by Corri Lee
“You feel like you have to prove that you’re as good as, if not better than her.” I got it. I’d been lumped with the same obligation to act privileged but never taken to the burden. Faking smiles and swagger at packed out galas to look like a respectable, dutiful daughter of Henry Tudor was exhausting. I could only imagine how it must feel to live that life under the scrutiny of a mother-in-law.
“So is my ass kicking postponed until we get home?” Sighing, I wriggled until he uncrossed his legs and let me turn around to kneel between them, tracing a finger across the band of his ring.
“ ‘Suppose I’ll have to, on two conditions. Number one, imply that we’ve been screwing like minks in here.”
His wicked grin flashed blindingly white. “Done. Number two?”
“Tell me you love me in front of her.” His brow furrowed in surprise and I smoothed it out with my thumbs. It was juvenile, but I really wanted her to hear the words for herself as he’d never said them to her. At least I hoped not. I promptly shook off that unpleasant thought. “Give me your scary love look so she sees it like everyone else does.”
Blaze seemed bemused by the description of his ardent looks of affection. Helping me up from the ground, he wove our fingers together and kissed the back of my hand. “Cupcake, there’s nothing scary about my love except the lengths I’d go to, to ensure it’s never disturbed or challenged.”
We found our way back downstairs just as my own coven arrived. Blaze groaned apprehensively, opening the door to let them in and stepping back to allow them to take their first disdainful sweeping glance around the opulent interior.
He was finally starting to realise how ridiculous it was to put our two almost-warring clans in the same place.
“Wow.” Esme pivoted on the spot, craning her neck to look at the upper level. “How can something look so great but at the same time have zero personality?”
“Why don’t you ask Blaze? He’s been doing it for thirty years.” I smiled sweetly when he narrowed his eyes at me, completely unapologetic. “You’re still in the dog house.”
“I am aware. But that was your one free shot.” Blaze squeezed my hand and turned me towards the archway I’d been dreading crossing under. “Please, don’t let her beat us. I need to be one of those couples tonight.”
The room on the other side of the arch was a grand sitting room with a dining table at the back for informal dinner parties. It reminded me like the setting of a murder mystery tour, all dim and enigmatic with a gramophone piping in tunes from the forties, the guests dressed to match.
I could practically feel Esme vibrate with glee behind us—heard Chris groan at the prospect of spending another night in her environment of preference and sensed Daniel and Jonathan’s silent judgement of the place.
We’d apparently arrived just in time for dinner. After trading half-hearted introductions we all sat at the table, the divide clear by how Natasha’s family and friends took one entire side and mine the other, putting us all in direct eye-to-eye deadlocks with one of the enemies.
Obviously I got the seat opposite the wife herself, Blaze opposite Mona. Tension crackled in the short few feet between us, relieved only marginally when the food arrived.
It was as visually astounding as it smelled. There was no starter to speak of, which wasn’t surprising when the plates for the main courses came out. They were easily twice the size of a normal dining plate, oval and decorated in delicate gold patterns. Whoever had cooked had obviously been a professional—the traditional roast dinner looked almost gourmet but in an enormous quantity, each article of food artfully presented.
The olfactory input of the seasoned roast chicken, herbs, vegetables and thick gravy steaming in beautifully designed gravy boats was astonishing. Unfortunately, I felt so ill-at-ease, my stomach churned again looking at it.
“Are you okay?” Blaze swept my hair back, brushing a hand across my forehead. “You look a little... off.”
I stared at him, then at my plate. Maybe I was feeling generally a little green. It might explain my mood. When I looked at it that way, I became aware of a throbbing in my skull. “I think I’m getting another migraine.”
“You work too hard.” My eyes shot up to Natasha, who was already awkwardly attacking her dinner. Her hand seemed a little limp, making scooping up mouthfuls difficult for her. She offered a kind smile and set down her fork. “Blaze tells me of all the good you do for your father’s staff. It’s admirable. You must make time to relax, though.” Why the hell was she being so nice to me? “While you’re here, I must tell you how grateful I am that you sent him back to be my carer.” Oh, that was right. She owed me. How could I have forgotten? She reached across the table to pat his hand reverently. “He’s very attentive. There’s nothing he won’t do to ensure my comfort.”
I might have missed the overture if there hadn’t been something a little malicious about the way her eyes glinted. Blaze reached under the table to grip my thigh, his desperation for me to not react a little too obvious. I rested my hand over his and sucked in a quiet breath.
“Oh, yes, he’s wonderful like that. I obviously know for myself what he’ll do for those he loves.”
Natasha slumped back down into her seat quickly, turning her attention back to her dinner. This round was mine.
I picked at my meal, hungry but not really in the mood to eat. Natasha tried to strike up conversations with all four of my friends and I was pleased to hear their dismissive grunts and mono-syllabic replies. Blaze, obviously, spoke to her civilly, doing so to avoid talking to or even looking at Mona.
They recalled a few dicey hospital trips and pending appointments with a specialist, which sparked my curiosity. I still didn’t know what was actually wrong with the woman, just that she seemed to have some motor problems.
It was Jonathan who vocalised the interest, though. “If you don’t mind me asking, what is it that you... have?” My jaw dropped open at the poorly worded question, though I eagerly awaited the answer.
“Natasha has multiple sclerosis.”
“Oh.” I blinked in surprise. She had MS? But that was so... “I was expecting something...”
“Ugly?” Natasha cocked her head expectantly.
I half-laughed, not really knowing where to put myself. I knew a fair deal about the illness, having once worked with someone going through a particularly bad time of it.
Which meant I knew that Natasha Valentine was no closer to dropping dead than I was.
“Terminal.” I said finally, feeling horribly uncomfortable with my new gut feeling. “I was expecting something terminal.” I was sure I saw panic in her eyes when she stuttered into a ramble over how her immune system was impaired and minor illnesses could be fatal. Barely hearing it, I shoved my food around my plate numbly.
It was too much to absorb. If she’d told Blaze that it would kill her, how could he have not done the research to find out for himself that she was lying? Surely he wasn’t that aloofly trusting?
But the more I watched them interact, the more I started to believe that he was just that—too aloof and too trusting. He’d have seen her at her worse and seen how bad it could get. Having seen it myself, I could understand why he might believe she could die from a minor infection. But she still had at least forty years ahead of her...
Blaze had been right. He deserved her money for the injustice done against him. She’d taken his kind nature for granted and had been screwing him for years because he wouldn’t have her any other way. He was trapped.
Unless, of course, I stepped in.
I was relatively quiet for the rest of our main course, head full of puzzles and questions. How had she gotten away with it for so long? Was she really so selfish and evil to drag him along like this with the promise of money he’d be waiting years for? He’d already wasted so much time and lost so much for her...
When the table was cleared for dessert, Blaze excused himself and offered to collect a round of drinks from the kitchen. When he left and
everyone else was engrossed in their own conversations, I casually turned in my seat, facing down the table rather than look at Natasha head on. “I know what you’re doing.”
She went rigid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come on, Tasha,” I leaned into the table slightly. “He’s a wonderful man. I understand your desperation to keep him, but he gave up his musical career and severely stunted his ability to expand his portfolio for you, and you’re repaying him by wrapping him up in chains of lies and guilt.”
Hand tightening around her glass, Natasha looked down at a non-existent blemish in the varnished oak. “You steal my husband and then you have the nerve to come into my house and throw around acerbic accusations?” Her voice wasn’t quite as offended as it should have been. At least the woman had the good grace to keep her poise. “Let’s face the truth, Emmeline. Either you’re going to get bored of waiting or he’s going to feel awful and set you free. He’ll be heartbroken in both cases, and I’ll be here for him. He’ll appreciate that. He loves me, he just doesn’t know it yet.”
Christ. The woman was pathetic to want her love to come that way. Her idea that all it would take was time, when love was so well known to wane, just proved how desperate she was to be with him in any capacity. I almost felt sorry for her, and the parallels between her and Calloway were shocking. They’d have been perfect for each other.
“What you’re doing isn’t fair. Obviously you love him enough to be completely insane about it, so you should want him happy.”
“Fuck happy, I just want him. And no matter how many fat, schizophrenic freaks try to stand in my way, I’ll get him.”
I glanced down, achingly aware of the fact I was almost twice her size. By attacking my insecurities, she was making it personal when I’d tried to keep it about Blaze. She wanted a dirty fight—she wanted to piss me off so I’d embarrass myself by looking like the crazy husband-stealing psychopath.
I wasn’t going to play her game. “I’ll unearth this, Natasha. Not only will you lose Blaze, but you’ll end up with an awfully public reputation for being a liar and he’ll sue you for fraud.”
“He wouldn’t.”
A smile unexpectedly hit my face. I knew that he would—knew how he’d embrace the opportunity to take more of her money when he found out how he’d been deceived for so long. He already felt like he’d earned everything and he had no idea how right he was.
“You have no idea what he’d do for me but I might talk him out of it if you agree to the divorce and offer half of your estate. It is what he deserves.”
Natasha’s jaw dropped. I could tell that she knew she’d be getting off lightly, but I also saw the inner battle going on inside her head. She had an out if she gave him up, but would she take it? Did she really want him enough to take the risk of losing him anyway?
Tossing a stray lock of hair over her shoulder, she glared at me and said flatly, “Over my stone-cold dead body.”
She wanted to make it difficult for herself. That was fine. I hadn’t really been expecting an easy battle. So I shrugged nonchalantly and said, “We’ll see.”
Blaze burst back into the sitting room with a silver tray artfully balanced on each hand, followed by a couple of assistants who’d served our dinners. He set the much larger of the two trays—full of our drinks orders—in the centre of the table and the other in front of me, halting me before I removed the silver dome cover.
Everyone murmured with approval to the delicious looking vanilla cheesecake served for dessert, oblivious to Natasha mutely stewing.
“I’m sorry I took so long.” Blaze leaned down to kiss me firmly on the lips as soon as everyone had their plates. “I simply refused to let them give you anything less than perfection.” Lifting the silver dome, he bowed and stepped back to let me look at my dish.
Instead of a cheesecake, I had an immaculate little cupcake, much like the one that had won me my pet name. Sugar strands were painstakingly arranged into the butter cream icing to spell out ‘I love you’—the declaration I’d requested in sickeningly sweet form.
I scoffed mockingly, “I hope I have cheesecake waiting,” and grabbed him by the collar to pull him down again for another kiss. “I love you, too, you romantic fool.”
He grinned. “Consider it compensation for ruining your proposal.”
“Ah, yes. The birthday present that never was.” Scooping a small amount of icing onto my fingertip, I offered it to Blaze with a pretty pout. “I forgive you. You did it better.” I was still buzzing slightly from the moment I’d turned and found him kneeling in front of me. Sometimes I daydreamed about it, reliving it. An unforgettable moment I’d cherish eternally.
“You could make it up to me...” He mused for a moment before grabbing my finger and sucking it enthusiastically. The sound he made while he did it made me squirm. “You could make it up to me by telling me you can plan a wedding at short notice. I’m talking weeks, Emmeline. I can’t wait any longer.”
“Have you forgotten about the hitch in that plan, Blaze?” Natasha snapped defiantly across the table. “Perhaps the point that you’re still married to me?”
“Oh, that.” He smiled at her pleasantly, though that cold edge was back. “That’s not an issue.”
“You might find it is.”
Blaze took my left hand and kissed the emerald, curling an arm around the back of my chair. This was the time my outrageous idea would be laid out to her knowledge. I understood now why he’d been insistent on my being there. “As we didn’t consummate our marriage, I’ll be enlisting Henry Tudor’s legal team to have it annulled. They’ll take it to court next week.” And now I knew the marriage was based on a lie and that Blaze had been misled, our case was even better.
Natasha took a few moments longer than necessary to drag her vacant gaze back to us. “It won’t stick. We had sex before.”
“You know, I was rather drunk so my memory of that night is a little fuzzy. I don’t seem to remember penetrating you.”
The room plunged into an icy silence, every conversation that had been happening put to an end by the war being fought at our end of the table. As far as blunt admissions at dinner parties went, that had to be prize winning.
“You’d lie.” Natasha sighed, seeing exactly how far he’d venture into Hell for love. “You’d lie in court for her. You’ll get nothing from me. No money.”
“So?” Blaze shrugged and pulled my chair closer to him. “I don’t need your money. I just want my freedom.”
A visible shudder of pain ran through Natasha as she rose to her feet—pain she hid behind an entirely too confident and indiscreetly large bite of cheesecake. “And what of Blaze, the statutory rapist?” she asked him coolly when her mouth was empty. “Are you prepared to risk me ending your career completely and time behind bars with that little nugget of information?” Underneath the table, my fingers dug into Blaze’s knee cap hard enough to make him wince, which she obviously didn’t miss. “I’m twenty-six, Emmeline. Your precious fiancé had his wicked way with me when I was just fourteen.”
I should have known that there was something more to why he’d married her. Should have known that she had some sort of hold over him. And I really should have known that it would come out tonight, of all nights, when she was testing us.
“I know.” I lied, forcing my face into neutrality. What I definitely didn’t know was if Blaze was prepared to take that kind of risk for me, but I had to believe that he would. He had to have known that she’d use it against him and taken it into consideration before we started talking to the lawyers. They did, after all, need full disclosure. “We have a completely honest relationship. There are no secrets. He tells me everything and I tell him, too. Everything.”
“So do your worst, Natasha. I have the five year desertion law on my side. Emmeline will wait for me. She always waits.” And I would. Marriage was not requisite or necessary to me, just a lovely afterthought. The determination to have that certificate and
label was his.
He stood, pulling me up with him. “And under the circumstances, I’ll be resigning as your carer. The only time you’ll see me from now on will be under the assistance of lawyers. If I end up charged with statutory rape, so be it. There’s nothing I won’t do to extricate your presence from my life.”
Flagging slightly, Natasha shifted down into her seat and prodded her dessert. The turn of events seemed to have hit her like a physical blow, leaving her winded and her ego a little bruised. One by one, her friends crept out and left until just her mother and sister remained, her support depleting along with any hope of holding onto her husband.
Asking Mona to take her drink to her bedroom, Natasha pushed awkwardly to her feet with a wobble. “I’ll fight you to the death on this.”
Blaze nodded stiffly. “Good night, Natasha. And goodbye.”
Esme and Daniel each held one of my hands while Blaze and Mona screamed at each other in the next room. I’d felt a little lost in the hour that had passed since dinner and it hadn’t helped that I hadn’t been able to talk to Blaze about the new revelation.
He’d never actually told me how old Natasha was, so I really couldn’t blame him for my assumption that they were the same age. Neither could I blame him for her devious streak and inability to let go. But to not tell me that she had something as bad as this in her arsenal...
I should have been privy to that information—at least forewarned.
Slumped over, I tucked my head between my knees, hoping to fend off the feelings of explosive nausea and dull the noise outside. If my parents had ever argued when I was young, I imagined this was what it would have been like; hearing them attack each other apart with words with the sense of it being my fault. It was, to a degree. My guilt was entirely justifiable.
A loud slam marked Mona and Patrice’s exit, the thick silence in the seconds afterwards broken by the approaching footsteps of Blaze. Head still down, I felt him hover over me before I heard him and felt his warm, gentle hands on my back as he crouched in front of me.