Wisely, Aish stayed quiet.
Sofia motioned Aish to the next people in line while Henry stayed just behind her.
The crowd noise rose inside the courtyard walls, and outside, where a live stream of the event was being shown on screens throughout the village as rock star Aish Salinger stepped in front of her brother, Príncipe Mateo Ferdinand Juan Carlos de Esperanza y Santos, the next king of the Monte del Vino Real, and his billionaire bride, Roxanne Medina. The couple who had taken the world by storm five years ago with their fake then very real marriage looked so blindingly beautiful—him in a cream-colored suit with his gold-tipped hair held back by his sunglasses, her in a white, body-hugging dress with an artful blue flower painted over the side—that Sofia and Aish were the only ones close enough to see the annihilation in their eyes.
“Príncipe,” Aish said, clipped. His welcome here—or the lack of it—seemed to be finally sinking in.
“Aish,” Mateo said, clasping Aish’s long hand in both of his work-hardened ones. Mateo had stepped away from his role heading one of the world’s top winegrowing labs to focus on the Monte, but he still liked to work in the fields. While he pumped his hand, he said, “I should kick your ass for writing a song like that about my sister.”
“Look, Mateo, I was young and—”
“No te preocupes,” Sofia soothed her brother, telling him not to worry while preempting Aish’s excuses. He’d always had so many excuses. “I’ve never heard it and won’t. I haven’t heard any of their albums. I didn’t even know Aish was alive.” Out of her peripheral vision, she saw him jerk to look at her. She hoped the consummate performer remembered to keep smiling. “Let’s just get through this month and then we’ll go back to ignoring Aish Salinger and Young Son.”
Roxanne gently extracted Aish’s hand from her husband’s death grip and took it into her own. “Aish, you might feel that she owes you because of the attention you’ve brought to the Monte,” her sister-in-law purred in her throaty voice. Sofia had seen the billionaire cry during movie trailers and drop into the snow to teach her twin toddlers how to make snow angels. But right now she was every bit the world-dominating mogul.
“We want to correct that assumption,” Roxanne continued. Her thick brown hair was twisted into a sleek bun on top of her head, which she bobbed at Sofia. “She’s precious. Her goal, to improve the future of our kingdom, is precious. Behave and you can win here, too.” She gave him a lush grin and a wink. “Misbehave and there’s no limit to the ways we’ll destroy you.”
Sofia kept her smile while she blinked back tears.
No one—not Henry or her family or Carmen Louisa—had asked what had happened with Aish. Only Roxanne knew a hint of it, had seen Sofia fall apart when she’d asked her, years ago, if she’d ever been in love. Her family and dearest friends had no details, and yet they stood resolutely by her. Loyally at her side.
As if Sofia, her mistakes and her missteps, wasn’t the reason their kingdom’s future was partially in the hands of an out-of-control rock star.
Her mistakes and missteps were about to be showcased as Aish moved stiffly to the last grouping of people. They’d stationed themselves a few feet away from the others. Sofia took a steadying breath before she followed.
King Felipe and Queen Valentina did their best to look down their noses at a guy who towered over them. Aish gave them each a quick bow; he’d apparently done enough homework to know not to try to shake their hands. After getting caught blackmailing her brother and almost bankrupting the Monte five years ago, her parents had been stripped of their power and put on a strict allowance. The king and queen now had to satisfy themselves with petty displays of dominance. Like demanding bows and curtsies on introduction.
But the silver-mustached man who stood next to the queen, a person who should have never been standing with the royal family, stepped forward to grab Aish’s hand.
Her mother had always liked attractive men whispering in her ear.
“Aish Salinger, this is Juan Carlos Pascual, owner of the Familia Pascual Bodega and head of the Consejo Regulador del Monte,” Sofia said. She was okay with everyone seeing her smile dim.
“Mr. Salinger, bienvenidos,” Juan Carlos intoned as if he was the king. As the leader of the Monte’s most prominent winemakers, he was almost as powerful and twice as wealthy. In a double-breasted suit and royal red tie, his full mane of silver hair swept back from his face, the sixty-something-year-old winemaker looked magisterial. It was a look he used to great effect slandering Sofia. “Welcome to our beautiful village. Hopefully, you will pull our princesa’s attentions away from changing generations of tradition and focus it on something else.”
She wanted to slap him. He had a chokehold on Monte winemaking. And yet, by invitation of the queen, he stood on the cobblestones of Sofia’s winery, among Sofia’s people, preening amid everything he was using innuendoes and rumors and lies to stop.
“I’m just here to help Sofia,” Aish said in his low, slightly scratchy voice.
“Indeed, Mr. Salinger,” the queen said. “My daughter loves the help of rock stars. You might have seen the help she got from that Irish boy band.”
Her mother’s white sparkly dress, brightened teeth, and sheet-straight platinum hair shone against her bronze skin. If Aish Salinger hadn’t gotten involved, she would have never had to invite her mother either.
Sofia had only slept with two members of Starting Five—at separate times—but the photo in the Jacuzzi overlooking the Dubai skyline suggested she might have been sleeping with all five of them. She’d been wearing a bathing suit, but the bubbles and the hands and everyone’s expression made her look very, very naked. The photo had sent the queen into apoplexy, probably because she
