Claim Me

by Geneva Lee

  Praise for The Royals

  “Geneva Lee convinces with fluid writing that’s full of drama, ups and downs…”

  People Magazine

  “Romance and drama…when it comes to dirty talk, the British heir to the throne can hardly be topped…”

  The Huffington Post

  “Sexy, sinful, and downright delightful! Geneva Lee is the queen of writing drama, angst, and the heroes of your dreams.”

  Cora Carmack, New York Times Bestselling Author of Losing It

  “A royal tale unlike any other. Heart-stopping, mesmerizing, a delicious treat with every page turned. I only wanted more.”

  Audrey Carlan, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Calendar Girl

  Also by Geneva Lee

  ROYALS SAGA

  Command Me

  Conquer Me

  Crown Me

  Crave Me

  Covet Me

  Capture Me

  Complete Me

  * * *

  THE ROYAL WORLD™

  Cross Me

  Claim Me

  Consume Me

  * * *

  STANDALONE

  The Sins That Bind Us

  Two Week Turnaround

  CLAIM ME

  Copyright © 2019 by Geneva Lee.

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Ivy Estate Publishing

  www.GenevaLee.com

  First published, 2019.

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-945163-24-1

  Cover design © Date Book Designs.

  Image © Vasyl/Adobe Stock.

  To Josh,

  Who carries my heart

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Thank you!

  Chapter 1

  Clara

  The creak of the door alerted the nurse to Alexander’s presence, but I’d felt him coming long before that. I’d known he would come. An hour ago, I’d felt a prickle along my skin. Moments ago, goosebumps had broken out on my arms. Before the door opened, a shiver ran up my neck. My body responded to him like air surging before an approaching storm.

  But today Alexander wasn’t the reckoning.

  I was.

  I didn’t turn. It wasn’t that I couldn’t face him, but rather that I refused to look at him. Instead, my eyes stayed on hers, briefly closing when I heard him speak.

  “I don’t have any secrets from my wife.”

  I would have laughed if I’d had it in me. Another lie. It was getting harder to decide which I hated more, the lies or the secrets, although it didn’t seem like there was much difference between the two.

  She glanced up, drinking in Alexander’s words before her eyes darted back to me. Now she was piecing it together. I hadn’t explained who I was. It felt wrong, somehow, to be the one to tell her. She had missed so much of Alexander’s life. How was I supposed to tell her that I was his wife? That we had a child together? That I was expecting another? There were years of information to relay, and I had started my relationship with her by keeping secrets.

  Maybe my husband and I weren’t so different after all.

  There hadn’t been much time to tell her anything before Alexander arrived, anyway. First, the nurse panicked and checked all her vitals. I remained off to the side, largely unnoticed. Then the doctor had arrived. I was only alone with her for a few minutes. She had only asked one question.

  “Where is my family?”

  I’d told her he was on his way. I had known he would find me. It was one way he never let me down. After that, the uncomfortable silence set in. I’d offered her my name and told her I was a friend.

  When Alexander clarified who I really was, she continued to stare at me.

  “Wife?” Her voice was still weak, feeble from years of silence, but the tremble of pain in that one word had nothing to do with it. I couldn’t bring myself to meet her eyes and look into their shadowed, blank depths.

  I only nodded. I couldn’t do this. He had kept this from me for a reason. Later, I would make him explain why. Now? I didn’t want to be here. I had no place in this family reunion. She was as much a stranger to me as I was to her. Alexander had seen to that.

  Rising to my feet, I forced a small smile. “Excuse me.”

  I moved quickly, refusing to allow myself time to reconsider. I needed to get away from her. I needed to be away from him. I needed to be able to think.

  Alexander reached for me as I passed, but I skirted away, shaking my head. Even now, my body fought against me, tempting me toward him like a bee to honey. He’d thrown on jeans and a t-shirt that hugged his powerful body, stubble peppered his jawline, and his black hair was a chaotic mess. Apart from the clothing, this was the man I would have woken up to if I had stayed in bed. We would have made love. I could almost feel the scratch of his stubble on my thighs. I’d come here instead, lured into the darkness of his past and the mistakes we couldn’t seem to escape. It’s what kept me from going to him now—even a bee could drown in honey.

  “Clara,” he said in a hollow voice, his blue eyes flashing with regret. He didn’t speak again as I reached the door. He didn’t try to stop me.

  We both knew it wouldn’t matter. There was nothing he could say. I thought he’d given me all of him — body, heart, soul. I was wrong.

  Chapter 2

  Alexander

  “This can’t go on,” Norris said firmly. My trusted advisor and friend had become my personal alarm clock of late. He scanned me, his eyes skimming over my rolled up sleeves and wrinkled shirt. My tie was abandoned on the ground. Yesterday’s suit jacket slung over the back of my chair.

  I hadn't slept alone in years and since Clara had refused to come to our bed, I had taken to falling asleep in my office. It was Norris’s unofficial duty to wake me before morning meetings.

  I glanced at my watch, surprised to see he was a bit late today. He made clear his disapproval of how I was handling the situation with my wife. “Can the lecture wait? I need to grab a shower before I have to meet with some important person about some important thing.”

  Norris raised an eyebrow at my glib attitude. There was no use in pretending that most of the meetings I took weren’t largely ceremonial. I was expected to approve or disapprove as needed. I was to have an opinion and support charitable causes. I was to play the role of the benevolent king. Anything more than that would be overstepping my bounds, or so Parliament had made clear over the last few weeks. This attitude was due, no doubt, to arrangements my father and his father before him had made. The monarchy had been gradually modernizing, or, as I
saw it, pawning its responsibilities off on someone else. I’d been testing those previously sanctioned limitations. Now, it was becoming clear things would have to change. But I wasn't going to be the one to give in. Not while my family's safety was at stake. It was why I woke up and sat through the sodding meetings. I needed to play the part—for now.

  “Today’s meetings are the least of your worries. The staff is beginning to talk.” He adjusted the knot of his tie, looking slightly uncomfortable about bringing up the topic.

  “The staff is always talking.” I ran a hand through my hair. I had learned from a young age to accept that the walls had eyes. Very little of what I said and did behind palace walls was private. Sometimes, I wondered if even my own bedroom was safe.

  “Yes, but someone is bound to leak to the press that there are problems in your marriage.”

  I flinched at his words. I hated the way he made it sound. Mostly, because Norris had a clarity in viewing problems that most people lacked. When he coupled that with the blunt edge of truth it was harder to pretend he wasn’t right.

  I wasn’t going to admit that to him, though. “It's just a bump.”

  He didn't question me on this, but his silence said more than enough as he took a seat across from me. One of us was right and one of us was wrong. I knew which was which, because I couldn’t lie to myself even if I tried to lie to him. This wasn’t a bump.

  “I don't have to tell you that we have a delicate situation developing,” he said, changing the topic to an equally unpleasant one. “Sooner or later we must make the announcement. It would be best if the revelation didn't come on the heels of news that Clara is sleeping in another bedroom.”

  Maybe we hadn’t changed the topic of conversation after all.

  “I don’t want to push her,” I said softly.

  “She’s not going to leave you.”

  I sucked in a breath and shook my head. He couldn’t be certain of that. I’d chosen not to marry some idiotically bred aristocrat who would place stock in title and appearance. This wasn’t a political marriage. It was a marriage of love and trust and passion—and I’d cocked it up.

  “She doesn’t trust me.” It felt as if my chest might split open saying it.

  “She will, but you have to talk to her,” he said pointedly.

  “I know, but I have to catch her first.” I hadn’t been trying very hard. Usually, our fights ended in angry, nearly violent sex. I suspected this one wouldn’t. I’d be lucky if she let me touch her again. “Why didn’t I tell her?”

  “I don’t know.” His words were heavy as if he’d asked himself the same question.

  I swallowed, unsure if I was ready to spill the truth into the open. Norris knew me and he’d stood by me through worse, but it was still difficult to admit the truth. “It never even occurred to me.”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched slightly, which was the only indication he’d heard me. Part of me wished he would berate me, or yell, or punish me in some way.

  “Nothing to say about that?” I pushed. It felt even worse to have it out in the open than I’d imagined.

  “What didn’t occur to you?” He measured each word, speaking through gritted teeth. He already knew the answer.

  “It didn’t occur to me to tell Clara about…” I buried my face in my hands, unable to continue. I didn’t know what it said about me that I hadn’t kept this a secret from my wife so much as I had ignored it altogether. It hadn’t been important to share this with Clara, because for all intents and purposes, the woman in that room was dead to me.

  And now she wasn’t.

  The truth was, I’d had plenty of opportunities over the past few weeks to tell her. When my father died, I’d taken over the responsibility, which meant getting occasional updates from Norris, but not much else. After another attack on my family, I’d increased security on everyone, including her, but I still hadn’t told my wife. When Clara suggested Windsmoor as Edward’s wedding present, I’d had another opportunity to come clean. Life had given me chance after chance, and I’d thrown them all away. There was no one to blame for this mess but me.

  “Clara is your life now. She gave you a chance to start over and you took it,” Norris said, finally breaking the silence dragging between us.

  “That doesn’t excuse what I did.”

  “No, it doesn’t. But you can’t change what happened in the past.”

  “That sort of thinking is what got me into trouble in the first place,” I muttered.

  “Not thinking is what got you into trouble,” he corrected me.

  He had me there.

  “If I may,” he began. I suspected whatever he was about to say wasn’t going to be gentle. “Some space between you and Clara isn’t terrible.”

  “It isn’t?” I sat back in my chair, shaking my head. “It feels terrible. I haven’t so much as touched her in nine days.”

  “Exactly. You two need to work on your communication.”

  “Our communication is fine,” I snapped.

  “Your communication is unique and not always effective.” He folded his hands in his lap looking positively ecclesiastical.

  Maybe Norris couldn’t bring himself to say it, but I knew what he was driving at. “You mean fucking? We fuck too much.”

  “That you see that as a form of communication proves my point. You need to talk more.”

  “Well, she won’t talk to me or fuck me,” I exploded.

  “You should clean yourself up.” Norris directed his attention to the window, not rising to my bait. “You don’t have long before your day starts.”

  I got the impression I was on his shit list, too.

  * * *

  The household was beginning to wake as I made my way upstairs to our family’s private rooms. Everyone was avoiding me. Housekeepers backed into walls, dipping into low curtsies and averting their eyes as I passed with a nod, but I felt their gaze on me as soon as my back was to them. Norris was right, something was going to have to change. There was no pretending that nothing was wrong. The air felt too heavy, the whole palace seemed to be weighed down by the trouble lingering between me and Clara.

  I stopped at the door to my bedroom, wondering if this would be one of the lucky times that she was here. She seemed to have guessed my schedule and managed to skirt me most mornings. Norris would have realized that as well. Now I knew why he’d been late this morning. He was determined to force us together. I opened the door and found our bed perfectly made. Either the maids had already been here or no one had slept in this room. It was wishful thinking to even consider that there were two possibilities. I knew in my heart that Clara hadn’t slept there. I started to step inside, but my feet didn’t seem to work. I couldn’t stand it – being here near our empty bed. Instead, I turned and crept into the room across the hall.

  Muted sunlight filled the nursery and fell over a rocking chair in the corner. Elizabeth was sprawled across her mother’s chest, angled to allow for Clara’s growing belly. My breath hitched at the site of my wife and child. Clara was beautiful in her sleep, her face glowing in the early-morning light. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head and her nightgown had slipped from her creamy shoulder. I thought of the freckles there and how much I wanted to press my lips to her pale skin. But the dark circles under her eyes drew my attention to a bigger problem. Had she been here all night?

  I crossed the room quietly and lifted Elizabeth from her mother’s arms. Both of them startled but neither woke.

  Gently rocking my little girl, I carried her to her crib and lowered her cautiously. Slipping my hands out from under her, I breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t wake up.

  For a minute, I stayed there and studied her sleeping form. She had no idea the trouble between her mother and me. All she knew was love. I would never allow her to know anything else. Whatever problems Clara and I faced had to be dealt with sooner rather than later. I wouldn’t allow our children to suffer parents who were always fighting.

  W
hen I finally turned, Clara was watching me through hooded eyes. Silence stretched between us. This couldn’t be our new normal. Nothing to say to one another. Avoiding each other at every turn. Had I broken things past the point of repair? And how the fuck was I going to fix this?

  She sat up and her nightgown shifted farther from her shoulder, dipping low enough to reveal the swell of her breast. I locked my knees, forcing myself not to go to her and rip the rest of the flimsy excuse for clothing off her. Clara shoved it up quickly as though reading my thoughts. I bit back a smile.

  But there wasn’t even a glint of amusement in her face. When she spoke, her voice was cold. “She’s teething.”

  “Why didn’t you find me?” I asked, keeping my voice low so I wouldn’t wake the sleeping baby. “She’s not your sole responsibility.”

  Clara’s eyes flashed and I realized I’d said something wrong. Again. “You weren’t in our bedroom. I didn’t know where you were.”

  It was a lie. She hadn’t checked our bedroom and she’d known exactly where I was. I wasn’t about to challenge her, though. Her lie was innocent and carved from anger over my own lies—lies that might have finally destroyed us.

  “You have more important things to worry about.” I didn’t miss the sharp edge her tone had taken, but before I could respond she stood, stumbling a little as she yawned widely.