Her Return to King's Bed(68)

                “I left my father and Paulo packing and went back to our suite. Do you remember how you were? What you were saying?”

                “No,” he said. All he recalled clearly was the helpless anger that had had him in a choke hold, strangling him with a sense of helplessness that no King could accept.

                “I do,” she said softly. “You told me that if it was the last thing you ever did, you would hunt down those thieves. You would see them in prison for a lifetime.” She tightened her grip around her middle and held on as if clutching a lifeline in a choppy sea. “You said you would do whatever it took. That you and I would find them. Together. Then you asked if I had seen anything, heard anything unusual around the hotel.”

                “And you lied to me.”

                “Yes.” She swallowed hard and nodded. “I lied. To protect my family.”

                “Why, Teresa?” he asked, though he already knew the answer. Her father. Her brothers. Her connection with them ran deep. Perhaps deeper than the link she had had with a new husband and the promise of a future too vague to be real.

                “Because I couldn’t help you track them down, Rico. I couldn’t do what you needed me to do, but I couldn’t stay and not help you, either. I would have been living a lie every day, praying that you wouldn’t discover my secret.” She shook her head so wildly her ponytail swung behind her head like a pendulum. “It was a disaster. Any choice I made, I hurt someone I loved. I didn’t want to lie to you, but I thought that one lie was better than a lifetime of them.”

                “You should have told me,” he said, pushing up from the bed to lay both hands on her shoulders. “You should have trusted me.”

                She laughed now and the sound wasn’t musical at all. It was like shards of glass being ground under steel wheels. “Trusted you? I should have told you that the thieves were my family and please don’t prosecute?”

                He frowned at her as her words resonated inside him.

                “Would you have believed that I had nothing to do with the theft?” she demanded, all traces of tears gone from her eyes now, replaced by sparks of rising temper. “The first thing you said to me when you found me here was that you thought I had married you only to give my family access to your blasted dagger.”

                Now it was his turn to feel a rush of shame. Yes, he had convinced himself years ago that Teresa had only married him to help her family’s thieving. But that had never made sense and he’d known it even while he’d allowed the thought to drive him insane. The Corettis were, if nothing else, excellent thieves. They didn’t need to use Teresa. They’d gotten past his security and out of the country almost before he’d known he’d been hit.

                No, blaming Teresa had been his pride talking. The wound she’d left when she disappeared had festered until that convenient lie he’d told himself had simply been a way of deflecting the truth.

                That she’d chosen another over him.

                “You’re right,” he said, his voice hardly more than a hush.

                She blinked at him and shook her head. “Excuse me?”

                One corner of his mouth lifted briefly. Of course she would be surprised. He hadn’t given her any reason to think he would be on her side in any argument.

                “I said, you are right. I would have accused you. I would have been wrong, though.” He slid his hands up to hold her face between his palms. His gaze bored into hers as he willed her to believe him. “I know you weren’t a part of it. And I can even understand a little now why you made the choice you did.”