A Love that Endures 3 Read online

  David took a deep breath. He couldn’t argue with her there. Mia went on.

  “Besides, who am I to tell her? I’m just a colleague. It’s possible that Cassandra has been slowly poisoning her against me for the past few years. No, Señor. She needs to hear these things from you: the man she loves and trusts. Hopefully even after all these years.”

  David shook his head to himself as he walked. Mia seemed confident that those feelings were still there in Katy. That confidence must’ve been the only reason she’d been willing to help as much thus far. But David couldn’t be sure. He didn’t know what he had seen in Katy’s eyes the night before. Was it love? Loss? Fear? Curiosity?

  He didn’t know. It had all happened so fast. And he had so much hope and worry mixed up about the incident that he had no idea whether his interpretation of her emotions was at all correct.

  “But how?” David asked. He hadn’t meant to ask it aloud. But it was so loud and obtrusive in his head that it had simply fallen out of his mouth.

  “That’s up to you. But if I had to make a suggestion, wait a while. Let the furor settle down. Then we try again when she’s in Esserby, hopefully before she gets married.”

  David already knew he couldn’t take that advice. He had to act soon, before Katy and Oliver left for Esserby and travel became a factor. He couldn’t keep relying on Mia’s money.

  Besides, what if Katy really does get married? What if Cassie or the king and queen are planning to rush her engagement along now?

  Mia seemed to have already made up her mind. “I can’t electronically transfer the money, but I can have someone meet you for a cash transaction. Are you at the camp?”

  But David was resolute in his response. “Mia, you’ve done enough. I’m already in your debt. Don’t worry about that.”

  There was a long silence on the other end. David wondered if Mia was feeling guilt or regret. He hoped she wasn’t. He owed her so much for what she had helped him accomplish, and he understood her reasons for needing to leave now.

  “If you’re sure . . . then take care, Señor,” Mia finally managed. “Adiós. For now.”

  “Goodbye, Mia,” David said heavily. “Thanks again.”

  * * *

  David stayed outside by the fire long after everyone else had gone to sleep for the night. His thoughts were too fast and frenzied to allow for sleep. Even Mick, who had sat compassionately through long stretches of silence beside his friend, had eventually tucked in. David was alone.

  The fires wouldn’t be necessary much longer. Spring was underway and the sun had been peeking out from behind London’s signature gray clouds more often. But David still crossed his arms and shivered as the fire burned down. Nighttime was the coldest, and that wouldn’t change until summer.

  In the distance, David could see a few of the less-sociable vagrants slinking about. Some were just too shy or angry at their situation to make friends. David had once been one of them. But others had mental illnesses or drug addictions. Though most were harmless, some were violent and frightening.

  So, as one silhouette inched closer to the dim light around David, he began to feel nervous.

  That’d be the perfect end to the day, wouldn’t it? Getting stabbed by a crackhead for my nice shoes.

  But as the man strayed closer to the firelight, David wasn’t sure if he should be more or less concerned. The tall, dark-skinned man appeared to be well-dressed. He walked with the casually elegant gait of a man with old money. And he didn’t seem afraid in a place like the homeless camp—which meant he was either foolish or tough.

  So which was it?

  Under David’s watchful eye, the man walked directly to his fire. David didn’t stand or speak. He wasn’t sure what he thought of this stranger, but he was beginning to worry that it might be one of Cassie’s fixers.

  Luckily the other man spoke first.

  “I’m looking for David Rosen. Is that you?” An accent that David hadn’t expected. But he wasn’t sure yet whether he could guess the source.

  “A little late to be looking for someone, isn’t it?” David countered. He still refused to stand. If this guy wanted to do him harm, he’d have to drag him up out of his chair for starters.

  But the man shrugged. “It’s still pretty early in Bahia.”

  David’s throat constricted with anxiety, and he couldn’t help taking in an anxious breath. Bahia . . . was this one of his uncle’s men, then? But why? David had stayed true to his word to Adriano. He hadn’t continued the search for his father! Who was this man, and what did he want?

  Thankfully, the man replied before David could decide whether to respond with deference or a challenge. “I’m guessing from your reaction that you are David,” he said, his voice holding a note of emotion that David couldn’t place. Worry? Caution? He took another step toward the firelight. “I didn’t come to hurt you. Don’t worry.”

  David’s breathing was fast and shallow as he examined the man’s face. It was familiar in a way that was hard to explain. But slowly it was dawning on him—if he wasn’t trying to do him harm or threaten him, if he wasn’t sent by Adriano or by Cassie—how this man might know him.

  As if guessing his thoughts, the man continued, speaking slowly, but surely. “My name is Marcos Moreno. And . . . I think you might be my son.”

  24

  Katy

  “David Rosen.”

  Late at night, across town from David’s homeless camp, Katy clicked the magnifying glass button on the search engine and waited. In less than a second, the query returned thousands of hits.

  “Royal Ex David Rosen Crashes Katerina’s Engagement Party!”

  “Notorious David Rosen Gives Princess the Scare of a Lifetime!”

  “David Rosen to Duke Oliver: BACK OFF! She’s Mine!”

  Katy frowned, shaking her head slightly. Too recent. She scrolled back up to the search engine and tried again: “David Rosen trial.”

  That was more like it. Now she had pages upon pages of hits that referred specifically to the infamous trial from five years ago. But, unlike the rest of the world, this was Katy’s first time seeing most of it. When all this had been fresh, she hadn’t followed the details.

  In fact, she’d almost completely shut herself away to escape it.

  The queen’s crisis plan, overseen by PR specialists from around the world, had required months of hiding out before Katy was supposed to be reintroduced to the public as a foolish but repentant girl. She was supposed to be presented as a reformed wayward child, someone who had become a cautionary tale by going against the grain and learning firsthand why it was looked down upon.

  But since she’d also be the Lorrellian ruler someday, she’d need to come out on top, better and wiser than ever. So, dutifully, she’d spent all of that time trying to work on herself, studying politics and economics and etiquette and fashion, practicing to be the perfect royal package of brains and beauty. After a few months, she’d begun to volunteer. The volunteering assignments had been pointed and pandering: a shelter for unwed mothers, an orphanage, churches . . . basically, anywhere that Katy could be expected to learn a lesson from her previous bad behavior.

  Still, she’d relished her time being able to help the less fortunate. And, after a few months of that, just as the crisis team had told them, people forgot the scandal, eager to focus on new and more exciting celebrity gossip. The world’s image of the princess of Lorria had been more or less rehabilitated.

  But Katy as a person? Not so much.

  What her crisis team and parents and tutors had never seemed to understand was that Katy needed support in more than just her public image. Her heart had taken a horrible lashing after the breakup—if you could even call it that when she and David had simply, suddenly, in the flurry of public outcry and impending trial, broken off all contact. Without a good outlet for her pain, with nobody to turn to who would even make an attempt to listen to her perspective on the matter, she’d bottled it all up. She’d repressed all of
the sadness and confusion and doubt so completely that she had trained herself not to even think David’s name. He’d been a liar and a scoundrel who broke her heart, and his presence in her life was impossible, always had been; there was nothing else to say about it.

  So she most certainly hadn’t ever gone traipsing around the web trying to find out where he was or what was happening to him. It had been too painful to even consider. Every headline, every piece of evidence just hammering in that she’d been wrong about him.

  But now that David was back and trying to communicate something to her, all those old emotions were rushing to the surface once more. And this time, instead of running, instead of taking other people’s word for everything, Katy intended to get to the bottom of what had happened and why.

  As she clicked on the first article, an encyclopedic entry on the trial which would hopefully give her the rough outline of how everything had gone down, she tried to clear her thoughts into something more cohesive.

  The way she’d seen it, back when she’d been trying to forget, there were really only two options: either David was innocent, or he was guilty. Either he was the loving, honorable man she’d thought him to be, and everybody in her family just refused to see it, or he was a liar, and she’d fallen once again for a man’s worthless promises of love.

  But the more she thought about it now, the less that reasoning made sense. What if David was a cheater but not a drug dealer? What if he’d sold the photos to the paparazzi but had always been faithful to her? What if he’d been framed in criminal court but was otherwise just as much of a cad as the gossip sites claimed?

  Should any of those options change how she felt?

  Passing judgment wasn’t simple, and the world wasn’t split between black and white, good and evil. Which was why Katy needed to figure out the whole truth before she decided how to proceed. And this time, instead of being totally unprepared, she wanted to have a basis of knowledge before she spoke to David in person.

  Assuming she’d even be able to find him.

  On the internet encyclopedia site, Katy read the basics of David Rosen’s trial: “. . . charged and convicted of intent to sell.” That fateful trip to Brazil. Katy and David had been so excited and nervous about the news. But could David really have been planning to commit such a horrible crime the whole time? Had he even cared about meeting his father, or was it all a farce?

  Had he even met his father? For the first time, it occurred to Katy that David could’ve been lying about the whole thing. Maybe he’d met up with people to start a drug empire and had never even intended to meet Marcos Moreno.

  But that was ridiculous! Strait-laced David just up and trying to become a drug lord? That’d be like Cassie telling Katy that she moonlit as a hitman. It was just ridiculous.

  Besides, Mia had been involved in the quest to find David’s father. She’d told Katy and David together about some of what she’d found. Mia would have no reason to lie and fabricate stories about David’s family. Especially since Katy had been the one paying her salary.

  Katy looked away from her laptop, resting her head on her hand, deep in thought. If Mia had no reason to lie, then why had she put her profession, reputation, and relationship with the royals on the line to trick Katy into meeting David at the engagement party? When she’d called Katy on the phone later, she’d been too vague, telling her to find David instead.

  But how? And how can I be sure that’s not playing right into somebody’s hands?

  Katy shut the laptop closed and tossed herself backward on her bed. She closed her eyes and pictured David as she had seen him just the night before: tall, gorgeous David. He looked just as good in glasses, and maybe even better than he had at Harvard, with his new, dark, manicured facial hair. She’d never seen or imagined him with a beard; he’d looked more mature, more sophisticated, if possible.

  Hearing his voice again had stirred something in Katy that she thought had died.

  She wanted to hear it again.

  But how much would you be willing to accept, if some of his story is true and some is false? Could you forgive the criminal acts? The selling of the photos? The infidelity?

  Katy squeezed her eyes even tighter. It was all so complicated and so raw. And worst of all, she had no one she could talk to. It was becoming increasingly clear to her that Cassie and her parents didn’t understand. And Oliver? He’d looked so wounded when he heard Katy calling out her ex’s name.

  In her own grief and confusion, she’d caused him such unnecessary pain.

  A text from him later that night had told her all she needed to know: “I’m ready to talk when you are. I love you, Katerina.”

  Still willing to love you after all you’ve put him through, and here you are pining over a convicted criminal! What is wrong with you?!

  She’d spent the majority of the day in her room, and everyone seemed more than understanding about it. They probably thought she was too shocked for breakfast, then perhaps too wounded for lunch, and then maybe too reflective for dinner.

  But Katy wasn’t any of those things. Not anymore. Now, she was a woman in desperate search of answers. Wherever they might be found.

  With that self-esteem-building pep talk, she pushed herself back up and opened her laptop to begin reading again.

  Over the course of the next hour or so, Katy got a better understanding of the case itself. David had claimed that he was being framed (though the news sites always seemed reticent to publish too much about his accusations). He claimed that evidence had been destroyed—and, of course, that was why he had nothing to back up his egregious claims. Katy was confused and frustrated. As she pored over the twentieth or thirtieth article, she heard her phone ring.

  Her eyes darted over to the device, being propelled about her nightstand by its own vibration, and her heart skipped a beat. Who would be calling this late?

  She sat up and grabbed the phone. It was a number she had only recently added to her contacts list, and she had to blink hard and reopen her eyes to be sure it was what it looked like.

  “Hello?” she answered breathlessly.

  There was a small pause on the other end. Then slowly, meekly, “Is this . . . Princess Katerina?”

  Cerise. David’s cousin from New York had finally returned Katy’s message.

  She mustered her thoughts. “Please,” she said, “call me Katy. Just like before.”

  But Cerise didn’t sound disarmed. “I’m . . . I’m, um . . . sorry. About not calling back earlier. Honestly, I was just really . . . nervous.”

  Katy nodded, though she knew that the woman on the other end couldn’t see the gesture. “Of course. Don’t worry at all. I totally get that.”

  “It was just so shocking to get your message after . . . you know.” Cerise paused. Her next word was heavy, meant to encompass more than words could. “Everything.”

  The women were quiet for a few seconds as they both considered their own individual pains and memories of the past few years. Cerise broke the silence.

  “But I’m glad to hear from you, Katy. What can I do for you?”

  Katy took a deep breath. She wasn’t entirely sure what Cerise could do, other than be there and listen.

  “I need to talk about David,” Katy said. And she had barely managed to say the words before the tears came flooding. She cupped a hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs, but Cerise knew.

  “Hey. Hey, Katy. It’s okay. I know. It hurts me, too. I saw what happened in the news and I’m . . . I’m sorry.” Her voice sounded ashamed and pained, like she blamed herself for what her cousin had done at Katy’s engagement party.

  “No,” Katy corrected her. “No, don’t be sorry. And I’m actually not upset about what happened. Not at all. I’m—” She swallowed. “I’m glad that I saw David. But now I have a lot of questions.”

  “Oh,” Cerise replied, sounding surprised. She quickly composed herself. “Um, yeah, sure. I get that. But . . . I don’t think I can tell you anything that you
don’t already know. From the news and stuff.”

  If only you knew how little I actually know.

  “That’s the thing,” Katy replied, feeling some strength flow back into her voice even though the tears were still wet on her cheeks. “I’m sure you know more than that, even if just a little. Zeke told me you and Joseph used to talk to David, right? I need to know what the news wouldn’t know or won’t report. Like what he was saying. How we was doing. His state of mind.”

  “I don’t know, Katy. I haven’t talked to David in years, honestly. He just stopped responding to our letters and stuff in prison, I think because his mind went to some dark places.”

  “But what about during the trial?” Katy went on. She didn’t want to be pushy, but she was determined. There had to be something. “Or when he still was replying? What was he saying? Who was he blaming? What was his defense?”

  Another long pause. Then, in a worried tone that made something twist in Katy’s stomach, Cerise asked, “Do you really not know?”

  “Know what, Cerise?”

  “That’s right . . . David said he couldn’t reach you, like your phone had been turned off or something . . . like his calls had been blocked . . .” It sounded like Cerise was coming to conclusions all on her own, without even speaking to Katy.

  “Cerise, what about my phone? And what did David say?”

  “Katy,” Cerise began, slowly and unsurely. “You just have to understand that I’m not passing any blame here. I don’t know if David was right or wrong. I can only tell you what he said, but please don’t hold it against me.”

  Katy furrowed her brow. The anxiety crawling over her was almost unbearable. “Okay, Cerise. I understand. But what did he say?”

  “David thought that he was being separated from you intentionally, so you’d marry a better match. He thought he was framed, and then cut off entirely from you, so you’d be confused or convinced of his guilt.”

  The back of Katy’s neck went cold with anticipation of what Cerise was about to say.