Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79938 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79938 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
He had, but that was beside the point.
Theodore couldn’t know. It was impossible.
Phillip turned to face Dorian. Such a small-minded man, mean and ambitious. There was nothing wrong with ambition, but Dorian always reached too high, too fast, and he failed because of it. It was his ambition that resulted in his exile nearly twenty years ago—an order reversed by the current Crown Prince.
He checked his watch. The Crown Prince who would be there shortly. “They’re in Mary’s old house?”
“Yes. It’s owned by one of the many Mortimore sisters, but Theo is there with Galen and the girl.”
Dorian might be a monumental pain in his ass, but the man’s contacts were without parallel. Phillip paced to one side of the room and back. “You burned the clinic.”
“I saw to it personally. The records no longer exist.”
It wasn’t enough. Despite heavy bribes, the information was scattered and unreliable. There could be other copies of the records filed elsewhere. Dorian had his men do a cursory search, but just because they hadn’t found something didn’t mean it didn’t exist.
And if it existed, then Theodore would find it. He was too desperate not to.
Phillip glanced at the doorway Edward would be coming through at any moment. They had to wrap this up quickly. The boy was already suspicious, and the only way Phillip had placated him was to promise that Theodore and Galen could come home after he was crowned—stripped of their respective titles, of course.
He couldn’t let it happen.
As long as Theodore was in Thalania, he was a threat to the crown. The people loved him, and he’d been raised to rule. He couldn’t stand next to the throne without overshadowing it.
Without overshadowing Phillip’s influence.
He moved closer to Dorian. “This can’t go on any longer. Do you understand me?”
Dorian’s brows drew together. “My son might still be useful.”
The only person who could successfully harness Galen was Theodore, but telling the man that accomplished nothing. Dorian’s ambition lay in convincing his only son to wed Camilla Fitzcharles. Despite the offer, it would never happen—something Phillip knew when he proposed it—but it kept Dorian from getting any untoward ideas. “That’s fine. If you can find a way to separate them, do it. But my nephew and the girl need to be dealt with, Dorian.” If she was sleeping with Theo, there might be a chance she was pregnant and that was a nightmare Phillip had no intention of dealing with.
“Consider it done.”
“Good.” The door opened and Phillip turned with a practiced smile as Edward Fitzcharles walked into the room. “Good morning, Edward.” The boy took more after his mother than his father, lean and pale with a face that hadn’t quite lost the softness of childhood. Theodore had radiated personality from a very young age, sure of his place in the world, but his younger brother didn’t have quite the same presence.
The difference served Phillip well.
“Good afternoon, Uncle.” Edward dropped into the chair across from him. “What’s on the agenda today?”
Murder.
Phillip kept his smile in place as Dorian slipped from the room. If things went well, in a few days his little problem with Theodore and his woman would be nothing more than a tragic news story.
Galen woke as Meg climbed out of bed. He kept his eyes closed and his breathing even, curious about what she intended. Last night had been intense, to say the least, and most women would need some space after it. Or that’s what he told himself as he listened to her pad to the doorway and down the hallway.
It sure as fuck wasn’t rejection.
He rolled over and laced his fingers behind his head. It was early—barely five—but he’d get dressed and go for a run soon. As intense as the fucking was last night, Galen needed to burn off some energy. They hadn’t dodged any bullets by coming here. Theo took precautions to cover their trail, but ultimately, he was the exiled prince of Thalania. People paid attention to him, especially in Europe.
If he thought for a second it would have worked, Galen would have tossed both Theo and Meg on a plane and sent them somewhere safe while he hunted down these leads. It shouldn’t have been this difficult to get the evidence they needed, especially in this age of technology where everything was on the internet.
But try as they might, they couldn’t get concrete answers about Theo’s mother—about who she’d been before marrying his father.
About her first marriage.
It should have been as easy as a Google search and, failing that, contacting her family to obtain records. But both her parents were long dead and while one of her legion of sisters had maintained control of the family property in Germany, the rest of them had scattered to the four corners of the earth. It didn’t make sense, and their caginess when it came to talking about Mary set Galen’s teeth on edge.