46.2
Kev makes a sound in his throat, more like a 'heh' than a laugh, avoiding looking at me. "I'm sorry," he says. "I've heard it a thousand times. Just like you probably have."
"Yes," I say. "It doesn't change anything."
"No," he says, his gaze still fixated out the window. It's the first time since I've been here in Venici that I think maybe Kev is deeper than he appears at first glance. Until now, Kev didn't seem to have much running below the surface.
"And now they're both getting remarried," I say, my voice soft. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm not sure I've had enough time to get used to the idea.
It's not the fact that my mother is remarrying that takes some getting used to. She has certainly dated since my father's death. She even came close to getting married again, to a big Wall Street guy who ran a huge hedge fund. She called that off last-minute, which in retrospect, was a good thing, considering he was indicted a few years later for some white-collar crime I can't recall.
“Yes,” Kev says, looking at me, his expression serious for the first time since we met. “Do you think my father can compare to yours?”
The question takes me aback, and I can’t hide the question in my tone. “Your father is a king, Kev,” I say. “You’re literally the most powerful family in this country. And you’re asking me how your father measures up to mine?”
The question is ridiculous. My father was a self-made millionaire, who built an empire, a fortune from nothing. All of that was before I was born, though. I grew up rich, with the best of everything. I never wanted for anything.
But I know where I come from. And where I belong.
And where I come from is definitely not royalty.
“That’s what I’m asking,” he says, his gaze intense. “What I read about your father…his story…it’s amazing what he built.”
I can’t help but raise my eyebrows. “Your father is a king,” I say, my words clipped. Talking about my father, makes the car ride suddenly more intense than I anticipated. This isn’t what I expected when I agreed to a tour of Venici.
Being alone with the playboy prince isn't what I expected, either.
I look out the window at the countryside passing in a blur as we drive, the greens and blues of the landscape and the greys and browns of the stone cottages whizzing by, and try to forget the growing tightness in my chest.
“My family has ruled this kingdom for five hundred years,”
Kev says. “Do you know what that’s like?”
The question jerks me out of the melancholy triggered by thinking about my father. “Of course I don’t know what it’s like to be royal,” I say. My voice comes out harsher than I intend it to be.
“No,” he says. “But your father – I read the articles about him in the business journals. He started from nothing. That’s something, Isabel.”
“I don’t have a pedigree,” I say stupidly. I don’t understand where this conversation is going, but it makes me feel anxious. My father has been gone for a long time, and I can’t remember the last time my mother and I talked about him.
“Exactly,” he says. “Do you know what it’s like to do nothing? To have everything passed down to you, simply because you were born who you are?”
“I haven’t exactly had to earn my way in life,” I point out. “I’m not a plucky girl from the wrong side of the tracks who’s had to fight her way through life to get what she has. My father left me millions of dollars.”
“No, I don’t suppose so,” Kev says. “Except what did you do with the money?”
I roll my eyes and look out the window, breaking away from his gaze. I’m irritated by the thought that Kev seems to have looked up everything there is to know about me just to satisfy his damn curiosity. “I’m not some kind of Mother Theresa."
“No,” he says. “You took the money and set up a foundation, then went and spent two years in Africa working for a charity.”
“Yes.” I don’t elaborate. I’m starting to feel overheated, claustrophobic in this car with him. I don’t like talking about myself, don’t like being the center of attention, and Kev is putting me on the spot. I don’t need to explain to this man – this stranger, whom I barely know – why I left when I graduated college, why I didn’t take the trust fund and blow it on some fabulous lifestyle, the way my mother encouraged me to do.
“You should have some fun, Isabel,” she said, looking at me with sadness in her eyes. “You’re too serious. Life shouldn’t be so serious.”
She’d definitely never taken life seriously. Wealth, power, parties, socializing…that was what kept my mother going.
She couldn’t understand.
I didn’t want my father’s money. It was just a reminder of his death. And that’s the last thing I wanted to be reminded of.
Kev doesn’t say anything else, and neither do I during the rest of the car ride. Instead, I watch out the window as we pass houses that are closer together as we come to a small village. I don’t know what to make of Kev’s questions, except to think that maybe he’s not as flippant about life as I thought he was. I’m not sure if that makes me like him more or less.
