Page 21 of A Ring to Claim Her Crown
‘I do not cheat, Minerva. I pay attention to the details, in contracts and in people. How do you think that I went from deckhand to owner in less than a decade?’ He met her gaze, taking the cocktail stick from her drink and popping the lush cherry into his mouth with a flourish.
Minerva walked to the railing and watched the edge of the palace grounds fade into the distance. She had no idea where he was taking her, no idea what he had planned. This date was turning into a living nightmare for a woman who lived her life on schedules and detailed itineraries. She had come here to take control and had wound up quite literally being swept away at Liro’s will. She looked back to where he was watching her, his gaze completely unreadable, as usual.
Perhaps he was planning for some kind of poetic revenge. Perhaps Liro had hidden his cruel streak well and planned to steal her away, like the pirate she had accused him of being.
She shouldn’t have felt a small thrill at that thought...and it had absolutely nothing to do with her capitulating and sitting back down on her seat.
Absolutely nothing at all.
Minerva remained mostly silent throughout their journey. It gave Liro more time to look at her, to think through exactly how he was going to talk about their past—something that he now knew he was going to have to do. As they disembarked onto a whitewashed marina and he guided her towards the street above, he had no need to slow down his pace, considering she almost matched him in height. She matched him in so many ways.
Minerva stood with her hands on her hips, eyeing up a small food truck surrounded by wooden picnic tables in the small seaside village where they’d docked. ‘You sailed me across the sea to a mystery location...for food truck paella?’
‘Thebestfood truck paella you will ever taste.’
He waited a breath, fully intending to haul her back to the yacht and return her home if she ever actually said the words. But so far she had made a lot of eyes and grumbled but had not demanded to return. If anything, he felt she was relaxing into not being the one in control for once. As if she was almost enjoying their back-and-forth, just as she had when they’d been young.
Back then she had been the one who’d needed to be in charge, and he had simply gone along with it, happy only to be near her. So many things had changed, but the sudden smile that transformed her face was so youthful and reminiscent of that younger her that he remained frozen in place for a moment, almost forgetting that he was the one in charge of this date, until she nudged him.
‘This is your second course and, yes, Iamkeeping track.’ She looked around, her eyes landing on a large tourist sign proclaiming this quaint port town to be ‘the Gates to the Cisnerosi Capital of Lodeta’, which was a short drive away.
If she was surprised that he had brought her to his old home country, she didn’t show it much. The only thing that had almost got a reaction out of her was when he’d presented her with a worn baseball cap and plain dark sunglasses.
‘I’ve brought you here because, considering the history between Cisneros and Arqaleta, it’s the last place anyone would think to find you. I wanted to give you something you haven’t had a lot of: privacy.’
She looked around at the crowds of people passing them by and he could feel the tension rolling off her. He knew she had travelled to the Olympics, but always with a heavy guard. She had never been allowed to sleep in the team hotels or go out for spontaneous drinks in a crappy bar.
She’d lived her life on a leash.
He’d lived that life too and he’d despised every moment.
‘Have you not been back?’ she asked, looking around at the people eating at tables and looking out at the sea.
‘I’ve been in the bay while overlooking my development plans here, but I never got off the yacht. I don’t care if people recognise me. I don’t need their forgiveness or adoration for all the work that I’ve done in fixing what my father ruined.’
His father had run their kingdom’s economy into the ground through corruption, so it had been no surprise when people had mounted a coup. Liro hadn’t known until it was too late, until the announcement of Minerva’s and his betrothal was almost forced upon him by his father. And he’d rather Minerva suffer a broken heart from abandonment than have her name sullied by his father’s sins and be bound in matrimony to Liro for ever. His father had died before he’d been brought to justice but his oldest brother, the crown prince, had spent some time in prison for the part he’d played. Liro hadn’t spoken to either of his brothers since he’d left. Something a part of him regretted, despite their fraught childhood.
‘I wish that I still had roots somewhere. Before my mother’s death, things were different. He loved her and she calmed his worse impulses somewhat. I spent all of my childhood here, I grew up in this kingdom. But sometimes it feels like they erased my entire existence overnight.’
‘When was the last time you actually set foot on Cisnerosi land?’
‘I came back for the first time after being at sea for five years. I realised that I looked different and people didn’t recognise me. And I liked it. So, I didn’t tell them who I was, and I walked among them as a stranger in blissful solitude. And then, when the time came to set up the company, and as my success grew, I just kept burying my old self over and over until he no longer existed to me either. None of my family did.’
‘Family is more than just blood. You can be close-knit without sharing an ounce of DNA, just as you can be hurt most by the people who gave you life in the beginning. I learned that with my dad—you can’t choose who your parents are.’ She exhaled slowly, folding and refolding the napkin in her hands. ‘But you can choose how much of yourself you give them. The hardest thing I ever did was let go of my hope that one day I would have a relationship with him after what he did. Trust is a hard thing to rebuild once it’s been broken by someone you love.’
Her words sat heavily in the air between them and Liro couldn’t help but understand their meaning deeply.
‘To our fathers.’ Liro raised his glass.
After they’d finished eating, Liro took her to the funfair that had taken up residence in the town square for the summer. They walked through the fair and Minerva tried not to be nervous as people walked close by, jostling her shoulders. It was strange, walking with complete anonymity this way. Liro insisted that they try out the games set on stalls dotted throughout the fair, hooking ducks upon a stick in order to win tiny soft toys. He won quite a lot of them on his first try, and kindly donated the toys to a group of children that had been standing watching nearby.
‘That was kind.’ She watched the children scamper away, taking their laughter with them.
‘Your turn now.’ He gestured to the next stall of carnival games.
‘Darts?’ Minerva raised one brow.
‘It’s not a bow and arrow, but I believe the practice is the same. Try to hit the pointy stick into the red dot.’
