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)
Theo glanced at Galen as they climbed into the car. “You found the backup files?”
“I found a place that might have the backup files.” Galen held the door open for Meg and then took the driver’s seat. “My German is rusty and we had to go around a few times, but the secretary claims that the fire didn’t destroy all the records, just their copies of them.”
Thank fuck.
Meg leaned forward. “If this is out of line, let me know, but… what records are we trying to track down?”
Theo and Galen exchanged a look. They hadn’t exactly decided whether or not to loop Meg in on all the details. Galen shrugged, leaving it up to him. He sat back. If she was involved enough to be in danger, she was involved enough to know the plan. “I was stripped of my rank because my uncle claims that my mother was still married to her ex when she and my father got married and got pregnant with me. While there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that I’m Teddy’s son, rather than her ex’s, the marriage wasn’t legal and so I’m not legitimate. With those considerations in play, I cannot be King of Thalania.”
Fuck if it didn’t still hurt to say it aloud. There were times during his teenage years where Theo wanted nothing more than to run away and leave the country to sink or swim without him. To hand off the responsibility that weighted his every step. To just be a normal civilian who worried about normal civilian things.
He’d made his peace with being the next King of Thalania in his early twenties, and he’d spent the next ten years learning everything he could from his father to be the best king possible. The one his people deserved. The weight never decreased, but he learned to bear it without complaint.
And Phillip had taken it all away.
Meg reached out and touched his bicep. “He waited until after your father passed, right? So there was no way for him to formally adopt you and make the whole thing legal.”
Smart girl. He nodded. “It was a brilliant play.”
“Not brilliant enough,” Galen muttered. “He faked it. There’s no way he didn’t fake it.”
“The marriage certificate dates hold up.” His mother had married an American, and he and Galen had tracked down the records and had them verified. There was no record of a divorce, and there should have been within the same state where they were married. For there to be no record meant it had never happened.
Which meant Phillip was right.
Meg gave his arm a squeeze. “So that’s why you’re in Germany—the birth certificate.”
“Yes. It was the one item missing from Phillip’s presentation that dethroned me before I had a chance to actually be on the throne. He’s not the kind of man to leave a loophole for someone to walk through, so there had to be a reason he chose not to include it.” A long shot for the record books, but at this point long shots was the only thing they had left.
“Hard to get a birth certificate from a burned-down clinic.”
“And yet that’s exactly what we’re going to do.” No guarantee that the backup records would hold the information he sought, but Theo wouldn’t leave Germany without at least trying. He stared out the windshield as Galen guided them down the winding road. Trees practically blocked out the gloomy skies that promised rain later in the day. Despite that, it was a beautiful area and he relaxed back into his seat. “If this doesn’t work, we’ll just have to set out to seduce Meg into marrying us.”
She let loose a satisfying squeak. “That’s not funny.”
“Who’s joking?”
“You are, you asshole,” Meg hissed. She smacked him, hard enough to sting. “You can’t say stuff like that, Theo. I know what this is. We all know what this is. Don’t pretend like it’s something else. It’s too cruel.”
He opened his mouth to contradict her, but Galen gave a slight shake of his head. Fine, then. Theo ran his hand through his hair. “I’m hurt you don’t want to keep us, princess.”
“Wanting something has nothing to do with the reality.”
He knew what she’d say next—a long list of their theoretical differences, starting with the number in his bank account. To Meg, his finances mattered more than anything she might share between them. It was interesting that she’d looked to Galen to help during that first argument. Theo could have been petty as fuck and told her that Galen’s holdings were double his own. He’d lost a lot when Phillip stripped him of his titles, all the money and properties, except what he’d had in his personal accounts. It was only because he’d enjoyed playing the stock market and was more than passably good at it that he had anything to his name at all.