by Geneva Lee
“I asked for assistance. I did not ask for her assistance.”
“Yeah, who knew the family jeweller was also the Royal cleaner?” I shook my head in disbelief. “Is this who you are? How far are you willing to go, X?”
“When it comes to protecting you, I will go as far as I have to. No one will touch you and I don’t care if I have to get in bed with the devil himself,” he roared, anger flaring like the tip of a flame in his blue eyes.
“Call it off,” I demanded in a low voice. “Call Hammond and tell him you will find another way.”
“I can’t do that.” He pressed forward, backing me into the wall. “Not until I’m sure this threat has been dealt with.”
“Call it off,” I pleaded. “I won’t have blood on my hands—or yours.”
He straightened, an angry tick pulsing in his jaw as he withdrew his mobile from his breast pocket and dialed.
“Hammond, close the show.” There was a pause. “I’m certain.”
Even as I heard him give the order, my heart pounded. Avoiding one mistake didn’t erase the others he’d made. It also didn’t erase the danger I’d placed my friends and family in unknowingly.
“Happy?” He dropped the mobile back in his pocket.
“No,” I whispered.
“Clara, I needed information. There was no standing order.” His words reeked of excuses.
“That’s not what she said.”
“Whatever Georgia told you, please trust that I am acting in your best interest.”
“How can I trust you, X?”
“What else did Georgia Kincaid say to you?” His voice was measured, but the demand was clear.
She told me something I didn’t want to hear. She told me exactly what I’d feared to be true. I tried to meet Alexander’s eyes and answer his question, but in the end, I couldn’t. “Sorry, X.”
I sidestepped him and reached for the door, but his hand shot out to hold it closed.
“Does it really matter?” he asked. “She’s in my past.”
I laughed hollowly. “If you have to ask that, then you already know the answer.”
Alexander’s hand dropped, allowing me to open the door. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “But don’t follow me, okay?”
“I can’t allow—”
“You can,” I stopped him, “and you will.”
I darted out the door and to the street, hailing a taxi before he could send for Norris. Part of me wanted to believe he’d let me go, that he’d give me a chance to think.
And part of me watched out the window as rain began to fall, hoping he was right behind me.
Rain danced across the Thames, making the lights of London sparkle with a frenetic energy. I clutched the stone rail until the rough surface had nearly rubbed my fingertips raw. Turning my face to the charcoal sky, I let the downpour shower over me. A chill ran up my neck but I couldn’t bring myself to choose a direction. If I turned left I’d be heading toward the Westminster Royal, the hotel where I’d naively fallen into Alexander’s bed. To the right, the London Eye sat stalled due to the weather. The ghosts of our relationship were all around me. Alexander was at the heart of this city to me, which made it impossible to escape him.
“Clara!” My name carried over the wind, held aloft by the desperation buoying it.
I pivoted toward his voice instinctively. Passing umbrellas broke my line of vision, allowing flashes of him. Alexander stood on the other side of the bridge, his hand still gripping the roof of the Rolls-Royce. It seemed impossible that I could hear him over the rain shower and passing traffic.
Alexander darted across the traffic, narrowly dodging an oncoming taxi, which set my heart racing. Apparently, he was all about stupid decisions lately. I was too wet to move—too wet to care. By the time he reached me, the white shirt under his open suit coat was soaked through. It clung to him. But it didn’t only display his muscles—his scars showed through. He halted a few steps before me and we stood as heaven cried over us, neither of us speaking.
“How did you know where I was?” I demanded. “Are you tracking my phone now?”
“No,” he panted. “I just knew.”
“Bullshit,” I accused. In a city of eight million people, no one was that lucky.
“I went to where we began,” he called over the storm. “Where I asked you to marry me. I went to where I would have gone.”
“I don’t know why I came here,” I admitted, a shiver rolling through me. Alexander took a step towards me and I backed away.
“You were looking for us.”
“Maybe you’re right. All I’ve found lately is more questions. More secrets.”
“Georgia means nothing to me,” he said. “I didn’t tell you because that man is gone. He was broken, Clara. You healed him.”
I shook my head, rain drops spilling from my lashes. “I changed him.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” He took another step toward me, pausing like he was approaching a frightened animal.
“People don’t change like that. I can’t ask you to be someone you aren’t.” I thought of Georgia’s warning—that what was enough for Alexander now wouldn’t satisfy him forever.
“Like hell people don’t change.” Alexander took another step, bringing his body within inches of mine.
Awareness prickled over my skin giving way to the physical reaction his presence always induced, but I couldn’t feel it. I sensed it—my nipples pebbling, my core tightening—but I was numb.
“I don’t want you to change.” I stumbled on the words, trying to find a way to explain even as my heart broke. “I love you, but I can’t give you what you need. Not completely. Someday you’ll resent that, X. And this might kill me now, but I won’t survive when you finally leave.”
“I’m not leaving,” he said, his voice hoarse with all the things he could never express to me. “I don’t want that life, Clara.”
“Did it fulfill you? Did it satisfy you?”
His head fell forward, rain dripping from his hair. “Yes. It did.”
That was all I needed to know. Choking down a sob, I forced myself to turn. My arms wrapped around my chest protectively, but I couldn’t hold onto the last pieces of my shattered heart. His hand grabbed my upper arm and spun me around, pressing me into him. Our eyes met and I couldn’t look away.
“It did,” he repeated. “But it never could again. It soothed a part of me that was empty for only one reason, but it could never fill the space. Nothing but you ever will.”
My hands found his face, and I held him there, so close that I tasted the sweetness of his breath on my lips. “Why?”
“Because you found me, Clara. I was lost, and you gave me a home. Let me stay,” he whispered as his face angled over mine. His hand cupped my chin, blue eyes searching mine for permission.
He wasn’t demanding it. The arm bracing me against him was loose. I could slip away, disappear under the cover of the stormy night sky.
But I already knew that no matter what path I took—no matter how far or hard I ran—all roads led back to him. I may have given him a home, but he was my shelter. My protector.
I couldn’t deny that any more than I could deny the ache in my chest. What if his past continued to intrude on our future? What if mine did? It no longer mattered—I loved him, and I’d promised him nothing in his past could change that.
Lighting cracked overhead, but neither of us flinched. So long as we were here—so long as we were united—no act of God or man could tear us apart.
I guided his face to mine, our lips meeting softly. Rain washed over us, cleansing us of our pasts and our mistakes. The choices the future forced would be ours alone.
Alexander’s hand fell away as he bent and scooped me into his arms. I clung to him even as he broke away. When we reached the edge of the sidewalk, he murmured, “Trust me, poppet?”
I looked into his eyes and knew that I did. It was inexplicable and re
ckless, but even though I had questions, I trusted him. I nodded.
“Then hold tight.”
My arms locked around his neck as he dashed across lanes of traffic. Fear thrilled through me, but the rush of it faded almost instantaneously. He had me—what did I have to fear?
I didn’t miss the reproachful look on Norris’s face as he opened the back passenger door for us. I scrambled into the back of the car and Alexander slid in behind him. In moments, he’d gathered me into his arms.
Alexander brushed kisses over my forehead, my cheeks, across my nose. Silent apologies. I closed my eyes and accepted the offering. Melting against him, I listened to his steady heartbeat. My own heart beat for that rhythm.
“Being with me will always be dangerous. There will always be security, because there will always be threats. I only want to protect you.” He hesitated. “I wish it could be otherwise.”
“I know,” I whispered. “But I need you to stay open.”
“I can’t promise you there will be no darkness, Clara.” His face nuzzled against my neck, inhaling deeply. “I am not a perfect man, but you have all of me. Never doubt that.”
“Can I ask you for something?” I said shyly.
He tilted my chin up. “Anything.”
“Take me for coffee.” It was a simple request, but my voice broke as I asked, knowing it was laced with meaning. Coffee was normal. Something we weren’t very good at it, but if we were going to make this work we needed normal.
“You’re soaked and cold.”
“I don’t care,” I whispered.
He leaned forward and rapped on the glass. The partition separating us from Norris descended.
“Coffee?” It was more of a question than an instruction.
Norris’s smile flashed in the rearview mirror. “I know just the place, sir.”
The car edged over a lane before pulling to a stop in front of a small café. A neon sign flashed 24 hours.
“I have to admit this is a first for me,” Alexander said as he swung open the door.
“Really?” This delighted me. “I’ve never been around for one of your firsts.”
He paused, turning back to me and catching my hand. “You have been all of my firsts.”
As I followed him out of the back seat he slipped his suit coat over my shoulders.
“It’s wet,” he said unapologetically.
“It doesn’t really matter.” I couldn’t possibly be any more drenched. I clutched it shut over my collarbone, breathing in the scent of him.
He shook the rain from his hair, which fell over his forehead in dark gashes, sending rivulets streaming over his face. The drops caught in the lashes that framed his smoldering eyes. He was fire in the rain. Impossible. Magnificent. Mine.
He crooked his arm. “Can I buy you a coffee?”
“Just one?” I teased.
“I wouldn’t want to keep you up all night.”
“Are you sure about that?” I trailed a finger over the inside of his wrist.
Alexander held up a finger and called to a passing waiter. “A pot of coffee, if you will.”
The waiter nodded, looking a little confused as he headed back to the counter. No doubt he was wondering if his imagination was playing tricks on him.
Alexander and I slid into a booth, our hands finding each other’s across the table. It wasn’t exactly normal, but it was a start.
It is an irrefutable fact that the more a girl has on her to-do list, the faster time flies. Apparently that went double for women who were planning weddings. I’d been concerned I’d be bored after I left Peters & Clarkwell, but now I realized I didn’t have time to be bored. Especially not with my mother breathing down my neck about last minute decisions and the hundreds of new etiquette rules I had to follow. It made me wonder exactly why anyone would use the term ‘blessed’ in regards to marriage.
It also provided me with some distraction from the fight Alexander and I had had last weekend. We’d spent the last few days breaking in our new quarters within Clarence House, and somehow I’d found that despite my anxiety over everything, I was happy.
Ducking out of a final meeting with the florist I’d managed to keep off my mother’s radar, my phone rang. I dug it out of my purse, pleased to see it was one of the few people I had not placed on my mental block list.
I slid accept to take my sister’s call. “Are you calling to talk to me or to relay a message?”
“I should be employed as your secretary,” she said, not bothering to hide her annoyance at becoming the communications gopher between me and my parents. “I have about a dozen messages I’m supposed to relay, absolutely none of which are important.”
“When are they ever?” I asked as I slid into the back of the Rolls-Royce that had magically appeared amidst the afternoon traffic.
“She’s going to drive me crazy. ‘Tell your sister that her cousin Elise won’t be able to make it. Tell your sister that Elise just called to say she moved her meetings and is flying in. Tell your sister to remember to offer a gluten-free cake option. Tell your sister it’s too late to change the cake and she hopes no one has an allergy.’ Honestly, the only thing I want to tell you is to run while you have the chance.”
“I’m sorry.” My apology was sincere, although I couldn’t help but be glad she was bearing the brunt of my mother’s last minute panic. There were already enough other people panicking around me.
“I didn’t call to pass on her ramblings,” she said dismissively as though this was all completely normal—and to some extent it was considering our mother’s penchant for drama. “Where and when? And what should I wear? I don’t think I’ve ever needed a night out so badly in my life.”
“We’re meeting at CoCo’s for dinner first. Belle booked a private room and then we’re going dancing, so nothing formal,” I advised, choosing to skim over the number of ridiculous security procedures Alexander had insisted on for the evening. I’d grown used to having a constant shadow, but it didn’t mean I liked it. I also didn’t want to draw any more attention to the presence of security this evening. I wanted to be carefree for once.
“I still think we should have gone away for your hen night.” I could almost see Lola’s pout as she spoke. It looked something like our mother’s without the added weight of years of disappointment. “I can’t believe Alexander was so against it.”
“I’ll see you at six,” I said, bypassing her complaint and hanging up. It was hard to explain to someone who wasn’t in love why it was so difficult for us to be apart. Of course, we were a little more dependent on each other than most people, and we’d spent more time apart than we’d have liked of late, given the increasing responsibilities he’d taken on for the crown. I slid my phone back in my purse and turned my attention to the street.
I missed being able to walk around London. With the number of foreign dignitaries already arriving for the wedding and the number of meetings and rehearsals planned for the next few days, security had increased to the point of suffocation. But as I gazed out the window I caught glimpses of my face—flashing on TV screens in shops, on magazine covers at the corner stand, and, in a surreal twist, plastered all over souvenir items sold by street vendors. I shrank back when I spotted a rather burly man wearing a t-shirt with a poorly photoshopped picture of me clad in a bikini on the front, grateful for the darkly tinted glass of Alexander’s personal vehicle.
This wasn’t my life. It couldn’t be.
Part of me didn’t want it to be.
A familiar mix of dread and elation churned in my stomach. In three days I would marry the man I loved. It was more than I’d ever dreamed. What was difficult to swallow, was that in three days I would officially be granted a title—or so the tabloids claimed—and then promptly given the keys to Clarence House, the personal residence of the Prince of Wales. Because Alexander was the Prince of Wales. How exactly was I supposed to absorb that?
“Norris?” I called to the front seat.
Two aler
t eyes found mine in the rearview mirror. “Yes, Miss Bishop?”
I suppressed a sigh that he continued to insist on being so formal with me. “Do they give public tours of Clarence House?”
“If they can charge for admission, they’ll give a tour of it,” he said with a laugh.
“Great,” I grumbled, “I’m going to be living in a museum.”
“It could be worse,” he said and though I couldn’t see it, I knew he was smiling.
“How?” I challenged him, a grin tugging at my own lips.
“You could still be living with your parents.”
I shook my head in mock-horror. Maybe Norris wasn’t so formal after all. Maybe I just had a bad habit of being too quick to make assumptions about people. The world wasn’t nearly as worked up about my wedding as I was. Maybe none of this was that big of a deal. I’d almost managed to convince myself I was right when Norris turned the corner near my old flat. I’d almost managed to believe that my life might not be changing as drastically as I fear. Yeah, almost. And then I saw the pile of signs and flowers and other tokens piled near the building’s main entrance.
Not only was my entire life about to change, it had infected my past as well. Clara Bishop only existed in the context of Prince Alexander, and even as I clung to who I was, I felt pieces of myself slipping away. Everything about my life—past and present—was an open book. I was to be read and studied and analyzed. It was overwhelming, and one thing was certain: I needed a night out even more than my sister.
Aunt Jane opened her door with a large glass of red wine in hand and held it out, but I waved it away. Between the ride to my old flat and tomorrow’s schedule, my stomach was churning. The last thing I felt like was a drink.
“No thanks.” I groaned and slumped at her kitchen table, instantly feeling at home in the cozy apartment. She’d updated the space to complement the pre-war architecture and then filled it with trinkets and pieces from her travels. The strange mix of elegant and eccentric was as warm as Jane herself. “I think I’m going to throw up. Did you know you can buy a Clara doll with interchangeable fashion items?”