She looked up, her eyes wild and smeared with mascara.

“I didn’t hurt her, Alexander,” she pleaded, reaching toward the Prince.

“I put her in the best facility money could buy.”

“I just needed her out of the way so I could control the funds.”

“And the death certificate?” King Alaric asked, his brow furrowing.

“I paid the family physician to sign it,” Rachel confessed.

“He was deeply in debt.”

“He did what I asked, and then he left the country.”

Alexander stepped back, away from her reaching hands.

The disgust on his face was absolute.

“You built our entire relationship on the grave of your living mother,” he said.

“I loved you, Rachel.”

“I defended you against my father’s doubts.”

“I did it for us,” Rachel cried, her voice cracking.

“I needed to be someone worthy of you.”

“A woman with nothing but a broken family and a bankrupt estate cannot marry a prince.”

“I did what I had to do to give us a future.”

Alexander looked down at her as if she were a stranger.

“There is no future,” he said.