by Geneva Lee
Except for the whole world.
I draw her body up against me, pressing my skin to hers, giving her the parts of me that only she will ever claim.
“I want your cock. I want you to fill me,” she cries, and I groan, thrusting inside her, meeting no resistance in her slippery heat.
My hands slide across her, wanting to feel her. I grab her breast. I hold her to me. For this one moment, she’s mine, and I’m hers, and nothing can change that.
“I’m going to come inside your beautiful cunt.” I couldn’t hold out much longer. I needed to empty inside her, feel what it’s like to mark her one more time. “Christ, you’re milking me. You want me inside you, don’t you? You want me to pour inside your cunt, because you know it’s mine.”
“Only you,” she promises.
“Only you.” It will only ever be her. I know that, and the revelation sends my climax rocketing to my cock. I release inside her as she falls along with me.
When she crumbles forward, I catch her. Lifting her into my arms, I carry her towards the house, away from what might have been to what has to happen.
I carry her inside to break her heart.
Chapter Thirty-Six
I watch Clara wander around my bedroom. She pauses to survey a photo of me with my mother and Sarah. I can’t even recall where it was taken or when. Most of the memories waiting for me in this room feel as though they belong to a different man living a different life.
“She was beautiful.” Clara picks up a photo of Sarah on one of her horses. The photo was taken on the grounds. She must have been fifteen years old. Was that the last time she was here?
“She loved to ride horses,” I share, trying to remember the last time I saw her ride.
“What happened?” she asks softly.
I’ve been waiting for Clara to ask me about the accident since the morning after we slept together the first time. I know all too well how many women will get in bed with a prince to get a peek at the family secrets. But Clara never presses. She waits. She offers. She means it when she says she wants all of me, and she’s willing to wait for me to give myself to her.
I wish I could.
“Clara, I honestly wish I knew.” I hesitate. Why tell her this so near the end? It’s not how I want her to think of me. But part of me feels she has to know this, as though it might help her see why she doesn’t belong in this world. She’s too precious to risk to the reporters and the courtiers and my own flesh and blood. “I remember flashes. That’s why I continued to invite Pepper to events.”
She smiles, not a radiant, bright smile but a small, understanding one. She’s listening.
“I was drinking, and my sister showed up. She was underage, and I yelled at her for being at a bar.” I shake my head. The night is so blurry, even after all these years. I’ve replayed it over and over in my head. Her palm moves to my shoulder. “For some reason, we left. I don’t remember much after that. And what I do remember, I can’t burden you with.”
“Nothing between us, X,” she murmurs. “No secrets.”
No secrets. Sarah is proof there will always be secrets. My family clings to them, especially the ones we keep from ourselves. If we never admit we know the truth, it’s not a lie. It’s how we protect ourselves. It’s how we continue to do our duties.
For some reason, I can’t stop talking about that night, though. I thought it might serve as a warning for her, but now something else is driving my confession—something I don’t understand. “I remember how slippery her blood was on my fingers. She sagged like a rag doll. I remember the heat of the fire as it blazed across my skin, but I couldn’t leave her there, even though I couldn’t carry her. I was so scared that I didn’t even feel the frame of the door in my side. I’d been impaled, but I wouldn’t leave her, so we burned together.”
Clara claps a hand over her mouth, but I hear her sob of horror. “And Pepper?”
“She’d been flung from the car. Broken bones,” I say. “If she remembers more than me, she’s never admitted it.”
“X, what happened was horrible.” She brushes the hair from my forehead, trying to get me to look into her eyes, but I won’t. “But it wasn’t your fault.”
“Why don’t you see the monster when you look at me?” I ask. “Everyone else does.”
“They don’t see you like I do.” She takes a deep breath before plunging forward. “They don’t love you like I—”
“I’m sorry,” I cut her off. “I just need a minute.” I move to the loo, locking the door behind me, and sag against the wall. She’d almost said it. I’m not sure I could let her go if she did. I haven’t heard those words since they died. Not from someone close to me. Someone who knows me. Girls shout it at me on the streets, but behind closed doors, no one loves me, and I love no one. Sarah rarely said it and usually only out of formality. I haven’t truly heard those words from anyone since I was a child.
Clara is wrong. I’m the reason Sarah was there that night. She’d followed me. She had a crush on Jonathan. I should have let her stay. Dance. Have fun. But I demanded we leave, knowing what the papers would say the next morning. I was already fighting with my father about university. I didn’t need any more attention paid to me. Instead, the morning’s papers told a different story—one that changed my life forever.
One that sent me into hell looking for redemption. One that showed me how little anything mattered in the larger scheme of the world. And one that ultimately put me on a collision course with her.
No good came from that night. Its poison taints my family’s blood. Leading me to her was only its finally temptation. Would I damn her soul along with mine?
I can’t.
I will never hold Clara on blood-soaked pavement. I will never dictate her every waking hour to duty and ceremony and all the other bullshit a royal has to deal with. I will never take her freedom to steal joy from this half-life I’ve been born to.
I will let her go.
A low voice floats muffled through the door. My father’s arrived, come to seek me out for another round. I resist the urge to open the door and save her. I can’t do that anymore. Letting him threaten her is the first step in my plan. The only way to save Clara is to break her heart.
I wait for a minute or an hour. It hardly matters. I open the door to hear my father say, “You’re his toy, and when he tires of you, he’ll get a new one. There’s nothing you can do to secure your place in this family.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that I am not looking for marriage?” she asks, her voice pitching up a bit. “Or a place in this family?”
He laughs at her, and my blood runs cold. “All women are looking for marriage, whether they know it or not.”
Clara turns, spotting me in the door. She starts toward me, but I narrow my eyes, lifting the veil to the rage that always simmers just below its surface.
“I see that since you couldn’t sway me with your threats, you switched tactics,” I speak to him, ignoring Clara as much as possible.
“We both know how this ends.” He meets my glare with one of his own. “The tart’s quite pretty, but you aren’t serious about her. Why do more damage to her reputation?”
I force myself not to look at her. I tell myself I can’t show her I care about his cruel barbs. It will undermine everything.
“You know the expectations,” he says. “I’ve given you far too much latitude since you returned, but it’s time to accept your role in this family.”
And then I play my final move—I let him win at last. “I know.”
I can’t bring myself to look at her as I sacrifice the match to save the queen.
“I should leave you two,” he says, his eyes ticking back and forth between us. “Good evening.”
He closes the door, and a second later, a book flies across the room. I still don’t look at her. I keep my eyes on the door.
Walk through it.
Walk away.
Escape.
When I finally turn a
cold gaze on her, she collapses to the ground. I do nothing. I command my limbs to stay locked in place—to ignore my heart crumpled on the ground. She blinks up at me, waiting, the last gasp of hope on her face.
My eyes flicker away.
There’s movement, and when I look back, she’s standing. Her eyes pierce through me, and I know she sees me for what I really am: cruel and controlling and irredeemable.
She steps in front of me, effectively forcing me to look at her.
She doesn’t touch me, and her voice trembles when she finally speaks, “I love you, Alexander.”
I close my eyes as the words hit me. Had I thought I could stop her from saying them? Had I even tried? My heart closes around them, tucks them away, and locks them in the darkest, deepest space inside it. It will be enough to know they’re there. I can’t let this change anything. It’s proof that I’m doing the right thing. She deserves a life I can never give her at my side—a life I can only give her by letting her go. I summon all the hatred I feel towards this place, towards the past, towards my birthright, and let it overtake me before I open my eyes. “That wasn’t part of our arrangement.”
I don’t stop her when she turns to run. I don’t go after her, even as I hear her wrenching sobs. This is always how it had to end. I’d known that from the beginning, and I’d been too selfish. Now she had to pay the price. I wouldn’t take any more from her.
After a few moments, I leave the room and walk across the hall, knocking softly on the door.
Edward opens it a crack, and I spot a note on the bed.
“Alex, I found a note from David. I think I really coc…” he trails away, tilting his head to study me. “What happened?”
“I broke her.” I won’t lie to him. He needs to know. He needs to see. There are no happily-ever-afters for men like us. That’s the stuff of fairytales. “Find her. Get her home?”
“Are you okay?” he asks in a low voice.
For some reason, I laugh. “It doesn’t matter. It’s done.”
I turn away and walk into the darkened corridor, disappearing into the shadows. I watch as Edward leaves to go after her. When he’s out of sight, I follow, sticking close to the many corners and nooks in Norfolk to hide me. Coming around one, I stop and move back into the shadows as Edward leans over her and whispers something.
From the darkness, I see her lift her head. “I fell in love with him.”
She doesn’t have to say more. Edward picks her up and carries her off—away from me and this world. I continue to follow behind them, watching as he helps her throw clothing into her bag. I lurk as he hugs her and places her in a car bound for London. When it’s driven far enough from the estate to be nothing but a speck in the summer twilight, I finally step from the shadows and move towards his side.
“Why?” he asks, not looking at me.
“You know why,” I say gruffly, not trusting myself to talk this through.
“You can still go after her,” he says, sensing my thoughts.
“Why prolong it?” I turn from him back to the house where my future waits—my duty and my punishment.
Edward calls out before I take another step, “Do you love her?”
I pause. I hear what he’s saying. This isn’t only about her and me. This is about this world. “Does it matter?”
I leave him there and return to my prison, ignoring the hollow space in my chest as my heart races back to London.
It’s for the best.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“So we’re back to this?” There’s no hint of disgust in Edward’s voice. Instead, he joins me, dropping into a chair across from me and grabbing the bottle of Scotch. I hadn’t bothered with a glass. He doesn’t either. After a long swig, he stretches it out to me.
I accept and take another drink.
“David still not talking to you?” I ask. I’m not entirely certain where the saying ‘misery loves company’ comes from, but it’s only half wrong. Misery doesn’t mind company, mostly because misery doesn’t give a fuck. That’s the point.
“He’ll come around.” I envy his certainty. Edward looks better than I do. He’s dressed in real clothes, or at least, fresh ones. His hair is combed, and his face clean-shaven. He pushes his horn-rimmed glasses higher as if he’s performing a similar inspection of me.
I know what he sees. My shirt and trousers weren’t wrinkled when I put them on yesterday. I’d been determined then. Right until the moment, I found a stack of newspapers next to my breakfast, each one containing speculation on the abrupt departure of Clara from the country this weekend.
“Do you know who sold the story?” Edward asks, guessing why I’m upset.
“Does it matter? All my friends are silver-tongued serpents. I have no one.”
Edward pauses a beat and reaches for the Scotch. He takes a steadying drink. “You have me, Alex.”
I blink, realizing he thinks I’ve lumped him in with Pepper and Jonathan and the rest of the troop of sycophants. “I know.”
“Do you?” he presses.
I swallow and force myself to confront the truth. During my days on the front, I had friends, close friends. They were scattered to the four winds now, vanishing to different lives. I knew better than to think a man like me would ever have a family like that again, makeshift and ragtag as it was. But I never really considered how alone my brother must have felt all these years. He’d been a kid when I left. Part of me had persisted in seeing him that way. But he’s not. He’s my brother. A friend. A place to start building a new family of my choosing. “I do.”
“So we’re friends?”
“Yeah,” I say slowly.
“Good.” He settled into the chair, dark eyes narrowing like a hawk. “So, how are you going to win her back?”
“I’m not.” My jaw clenches, and I wonder if all of this is some manipulation. But for what end? Clara will never want to see me again. She offered her heart, and I ripped it to shreds. I hadn’t even had the decency to see her safely home.
“Why?’ The question is pointedly simple.
“Because I’m no good for her,” I growl.
“You are not your title,” he says in a soft voice.
“You sound like mum,” I say wearily and wish I could swallow it back. “Edward, I’m—”
“It’s okay. I suspect that’s a compliment.” He’d never met our mother. She’d died giving birth to him. No one had expected her death, especially our father.
“It is,” I say carefully, “but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong about being no good for her.” Edward didn’t know about the darkness that consumed me. He didn’t understand my affection came tainted with a brutal, consuming need to possess.
If I expect sympathy, my brother delivers the opposite. He shoots to his feet, his voice shaking, “What is your fucking excuse, Alex?”
“What’s wrong with you?” I look up, surprised by the volatile outburst. It’s not like him to take such a strong turn toward anger.
“I live every day in secret. I keep my boyfriend hidden. We sneak around. We endure snide comments. Because we aren’t an approved set. And you sit there: a man and a woman.”
“Thanks for the anatomy lesson.” He ignores my snide interjection.
“I live in two worlds. But you”—he points a trembling finger at me—“you can walk down the street with her, dance with her, kiss her, marry her.”
“I don’t want to marry her,” I bite out.
He barks a laugh. “You do, and you know it. She’s the one, and you aren’t too stupid to see it.”
“I’m not?” Fury seethes from me, and I put down the bottle before I throw it at him.
“You see it. You feel it. It’s there every time you look at her. It’s why our father has been acting like a toddler for weeks. It’s why every tabloid is hanging on your every move. You’re not stupid or blind—you’re punishing yourself.” He pauses, his chest heaving from his tirade. “Still. Stop punishing yourself. You can be happy. Be happy.”
“That’s a ringing endorsement,” I say dryly. Straightening up, I shrug my shoulders. “Why would I punish myself?”
He only hesitates for a second, but the pause gives him time to soften. “I know everything...about Sarah, and after…”
“Everything?” I lift a brow. “I doubt that.”
“You don’t deserve pain,” he says in a quiet voice.
“I don’t deserve happiness.” It slips out before I can stop it.
Edward throws his hands in the air as if giving up. He stalks toward the corridor that leads to his apartment. “Take it anyway. One of us should.”
I want to yell after him, demand he takes the advice he so easily throws at me. Instead, his words stir inside me, mixing to form an idea. I never wanted this world. It’s poison. Even now, with my brother, my friend, it sullies everything. It taints me. It cages me. I told myself I’d never let it do the same to Clara.
But I’ve never stopped to consider there might be another way. I don’t want this world. I never have, but I’ve never had a reason to make my own world.
I do now.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
It’s the longest night of my life, waiting for dawn. I should have put a time on the note I sent, but somehow I’d known the more I demanded, the less she might come. I wait for her until dawn cracks along the horizon and seeps through the windows of the house.
Our house.
If she’ll have me. I push against the thought and the swell of hope it sends ballooning in my chest. If she comes, that means I have a second chance. This time I’ll get it right. I’ll demand less. I’ll protect her more. I’ll separate her from my world, so we can build our own. I just need her to show up.
Instead of lingering on the clock, I get up, toss on jeans and pull a shirt over my shoulders, not bothering to button it. I should shave, but tea seems necessary given how little sleep I’d managed. I place the kettle on the hob and glance out the window. A splash of crimson catches my eye, and without thinking, I find a knife in the drawer and head outside.