Chapter 498) Revelations

rev·e·la·tion [ˌrevəˈlāSHən] | NOUN | revelations (plural noun)
- a surprising and previously unknown fact, especially one that is made known in a dramatic way
- the making known of something that was previously secret or unknown

Somewhere in time I know
Darling you’ll come back to me
Roses will bloom again
But Spring feels like eternity
In your kiss it wasn’t goodbye
You are still the reason why
.
I can hear you whispering in the silence of my room
My heart still surrenders like the sun to the moon
I can barely stand this aching, burning endlessly
“Love me now forever,”
Were the last words you said to me

(‘The Last Words You Said’ “Sarah Brightman)

Del Sol Valley
Villa ViVa

This chapter might be one of the craziest ones I have written for you to date, be forewarned it will have a shocking ending you never saw coming, but I will start this chapter with me sitting between my dad and big brother Nick, both with piles of documents in front of them, across the table from Jack at my parents’ mansion in Del Sol Valley.

Oh man, things with Jack had taken a turn and not the way I had hoped. During my increased traveling – I figured I get all that wanderlust out of my system before I get too pregnant for it, and once the baby was born, that was gonna be over with for a while – I ended up surprising Connor & Keira with a visit, except I ended up being the surprised one to find Jack lounging by their pool, their dog Morpheus peacefully snoring next to him. Morphy was a sweet dog if he knew you, but he just really didn’t do strangers at all, so unless he knew you well, it was not wise to be alone with him without Connor present, especially not on his home turf. Let me speed through the rest, just know this took months to unfold, there were many more facets to this, but forgive me for not wanting to rehash every bitter little detail. So, left with no other option, Jack came clean to me about his checkered past, the reason he and Morphy were besties was because he had come to stay with Connor and Keira a few days at a time for many weeks now to attend therapy for his PTSD, organized for him by Connor. In an attempt to do my part to help Jack deal with the ghosts of his past, I went to my Aunt Fallon and Uncle Bear, who ran a personal security and investigations firm in Del Sol Valley. They found Jack’s son, a 16-year-old-teen named Jackson. As father and son inched closer, every step took Jack farther and farther away from me, I saw it happening and could do nothing to stop it. The road to hell really was paved with good intentions. For whatever reasons Jackson and I just could not get along, fire and ice, which ended up the kiss of death to my relationship with his father, Jack was-dead set on righting this one wrong from his past even if the cost was I. So, we broke up. My lawyer dad wrote up some agreement regarding custody for the unborn child, since our situation was so complicated.

Leads me to the here and now. Jack and I were to sign something saying that while I would maintain the main rights, such as permanent custody, Jack would have rights to see the child often. To avoid future issues, a DNA test was to be filed along with the petition.

“AG, the test results for our files please…” I heard my dad’s voice echo into my mental ramblings.

“Oh, right.” I dug around my purse for it, then handed the document to my father, who took it, flipping the envelope back to me between two fingers.

“You haven’t even opened it?!”

“What for? I know what it will say. Just go ahead.” I shrugged off the formality.

Dad did, straightened out the paper, handed it to Nick, who had gotten up and was about to take it to dad’s home office to make a copy of it for the second stack of documents, when he halted, plopping back down in his chair, staring at the letter.

“Umm … hang on … what the …. AG?! ‘splain please!” his face changed as he handed me the paper.

I looked at it and felt all the blood in my body go to my head, pounding hard as dad and Nick stared at me, dad now peeking over my shoulder, as did mom, who had been observing from the distance.

“Oh, for flying fucks sakes!” mom exclaimed, as she plucked the document from my hands to look at it closer, as if that could change the contents.

“What is it?” Jack wondered, so my mom handed him the paper.

Jack’s reaction was rough. He jumped up, the chair nearly fell over, so he caught it and slammed it into position as he glared at me.

“Is THIS a joke?! What the fuck does this mean?! …Mr. Jack Kershaw has a zero percent possibility of paternity?!” he roared.

Oh, WTF indeed?! ~Me. I thought, while my brain was riding a vicious roller-coaster going nowhere and fast. What the actual …?! I blacked out, my recollection of the next moments is non-existent.

All I remember is a dull roar, I barely noticed the scuffling, totally zoned out, by the time my mind cleared a little I had a glass of water before me, Jack was gone, evidently dad and/or Nick had kicked him out. Now everyone was looking at me. No, they were downright staring. I got up, as if that helped anything.

“AG … what the fuck?! You really should have done this long ago if there was any shadow of a doubt. Definitely before the baby shower where Jack was officially introduced as the father! This is not going to leave you smelling like roses, AG! Mom and I raised you better than that! I am not happy about any child of mine partaking in the ‘who’s my baby daddy game’! This was humiliation for the entire family, especially for you, and a slap in the face to your mom and me, and a kick to the balls for Jack, while your mother and I have never been his biggest fans, he did not deserve to be shown up like this! Shame on you! So, who is it, if not Jack?” Dad ranted, while mom and Nick seemed speechless.

I shrugged. Oh God, not Mauro Conti. Oh, hell no! I thought having Jack as the father had been bad news, but this was way worse! Not only had he been married throughout our entire affair, unbeknownst to me, mind you, he already had kids from previous wives, the current wife and some mistresses. Now I was gonna be another one of those. Oh shit. Proof in point that things always could get worse.

Well, let me cut through that chase. All the next days brought was humiliation for having to find Mauro again, confess my fears only to have him tell me that he had a vasectomy many years ago. Dad knew from personal experience that those weren’t foolproof and dragged us to a testing center anyway, only to find out it wasn’t Mauro either. Oh, I was so humiliated. You have to understand, I have never been promiscuous in my life, always kept my legs closed, unless I was genuinely in love or, in Mauro’s case, very heartbroken looking for reaffirmation and some fun. There was one time in my life where trauma had me make some bad choices. But still, this was not something that should happen to someone like me. Ironic, really.

But it gets better. Oh, we are just getting started here.

Henford-on-Bagley
Cromwell Castle

So, now I am at Cromwell Castle, yes, I wrote and meant castle, Max had all the Cromwell wealth and possessions the government once seized returned to him. A REALLY long story, I’ll try to sum it up as short as I can for you.

Max had been very involved in politics ever since his royal title had been taken from him, just like his brother-in-law, the former Crown Prince of Tartosa, Gaetano Rinaldi, and as it turned out now, that had been strategy all along. Both countries were small, tiny even, their main source of income had always been tourism, which took a serious hit after the main attractions, the royals, were no more, people who made a living from tourists were suffering, the governments couldn’t fix it, so the Cromwells and Rinaldis got the chances they had been waiting on when by majority vote the good citizens of both countries demanded the return of their beloved royalty, hoping to respark the much needed tourist trade.

Max and Gaetano won the proverbial battle and the war at last; both employed a horde of lawyers to make sure that there would never be a way to take their castles and power from them again before they each gracefully accepted the restored royal status of their respective countries. They were not technically kings yet, but the official coronation dates would be sometime early the coming year, late Spring or early Summer.

You knew my feelings about all that, I kept them to myself, too mentally exhausted from the entire Jack-dilemma-downward-slope I had been on for months until it all blew up in my face a few days ago. Plus, the kids loved the many classes they had to go to now to be proper prince and princess of Henfordshire, both tried to outdo each other demonstrating all they were learning for mommy. Admittedly, that was VERY cute. Max was happier than I had seen him in years. As he pointed out, he was always meant for this, bred and raised for it. His purpose in life, aside from being a husband and father, according to him. He had been a leaf in the wind ever since it was taken from him.

I was genuinely happy for him. Moreover, the craziest thing was, I sincerely enjoyed being back at the castle. Especially my old happy place, the castle gardens.

Max took me walking there often, probably because he knew I loved them so, and I enjoyed the walks and the company more than I ever had enjoyed any other walk in my entire life.

As we passed the bench where back when we both were in college, he finally told me who he really was, I started crying, Max consoled me, feeling his warm, firm body so close to mine reminded me of the gigantic bomb I had to drop on this poor, unsuspecting man.

I pulled away and cleared my throat.

“Max, I have something to tell you, and this is going to be very crazy. I recently found out that Jack is not the father of my baby after all. Neither is Mauro. That only leaves one option and while I realize it’s very iffy considering the news, I would like for you to be tested. Just pro-forma, there is no doubt left at this point. There was nobody else. Thank God.”

Max stared at me, then smiled, which confused me.

“Max, I don’t think you understood me.”

“Oh, but my love, I understand just fine. I will be a father again. I must say, that is the most unexpected gift, most welcome too. Of course, I’ will have someone discreetly arrange for the DNA test posthaste.”

“You are taking this a LOT better than I ever dared dream you might. I am still flabbergasted as fuck myself. And what about Charlene?” I told him.

“What about her?”

“I am sure she is planning to shower you with kids once you make her queen.”

Max gave me a strange look, chewed on his lip for a second, then looked at me again.

“Charlene and I are no longer. We were never at the level of intimacy you seem to think, Aria-Grace. You know me better than that. Unless my heart is in it 100%, I would never risk a potential pregnancy. I knew I was not ready for such a step with her, and I knew I was working on restoring the Cromwell lineage back to it old glory, which took precedence over building a new relationship I frankly wasn’t ready for. Besides, I am not certain she would have made an appropriate partner, which surprised me, but only confirmed that fine breeding does not always a future queen make. There is a reason she is the only one in the entire highly esteemed Ashford line who spent most of her youth in boarding schools. Her beauty overshadows the fact that she is the black sheep of that family. I can’t have my partner behave outrageously or start smooching around on me at random in public once I am king. That would be extremely inappropriate, and she hasn’t heeded my request on that matter so far, which frankly, has turned me off her. There are boundaries that come with the crown, as you well know, at least in public, and Charlene seemed to prefer public locations for her unnecessary not to mention most unwelcome displays of affection, or dare I say possession.”

“Oh, hear, hear. I thought you just loved all the nauseating he’s-all-mine tongue-in-mouth-rapings by her! Especially since she liked to do it right in front of me.”

“Me? Have we met? No, I did not particularly enjoy that, initially I thought it was just the freshness of the relationship, soon it got old for me, and is the reason I chose to always travel without her. And yes, I was always aware why she wouldn’t miss a chance for such displays in front of you. Frankly, just another turnoff for me and ultimately the reason I ended things between her and me.”

“Interesting. A man who doesn’t like oodles of affection and sex from a beautiful woman. Now I have seen and heard it all.” I teased, strangely elated by the news of his breakup. Bye Felicia! Or better Charlene. Ugh, thank goodness!

“Now now, I would never claim such a foolish thing. I do enjoy all the above, very much actually, and even in large quantities, just at the appropriate time and in the proper places. As you would know, I don’t recall a single time I ever said no to you, here’s to hoping my performances were even memorable enough. Then again, I never heard any complaints from you during or after.” his boyish smile made him look absolutely cute. Playfully, I fanned myself, acting outraged, while hiding a smile.

“I do declare – sexual innuendos by His Almost-Royal-Again Highness now too? Oh boy, I need to stay away from you, my Cameron is sullying your prim and proper royal Cromwellian ways.” I giggled, Max laughed.

“If I were to sound Cameron all I said would have been laced with foul terms and probably some demonstrations as well. Aside from that, I had plenty of time and reason to thoroughly rethink my – as you put it – Cromwellian ways and like to think my attitude there has changed for the better, since the old ways cost me dearly. I am merely being honest with a person I know I can trust.” he winked, and I smiled up at him, thinking that as crazy as this development was, there were worse dads for my child. Wait …

“Umm, Max? If my daughter turns out to be yours, which honestly, there are only three options and two are already proven to not be it, so, it is you, wouldn’t she be a princess as well?”

Max smiled, took my hand and brought it up to his lips to breathe a tiny kiss at my fingertips, which gave me funny feelings of the most X-rated kind. Damn pregnancy hormones!

“She most certainly is, or will be, eventually, queen of my heart.” he said, and when he used the old term of endearment, I lost it. After he had just told me how much he disliked PDA, here I was in the Cromwell Castle Gardens pressed up against him, sobbing my mascara and eyeliner smeared tears into the fine fabric of his clothing. And oddly, he didn’t seem to mind and did nothing to stop it.

Well, I stayed at the castle for much longer than I had planned. Days turned into a week; the week turned into weeks. Not surprisingly, the paternity was confirmed for Max, who was even more elated than he had been, I felt … honestly, I have no idea how I was feeling. Until the drama at mom and dad’s I had been 100% convinced Jack was the father. The timing just matched. There had been a night that could work with the timing, just before things went to crap with Max. He had just returned from travels, I had missed him and we … that was just a day before the Leopold drama happened, which was probably why my mind had locked all that up.
Well, either way, I called mom, dad and Nick to tell them I was extending my stay here, with Max present, but he kept chiming into my phone call, something that was VERY unlike him. Max normally was too well-mannered to do something so rude, but he was unstoppable.

He was borderline silly to the point that I was having thoughts of stuffing socks into his mouth, until he totally took the cake when he ended up inviting them to his and our children’s coronation next year as well. Oh yeah, that would be a lovely chat with Nick and my parents once I got back home as I had carefully and intentionally skipped over that entire royalty-again-part for now, so that I could carefully spoon-feed them that fact vis a vis once I was back from HOB. Well, that had been the plan until Max plowed that nugget into my conversation. Yikes. In Max’ defense, I hadn’t told him that I had not let my parents and Nick know about his royal future. That’ll teach me to try and keep secrets again.

Some other time, I was standing in my old walk-in closet in the familiar bedroom suite, which used to be Max and my private quarters, it all looked exactly like it had the last time I had seen it, even my old clothes were back, since I had left them behind, too dowdy and not right for my life without Max. Oddly, I didn’t find them dowdy at all anymore. They were … classy. I ran my hand over the exquisite fabrics, admiring the particularly accurate needlework. What exactly had my problem been? The clothes, accessories and shoes were absolutely my taste and very lovely.

The worst thing was, I liked it here. I liked Max’ reaction, out of all the men who had been possible fathers, he had the most genuinely positive reaction. I couldn’t help watch Max, interact charmingly with servants and be a fun but steadfast father to our kids and kept seeing the guy whom I fell in love with in college. The sweet nerd, who saw me through my darkest days, who had managed to make me laugh again when I thought I never would again, as he waited patiently for me to open up my heart after Rohan had trampled it, even though it wasn’t really intentional.

The man who just took over when our daughter Victoria Rose decided to be born two weeks early during the worst winterstorm Henfordshire had ever seen and Max and I were alone at the castle with an infant as I was giving birth. Max came through for me then as he had every time I needed him, even after our divorce.

When I wanted to move to Windenburg, following my Cameron gypsy family, and to Del Sol Valley, and to San Myshuno. Max let me down one time, a big one, but how many times had I let him down by not seeing this was where he belonged? For not being supportive as he so clearly suffered in silence?

Max and I spent much time together, as I extended my stay more and more. Somehow, while I missed my cat Chester and my horses, I didn’t want to leave.

Max didn’t want me to leave either. And then, one afternoon, I did something I don’t quite understand either yet. Or maybe I was not allowing myself to understand what it really means. I mean, the meaning will become obvious, I meant the repercussions and what it will mean for my future as at this very point in my life, how my story would continue had already been written for me, and if I was honest with myself, I knew it too. But as of right now I was still blissfully sitting in a sea of denial, eyes and ears wide shut.

It started with me trying to get dressed for dinner after a ride out with Max and the kids, I was so frustrated that I couldn’t get anything I wanted to wear zipped up as my baby bump seemed to have grown significantly overnight. When Max came to the door to accompany me to the dining hall, as he always did, I pulled him inside and sobbed my frustration about my expanding waistline and resulting lack of clothing options into his shoulder, my makeup undoubtedly ruining yet another item of his fine clothing. Seemed to have become a theme.

Unwavering though he never once complained, he just held me, comforted me, and we ended up kissing. Swear to God, I cannot tell you who initiated the kiss, but I can tell you that it was me who in a sudden burst of some unfamiliar pregnancy licentiousness literally tore the buttons off his shirt, got both of us out of our clothing and we ended up in bed doing the naughty in the most award-worthy ways imaginable.

Do not ask me where THAT came from, but afterwards I felt good. Just good, so very good, for the first time in a very long time. I made a scared sound, worrying Max.

“What is it, my darling?”

“Fuck Max, I think I love you. I still love you. Or again? What the ACTUAL fuck?” I couldn’t help sounding all Cameron. I was shocked. REALLY shocked.

Max abhorred gutter talk, but only chuckled and kissed me.

“I never stopped … queen of my heart.”

I was more than grateful to Max that all he did was kiss me again, gently and tenderly, before sliding off the bed to collect his partially torn clothing, carelessly strewn across the room, he got dressed best he could in his tattered garments and told me that he would go freshen up and change, then be back in 15 minutes to pick me up for dinner. I was grateful he didn’t start analyzing what I had just come to realize and all the many ways this would screw up my entire life – and his – and make for many very uncomfortable talks with people affected by this realization. My parents and Nick came to mind, but also my best friend Bianca. Oh, Bee and Gavin would have things to say to me … oh boy. And Rohan wouldn’t love my revelation either.

“Aria-Grace, don’t overthink something that is kismet … things will run the course they were always meant to be.” were his last words to me before he left the room.

Kismet. Kismet, another word to describe fate/destiny. I had named my horse Kismet, thinking that’s what connected her parents’ owner, Jack, and me. An unlikely love of two people who could not be more different if they tried. A love that was probably never meant to be, now gone sour, leading me straight back into the arms of my ex, who ends up using that exact term to describe us. I knew Max well enough that his words had been a lot more meaningful than meets the eye. In them lay a promise of a new future, together, and the promise of a question he would present me with when he felt I had ample time to wrap my head around what had become clear was my destiny, our destiny, together once more, after I had needed a detour to realize where I belonged. And whenever he would ask me that question, my answer would be a resounding yes, and I would mean it with every fiber of my being. Despite bitter words I had spoken about that fate before. Words that had lost their meaning, words I no longer understood, let alone meant. You really didn’t know what you had until it was gone. I knew I was blessed to be given another chance, by a man whose kindness and patience my confused heart had once mistaken as emotionlessness. Max was my rock, had always been my rock, always there when I needed him the most. Except one single time. And even that didn’t seem more than a mistake anymore to me. I had made plenty of terrible mistakes, never out of ill-will and I was now convinced Max had just been mentally overwhelmed with what had happened as I had been back then. If someone came to me telling me Nick had done something like Leopold had, I wouldn’t believe it either.

I was not sure how I really felt about it all, so I dragged myself into the shower, the same bathroom in which I had found out both times prior that I was expecting Max’ children.

Now I found out in this suite that I still loved my ex-husband, he confirmed what I had known all along, he never stopped loving me and we both learned it was his child I was carrying. Kismet, indeed.
Suddenly, as if the warm water of the shower washed away my doubts, I felt a strange clarity of what I wanted my future to look like and it finally gave me the inner peace I had been so desperately seeking. I had, indeed, encountered kismet. But not the way I had thought. And I was lucky enough that the man I was always meant to be with had so patiently waited for me to arrive where I needed to be, mentally and emotionally.