me again,” he graveled against the skin of my neck, “Say it again.”
“I’m going to marry you.” The promise we made when I was only fifteen and he was seventeen, and we lost our virginity to each other the night before he left to start attending his private university in Corwick. “I will be your wife. You will be my husband. Once we’re reunited, nothing will ever separate us again.”
He gripped my hair and angled my head backward so he could drag his teeth across my bottom lip. “My duchess. My wife. My heart.”
Staring at him ten years later while Mamá nudged me to sit down, I wondered when the last time was that he thought of that moment. I thought about it all the time.
I still do.
Papá cleared his throat and tugged at the lapels of his deep maroon blazer as he leaned forward to reach for documents on the coffee table that I’d been too distracted to notice. “Mijita, today is a blessed and joyous day.”
I glanced at him.
Is it really? I wanted to ask. Did Malachi bring his parents all the way here to explain himself and apologize for ghosting me a decade ago?
I remained silent, and he continued.
“I have been in discussions with their Royal Highnesses for a number of months about concerns they have regarding providing free internet access to all the citizens of their beautiful country,” Papá continued. “We have come to an agreement that would provide…”
His words faded to a hum behind the thump of my pulse in my ears because I suddenly knew exactly what was happening.
After all, it had already happened to my younger sister, Graciela.
Papá is the founder and CEO of United Media Group, the second largest media conglomerate in the United States, and also a ruthless businessman. A few years ago, he saw an opportunity in Kilgore Enterprises, which owns the major newspapers for thirty-six major US cities. At least they did, until Graciela married Agustin “Auggie” Kilgore, the grandson of CEO Waylon Kilgore. After that, Kilgore Enterprises was swallowed up by UMG in one of the largest media mergers in recent history. All made possible by a very convenient marriage between my sister and Auggie. Papá has made it no secret that all of his children’s marriages have to behoove the bottom line of his business, because it’s supposed to belong to the four of us one day.