The Billionaire Prince’s Fake Girlfriend by Leslie North
15
Jane paced the room, wondering if she should take a risk and try to corner the queen without Ben in tow. It was hard enough keeping this secret from him—she felt like it was written across her face, and that he’d figure it out any second. Of course, all he did was worry about her, which was amazing, if somewhat frustrating. He was like a white knight, intent on righting the wrongs of the world. He’d probably make a wonderful king, she realized.
He’d make an even better husband, she thought with a pang.
Ever since seeing the signed check confirming that the queen knew what was going on, she knew she needed to talk to her and find out the full story. Ben was going to be so hurt when he found out that not only had his father cheated, but his mother had been complicit in the cover-up. After everything he’d been through, with that woman who had tried to trick him into marrying her, with his unshakeable moral compass and black-and-white desire for truth... this would break his heart. And Jane found herself desperately wanting Ben to not get his heart broken.
Still, how could she get a private audience with the queen without drawing too much attention? Dinner, with Ben there, obviously wasn’t going to work. Maybe he’d leave the room for a second, go to the bathroom? And even if he did, how in the world would she approach the subject? Simply blurt out, “Hey, I know that your husband had a child out of wedlock and that you know about it. Maybe you should tell Ben about it, before he finds out on his own and is crushed by the news?” That seemed ill advised.
She rubbed at her temples and the headache slowly brewing. She didn’t know what to do, but she knew that they couldn’t go back to London without him knowing this. She didn’t know what Ben might do when he found out. He was already committed to what he saw as “doing the right thing” when it came to his sister, so consumed by his father’s lie that he couldn’t pull back and look at the bigger picture. He was willing to torpedo his relationship with his father, hell, even the whole royal succession, just because he felt so violently against such a large-scale lie. She knew that he had issues with his father prior to discovering his infidelity, but his mother had been—he assumed—an innocent victim. Discovering otherwise would be seen as a betrayal, and given what she’d seen of their relationship, losing faith in his mother would be devastating.
She thought about her own mother, and the rocky relationship she had with her father because of his handling of the secret. She knew what it was like to come from a family fractured by deceit and secrets. She didn’t want that for Ben.
Before she could venture out and try to track the queen down on her own, Ben burst into the suite, surprising her. He looked frantic, his face pale and drawn.
“What is it?” she said, hurrying to his side, her heart kicking up its pace with concern. “Is it your father? Is he all right?”
“What? No. He’s fine,” Ben said impatiently, then shook his head. “I mean, he’s not fine. He’s had a stroke, obviously, he’s still ill, he’s still recovering. He wants to patch things up with me, make up for the past, can you believe?”
She actually could believe that. Illness made people re-evaluate their lives, she noticed. Still, it wasn’t what Ben needed to hear right now. “Are you all right?” she asked instead. “I’m sure that made you upset.”
He waved a hand, as if brushing the issue away. “I can’t think about that now,” he said. “Not until I get to the bottom of... all this. Of Jess and Kate.”
Jane swallowed against the sandpaper dryness of her throat. She wanted desperately to talk to his mother, but she probably ought to tell him, even if it would hurt him. Truth was best, and he trusted her. But he interrupted her.
“I found another damned letter,” he said. “I was going through my father’s nightstand, just getting his medicine, and I found it. A letter from Kate.”
She nodded, listening to him, waiting for her moment. He needed to get this out, purge his system.
“You won’t believe this.” He paused for a moment, and she had a sudden, horrible premonition of what he was going to say. “She asked my father to thank my mother—for helping cover it up! My own mother!”
Jane didn’t say anything, every muscle frozen.
“I can’t believe it,” he muttered. “All this time, I’ve been painting my father as the villain of this scenario—and trust me, he’s still on the hook,” he said sharply, fury in every syllable. “But I thought he was hiding it from my mother. Now, I discover that not only did she give her blessing, she’s... what? Committed fraud? How did this happen?”
Jane’s breathing went shallow. This was the nightmare scenario she had feared. He looked so completely unmoored, his eyes wild, his hair disheveled, as if he’d run his fingers through it frantically as he tried to process this news.
“Maybe… maybe she had a good reason,” Jane said slowly, her brain trying to come up with some way to head off his negative train of thought.
He stared at her. “Him, I understand,” he spat out. “He screwed up; he was trying to cover his tracks. But he cheated on her. Why would she possibly hide that? And all this time? Why would she be all right with keeping my sister in the dark?”
“I don’t know,” Jane said. “All I know is, sometimes it’s not as cut-and-dried as you think. You need to talk to her.” She took a deep breath. “Hear her out.”
For a second, he looked stunned, like she’d slapped him. His rant stopped immediately, and he held her shoulders, nudging her towards him, looking into her face. Reading her.
“You knew,” he said. “You’re not surprised at all.”
“Ben...” she said quickly, feeling heartsick.
“When did you find out?”
She bit her lip. “When I looked in the office. But I needed to figure out… I wanted to tell you, but I wanted to find out everything. I wanted to talk to your mother, fill in the gaps before I…”
She sighed. Before I hurt you with this news. And she’d known just how badly it would hurt him. She could read it on his face right now.
“So you held it back?” he said, sounding dazed. “Just… kept it from me?”
“I knew how hard this news was going to be on you...”
“You also know how I feel about lying!” he shouted, releasing her, stomping away and grabbing the back of a chair hard enough for his knuckles to turn white.
“You would have done the same,” she protested. “In fact, you did do the same! Didn’t you keep this whole investigation from your mother, until you had all the—”
“Don’t,” he interrupted, his eyes blazing. “Don’t try to make a parallel between what I was doing to protect my own mother from my father’s deception, and you just keeping secrets from someone you promised not to lie to. Someone you’re just working with to get a scoop to boost your career. They are not the same!”
Her mouth fell open. “I did not just do this for my career, dammit, and you know it!”
“You’ve lied to your co-workers,” he shot back. “You’ve broken into records rooms and rifled through offices and hacked into computers. You’ve pretended to be my girlfriend. You’ve had absolutely no compunctions about lying, cheating, or breaking rules to get the story before anyone else. So you tell me: how is what I did, to protect my family, the same as what you’re willing to do?”
She felt tears stinging at her eyes, and her mouth worked soundlessly as she struggled to find words in the face of his harsh judgment.
“I can’t talk to you right now,” he finally said, his voice sharp as a razor. “I need to talk to my mother and find out just how deep this goes.” He glared at her. “You might want to be packed by the time I get back.”
And with that, he turned his back on her, slamming the door behind him as he stormed out.
* * *
Ben strode down the hallways, almost blind with anger, until he got to his mother’s suite. His parents had maintained separate bedrooms for some time, he realized absently, especially since the stroke. It made sense, with the hospital bed. Now, he wondered what the hell was keeping them together. Had his whole childhood been a farce? Just a convenient arrangement? He knew that he’d always been closer to his mother—but then, he’d always thought she’d been truthful with him. It was as if everything in his life had gotten shaken like his father’s snow globe, with all the so-called facts of his life swirling around him in a blizzard of confusion and loss. He rapped hard on her door. Her assistant Lydia opened it. “Prince Ben,” she said, nodding.
“I need to speak with my mother alone,” he said, between gritted teeth. Lydia’s eyes widened, but she nodded again and fled. He shut the door firmly behind him, then stepped into his mother’s sitting room.
She looked up at him from a newspaper she was reading as she sat on a richly appointed sofa, her smile instantly shifting to concern. “Why, Ben! What’s wrong? You look upset.”
“How long have you known?” he ground out.
“Known about what?”
“That I have a half-sister.”
His mother went pale as a sheet. “Oh my God.”
“How long have you known?” he repeated, anger making his words sharp.
She stared at him, eyes wide. “How do you know about Jess?” she whispered.
Just like that, his heart felt like it had been hit by a sledgehammer. It was one thing to find out, but this? This confirmation? It was devastating.
“You kept it from me,” he said, a little dazed. “You’ve known, for years. And you kept it from me, and the world.”
He saw her throat work as she swallowed nervously. “I... it’s...”
“Father slept with another woman, and you were all right with that,” Ben said, knowing his words were harsh and not caring. “Just so long as the child remained a secret. How could you?”
She straightened slightly. “It was different then,” she said slowly, her eyes narrowing when he scoffed at her. “You know your father and I were in an arranged marriage.”
“Yes, I know.” They didn’t talk about it much, but he’d known about it, especially when his father had ascended the throne when he was a child, and he’d banned the practice moving forward. There had been grumbling in the royal court and in several of the noble houses, but most had been relieved.
“Your father was in love with a woman when he was in university,” his mother said, and her expression was sad. “They loved each other rather desperately, from what I understand, and would have gotten married... but your grandfather wouldn’t hear of it.”
“So he married you,” Ben said. “I get it.”
His mother sighed. “Well... sometime after college, Kate had fallen in love and settled down herself, but…” she trailed off. “Something happened, and Kate fled to Reinia. She needed an escape, supposedly. That’s when your father and Kate... reconnected.”
“Reconnected,” he repeated bitterly. “Funny word for cheating.”
She winced, and he felt a moment’s guilt. “I didn’t know they’d reignited their relationship,” she said, her voice sounding almost lost. “And I was upset when he told me that they’d had a one-time affair, even though they’d both agreed not to continue, and she went back to England soon after. But by then, it was too late. She was having a child, and she was certain it was your father’s.”
“And... you were all right with that?” Ben pressed. “Why didn’t you divorce him?”
“Because he needed me,” she said simply, and he gawked at her. “You don’t understand. He was still a prince, the royal heir. A divorce would have been a scandal, one the king would have punished mercilessly. There’s so much you don’t understand...”
“But it’s a lie,” Ben said.
She let out a long exhalation. “I love you so much,” she said. “Your father and I came to care about each other a great deal, even love each other, and we’ve done everything we could to make it work. You are my biggest blessing.”
He was torn, his gut churning with the pain of betrayal.
“But despite your zeal, your passion for righting wrongs,” she said slowly, “I do worry that, sometimes, you miss nuance. Nothing is black and white, dear.”
He blinked. “You may have cut the true royal heir out of her rightful place,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “And trust me, I’ve had someone lie to me.”
She sighed. “I know you had that unfortunate experience with that woman...”
“Alessandra was a noble,” he snapped. “She set me up. She lied, and when I confronted her, do you know what she said?”
His mother blinked.
“She had the audacity to make the argument that it was just what was done.” He wanted to yell. He wanted to break things. “That lying was no big deal, that cheating was commonplace. That I was somehow being childish, because I had principles. I told her that wasn’t the case.” He looked at his mother with scorn. “I suppose I was wrong, if my own parents can pull a con job on me that’s lasted my entire life.”
“Ben...”
“No. I can’t do this. Not now.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m going to go find Jess, and I’m going to let the world know about the injustice done to her.”
“You don’t even know her,” his mother said sharply. “We’ve spent years training you to take the throne. She could be a terrible monarch! Would you throw Reinia into turmoil to satisfy your need for fairy-tale justice?”
He reeled back. “That’s what you’re most concerned about?”
“I stayed married out of my loyalty to Reinia,” she said. “You don’t know anything about this situation at all.”
“And whose fault is that, Mother?” Ben’s words were frigid, but his heart felt like a pulverized piece of granite in his chest. “If you’d wanted me to make better choices, I should have learned the truth. About her… and about you.”
“Ben, that’s not fair.” His mother sounded miserable, her eyes brimming with tears.
He glared at her. “I’m sorry, Mother,” he said. “But we’re done here. Don’t expect me to trust you again.”
She started to cry, and anger and sadness and confusion churned in his stomach. Clenching his jaw, he forced himself to leave the room.
He was going to make this right, he thought. His father had cheated; his mother had covered it up, all in the name of political expediency. He was going to fix this for Jess, the half-sister who had paid the price for all this deception.
No matter what it cost him.
