Break Me: Smith and Belle (Royals Saga Book 12) Read online

  I’d given myself over to that control.

  But things were different now. Promises had been made, and we had more than ourselves to worry about now. Seeing the beast he’d caged peeking from his eyes scared me. I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever was necessary to protect me, but at what cost?

  23

  Smith

  By noon, Belle had spirited Edward away to the Bless offices. I had no doubt both of them wanted to put much-needed distance between the occupants of the main house. I’d taken Alexander outside, on the pretense of giving him a tour of the property, so that we could talk without risk of being overhead. The footage of Belle in the nursery last night had reminded me that it was too easy to trust a closed door, but the walls often had ears of their own.

  We strolled past the gardens, still half-covered in melting snow, toward the valley that extended beyond the estate’s buildings. Alexander was quiet as we walked until we reached an old oak that was normally a speck in the distance.

  “Did she do it?” he asked, as though he’d been waiting until we neared this point to pose the question.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  Alexander shifted his hands behind his back, his eyes scanning the distance like he might find answers there.

  “Does it matter?” I asked.

  “Not to me,” he said pointedly.

  “I would do anything for her.” I meant it. “It doesn’t matter what she did or didn’t do. I promised I would protect her.”

  “You should come back to London,” he advised, turning to survey my reaction. “It will be easier for me to handle things if we don’t have to deal with bumbling local detectives.”

  “And if they find a body?”

  Alexander looked out over my property before raising an eyebrow. “We’ll find it first. Brex can oversee it.”

  “And if we don’t find her?”

  “Then it will be even easier to deal with—no digging required.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “London is the best choice, and I could certainly use you there.”

  “I’m not certain that life…“ Belle had cracked in the quiet of the country. How much worse would it be in the chaos of the city? “I’d need to consider before dividing my attention. I wanted to leave this life behind.”

  He smiled grimly. “A feeling I understand all too well.”

  What he didn’t say lingered in the air: but we can’t.

  No matter what we did, this life always found us.

  “I think I’ll walk a while,” he told me, tipping his head toward the house. “It’s rare that I get away from any of them long enough to be alone.”

  I imagined that was true. Alexander always had an entourage. I suspected the only privacy he ever found was in his own bedroom. “I’ll send them in the opposite direction.”

  “Smith,” Alexander called before I got far. I paused. “I know we’ve worked together a long time.”

  I waited. I’d gone to him after his father’s death. I had never expected to stay linked to him this long, but then I had fallen in love with a whip-smart blonde with red lips.

  “I want you to know I consider you a friend. I know I owe you,” he said, “but I want to be clear, I’m not keeping score. When you need me—when any of you need me—I’ll be there.”

  I considered his words for a moment. I didn’t have many people I placed in the category of friends. Finally, I nodded. “Same.”

  We parted with the understanding that we were more than allies. It would never be like Belle and Edward. This was a friendship forged in duty and a shared concept of responsibility. Few men could understand the way I operated—Alexander was one of them.

  “Don’t get assassinated out here,” I advised him.

  “I’ll try not to.”

  Our friendship was already off to a strong smart. As I returned to the house, I considered the fact that he might be safer outside Thornham’s walls than he was inside. I was so lost in my thoughts that I nearly ran into Mrs. Winters as she wobbled out of the pantry.

  “Your lunch is ready,” Mrs. Winters informed me when I walked into the kitchen.

  “My lunch?” I asked in confusion.

  “Your wife was supposed to ask you if I should make lunch for you and your guests,” Mrs. Winters said in an irritated voice. “She never bothered to tell me what you said, so I assumed I should. Should I wrap it up?”

  The last thing I needed was to lose more help around the house. Belle had her mind on other things, and I couldn’t blame her for that. “No, I’ll round everyone up. I apologize for the confusion. It’s been a stressful day.”

  “I imagine so with Nora leaving.” She studied me for a moment, wheels turning in her eyes. “I’ll have dinner ready at seven. I assume His Majesty is staying for the party.”

  “Ummm,” I hedged. “I assume so, too.” I didn’t want to speak for Alexander. He probably wanted to get back to London. Like me, he didn’t approve of being apart from his wife and children for too long. But we had unfinished business to attend to, which meant that he would be here until it was wrapped up.

  Mrs. Winters started back toward the kitchen, but paused. “I almost forgot. A letter came to you from a messenger. I left it by the door.” She shook her head, looking disgruntled that she’d had to attend to this. “When will Humphrey be back from holiday?”

  “This weekend, I think,” I said absently. I wasn’t expecting any deliveries. I no longer had clients to see to. We had purchased Thornham outright. I couldn’t think of a single reason for a messenger to deliver a letter today. I turned, grinning despite the stress I felt, imagining what it must have been like for someone to bring a delivery and see a helicopter on the lawn. It was more surreal than amusing. I thought my life was complicated before I met Belle. I had no idea how much more complicated it could become.

  I found the envelope sitting on a table near the entrance, next to an elaborate arrangement of fresh white roses and lilies in a silver vase. As I reached for it, the scent of the flowers hit my nose. They smelled cloying, and I grimaced.

  They smelled like Nora’s perfume.

  I pushed against the memory of her touch. Of kissing her wrist. It had been a mistake—one she had paid dearly for. Belle had been getting better. I’d finally had some hope after she’d stopped the sleeping pills that we could make our life in Thornham work. But Nora had robbed that hope from me. She was a thief, trying to steal my heart, but all she had done was steal my wife. I had to make Belle see reason. Every time we discussed what happened, I saw the shame in her eyes. She wanted to turn herself in. She was scared of herself.

  The worst part was that I was scared of her as well. Scared that she might vanish like Nora in the night. Scared that her mind was slipping away like Miranda. I knew she didn’t want to believe that the Thorne baby had anything to do with this, but I needed to. The alternative was too disturbing to consider. Belle had not fallen victim to the darkness of Thornham. I couldn’t believe it. Not without more proof.

  I carried the envelope to my office and found my letter opener on the desk. Sliding its edge under the flap, I cut it open. I dropped the letter opener and drew out a single sheet of paper. A few photographs had been attached to its corner with a paperclip. My eyes scanned the printed letter, typed in a boring font that must have come pre-installed on whatever computer it had been written on. By the time, I had reached the second line, my pulse was pounding so hard in my ears that I felt as though I’d been sucked into a vacuum of space and time.

  Darling,

  I hope you’ve enjoyed our little game. We always had so much fun together, but then you got a new partner. Was I so easy to replace?

  She was hardly a match for me. I can’t imagine that she’s kept you as entertained as I did. One more move, and I’ll crush her completely. So I’m offering you a chance to take her place before I make my final play. Who do you want me to take off the board: the knight or the pawn? Deliver your response in person at the pond, at 7 o’
clock this evening, or the rest of my portfolio will find its way in the hands of people who will lock her up for good. Only one player, please—fair is fair.

  -M

  My fingers fumbled for the photographs attached to the letter, my brain refusing to process what I should have seen all along. The first was a still of Belle and Nora on the security feed. The next one of Belle sleeping. My blood rose as I spotted my own form next to my wife. I had been right there when it was taking. But the last picture turned my bones to ice: Penny sleeping in her crib.

  It wasn’t a choice. It was a threat. One of us had to take the fall for Nora’s murder. One of us had to admit defeat. It was an easy call to make. I was never meant to have this life, but, at least, I would finally be able to set my wife free from the veil of madness that had been thrown over her head.

  The Thorne baby. Belle. All traps laid to slow me down. My enemy had been distracting me while setting up the final board. Now that an audience was gathered, it was time to stage my final defeat. I should have known all along that my sins would cost me Belle. Believing in love, in salvation, had left me vulnerable to an opponent I had never seen coming.

  24

  Belle

  “You can’t avoid him forever,” Edward reminded me. He placed a stack of design books on an empty shelf while leveling a serious gaze at me. He’d managed to convince me to spend some of the frantic energy building inside me on doing something productive. Smith had seen to finishing the interior of the Bless offices, but only I could put on the finishing touches.

  But my heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t see a point.

  “I won’t.” It was better to leave it at that. I’d seen the look in Smith’s eyes earlier—I didn’t know what he was planning, but I suspected I wouldn’t like it. He had shut me out before when he felt he had to take matters into his own hands. “I don’t know how to stop him.”

  “I’m guessing he would say the same about you. I don’t know how you two wound up together. You’re both too stubborn,” he said.

  I paused, resting against the desk Smith had only given me over Christmas. I was supposed to be starting a new life here. He’d given me this space to build Bless, and now I never would. “I don’t know why we’re bothering with any of this.”

  Edward continued finessing a frame on the wall, ignoring my point entirely. He didn’t bother to turn around as he shook his head. “Because you have an empire to run. A few weeks ago, you were worried about going to Paris and scaling up operations to meet demands,” he said. “Why don’t you focus for a little while on how much you’ve accomplished?”

  “Because it doesn’t feel like much of an accomplishment at the moment,” I admitted. “What does it matter if I’m behind bars?”

  “Alexander won’t let that happen.” It was the first time that Edward had said his brother’s name since his arrival.

  “Now you’re on their side?” I flicked the end of the pencil, sending it rolling onto the floor.

  “I am always—and have always been—on your side,” he said firmly. “But trust me, sometimes we are our own worst enemies.”

  “And this is one of those times?” I guessed.

  “Promise me that you aren’t planning to sneak away and turn yourself into the police.” He moved in front of me, forcing me to meet his eyes. When I didn’t speak, he clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “That’s what I thought. They aren’t going to let that happen. I’m not going to let that happen.”

  “What about what I want to happen?”

  “Do you remember that time that I wanted to wear Gucci to the Ambassador’s Ball?”

  I nodded. He’d decided that a statement needed to be made, but, actually, he was tired of wearing tuxedos. “I would never have let you go through with that.”

  “Exactly.” He reached down and took my hands in his. “It’s my job, as your best friend, to keep you from making stupid mistakes.”

  “Really?” I arched an eyebrow, but didn’t pull away from his grasp. “Because I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes lately.”

  “Well, I can’t be around all the time,” he teased. “You’ll just have to stop sleepwalking.”

  And murdering people, I thought miserably. I was about to say it out loud when Smith walked through the door. Edward glanced between the two of us before dropping my hands.

  “Mrs. Winters made lunch,” Smith told us in a clipped tone. “You better head inside before she explodes.”

  I straightened to follow Edward, but Smith caught my hand. “A moment, beautiful?”

  Edward paused as he waited for a signal from me. I nodded once, so that he knew it was okay to go.

  “I’m sorry,” Smith said as soon as the door closed behind Edward.

  I flinched, physically surprised that he’d come to apologize.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” He asked when I continued to stare.

  “I’m trying to decide if you’re really my husband.”

  “I can admit when I’m wrong,” he said defensively.

  I raised the other eyebrow.

  “I’m just rarely wrong,” he added, smirking. The wicked grin spread over his face easily, but it stopped before it reached his eyes.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked in a soft voice. He could claim that he was comfortable admitting when he was wrong, but we both knew that wasn’t true. The fact that he had sought me out to tell me told me I had more to worry about setting things right with him.

  “I don’t want you to waste time worrying that I think you hurt Nora. I know you didn’t.”

  “You can’t—” before I could tell him what we both knew that wasn’t true, his mouth was on mine. There was an urgency to the kiss. I recognized it for what it was: he was claiming me just as I had done yesterday.

  I had driven him to this. But although part of me thought I should push them away and force him to talk this out, more of me craved the comfort I would find in his possession.

  Smith carried me to the wall, our hands working to remove our clothing as we went. I tugged his sweater over his head, my fingers fanning over his hard pecs. He paused, momentarily lowering me to the ground to yank off my pants before hoisting me up. I reached to my shirt and lifted it over my head as my heels helped him push his jeans low enough to free his cock. He pushed inside me, meeting no resistance. I was too wet at the promise of feeling his skin on mine. My fingernails sank into shoulders and I clung to him as we guided each other to the answer that always made sense.

  We had each other. We had our love. No one could take that away. No sin could break us.

  Smith pressed his slick forehead to mine, panting, as he urged me higher and higher. “I love you, beautiful.”

  I was too close to speak, my mouth finding his when my words failed me. They promised him what I knew to be true. Our love would find away just like we had found each other. I shattered in his arms, safe in the knowledge that he would put me back together.

  25

  Smith

  Belle’s lie had unintentionally paved the way for me to easily slip from the house while everyone else was distracted. I thought of the letter and the timing of the meet. Was it a coincidence or did my enemy know every step I took inside my own home? Did she know about the party happening inside my home this evening? She had pictures of me and my family. She’d been in my daughter’s room. She’d watched the footage from the nursery monitor. It was possible she’d chosen the appointment feeling safe in the knowledge that I could get away, unnoticed, while the others pretended to celebrate.

  But if she knew that, then she also knew that I wasn’t alone at Thornham. I had guests. Powerful guest. Dangerous guests. Her threats were enough to motivate me to go before she changed her mind about granting me my move. If she slipped away, leaving her trail of bloody breadcrumbs for the authorities, I didn’t know what would happen. Alexander could try to cover it up, but how long would the country tolerate high-handed behavior by the monarchy?

  As muc
h as I hated to admit it, there was one more consideration weighing on me.

  I needed to see for myself.

  I needed to face my ghost.

  “Sneaking away from my party, Price?” Georgia’s voice caught me as I stepped out the door. “I’m hurt.”

  I paused before tipping my head to the dark night outside. “I’ll be right back.”

  I moved to step out, hoping she wouldn’t ask more questions, but Georgia was too shrewd for that. “You’re lying.”

  “What am I going to do? Walk until I find the world’s edge and fall off?” Swiveling back to her slowly, I raised my shoulders as if to point out how ridiculous she sounded.

  Georgia crossed to me, never taking her eyes off me as she moved. “Where are you really going?”

  I didn’t want her to be involved. I didn’t know yet what to expect. I wouldn’t know until I faced her and understood what had happened. Still, Georgia knew me too well to believe I was going out for a breath of fresh air. She wouldn’t drop this, and the last thing I wanted was her to draw attention to my absence. I gestured for her to join me outside.

  Night had fallen, the sky a black cloak over the countryside. A plume of smoke rose from the chimney in the living room, filling the crisp air with the smell of woodsmoke. I smiled, knowing Belle and Penny were inside, warm and safe beside it, surrounded by friends.

  Georgia sauntered out, narrowed eyes watching me the whole time. Despite the chilly January evening, she showed no sign of discomfort in her thin blouse. “What’s going on?”

  “I got a note,” I confessed in a low voice. I took the folded paper from my pocket and handed it to her. “Along with photos taken from inside the house.”

  Georgia took a step toward the house where a security light had flipped on after dark. She scanned the letter, interest turning to confusion and finally shock. Her mouth hung open when she looked back up at me. It took a lot to ruffle Georgia Kincaid. If anything could, it would be this.