Wicked Queen Read online

  What was the cost of her life support? I was glad I didn’t see who’d yelled that one out.

  Will she make a full recovery?

  I chose to answer this one. It would be better for them to hear it from me rather than have them try to hunt her down to ask. “Sarah’s progress since awakening has been nothing short of miraculous. The doctors seem confident that she will make a full recovery. In the few weeks since she woke up, she has begun to talk again and to walk. As you can imagine, there has been a lot to catch her up on, which is another reason we ask for privacy for our family at this time.”

  I knew it didn’t matter how many times I said it. There would be no privacy. There would be speculation. There would be rumours. There would be gossip. Ugly, terrible gossip. It was yet another thing I wish I could spare my family. I wanted to shield them, but there was no hiding from my mistakes.

  A reporter called a question and I barely caught what he said. “Clara, were you made aware that Princess Sarah was alive?”

  I knew my wife. I knew that her loyalty was unshakable. She was still holding my hand, so I didn’t expect her answer. Clara didn’t pull away, even as she abandoned me.

  “I understand your surprise,” she said, “because I didn’t know, myself. Alexander never told me his secret.”

  Chapter 7

  Clara

  I didn’t stay for more questions. Instead, I fled to the Royal closet, the small room hidden near the White Room, which probably had a long and proud tradition of providing sanctuary to runaway queens. I made a mental note to avoid looking at any news source for the next twenty years. It would probably be that long before they stopped printing photos of me rushing out of the room.

  I’d felt Alexander’s pain the moment I’d spoken and I hadn’t been able to stop myself from turning to see his stricken face. It was the second time in a week I’d wounded him with my words.

  I couldn’t seem to hold back whatever I was thinking. There were shades of truth in everything I said. We both knew it. But he didn’t know why.

  I couldn’t keep lying. It was tearing me apart and I had no strength to fight it. Not while so much more was at stake.

  The door to the room slammed shut and I jumped but didn’t turn to face him.

  “How could you?” he asked.

  I’d expected the accusation, but it didn’t make it any easier to face.

  “Running off? Telling them…” he trailed away.

  I spun to face him, blinking hot, angry tears from my eyes. “Telling them what? The truth? Sorry, X, I wasn’t born and bred to lie.”

  “Unlike me.” His face was a stony mask that even I couldn’t see behind. It had been so long since he’d worn it in front of me that I forgot how breathtaking it was, like a great marble statue of an avenging angel brought to life. This was the man who had brought me to my knees. Now, he still had the same effect on me. But this wasn’t the man I’d fallen in love with—the man I had married. That man had removed his mask. He’d put it back on and it was my fault.

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” I said. He couldn’t. Not when he was like this.

  “Because you don’t love me anymore,” he spat.

  “Of course I do!” The baby begin to kick and I was reminded that I needed to calm down. I rubbed my stomach comfortingly.

  “But you hate me.” His mask slipped for a second and I saw the confused pain he was hiding.

  “Sometimes,” I admitted in a quiet voice. “You’re apart from everyone, even me. You have no idea how lonely it is to keep your husband’s secrets knowing there will always be more. Because no matter how many of your secrets I keep, you’ll never trust me with all of you. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t lie for you. I can’t pretend we’re a united front and risk losing Edward and everyone else. I can’t tell a lie and let everyone believe I betrayed them, because they’re all I have. I can’t do this alone anymore. You forced my hand. You made me choose and I choose this family. I can’t keep our family together if I’m trying to pretend everything is okay between us. We’re not okay, X.”

  “You think you’re alone?”

  It was only a part of what I was trying to say, but at least he was listening. Finally. “I am. I can’t be enough for everything that’s missing anymore. I…I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  His gaze drifted down to the hand rubbing my belly as he shook his head. His started to say something and then his mouth fell open.

  “You aren’t wearing your wedding ring,” he said quietly.

  I knew that. I felt its absence like I was walking around naked. “My fingers are swollen.”

  “Bullshit.” His eyes were glued to the bare finger.

  “Fine, I can’t bear its weight lately. It used to stand for something and now…” I wanted to swallow the words back as I watched the beautiful, strong man before me crumble.

  “You’re carrying our child. You’re my wife,” he whispered, no longer speaking to me. Then his voice ratcheted up. “I told you. I warned you! You can’t do this? You decide that now? I told you I couldn’t do it. I told you I could never love you. I told you I didn’t want children. I didn’t want to get married.”

  His words were a slap in the face and I stumbled backwards a step.

  He finally looked up at me, his blue eyes hollow. “Why did you give me everything I didn’t want if you were only going to take it all away?”

  “X, I—” But he cut me off.

  “You should leave.”

  “Why? So you can sleep in your office? So I can go back to a separate life in the North wing?” Tears poured down my face now, but I couldn’t even find the strength to wipe them away.

  “No,” he said, his voice deadly even. “Here. Buckingham. London. Me.”

  “Alexander.” I broke with his name on my lips.

  “Leave,” he repeated, but this time I heard it for what it was: a plea. “We know how this ends. We always knew, Clara.”

  “Where would I go? There’s nowhere I could go.”

  “Take any of it. I’ll make excuses.” He ran a hand through his hair and my knees buckled. “It won’t matter much longer, anyway.”

  I couldn’t process what he meant. I couldn’t process any of it. “It doesn’t matter how far I go. Don’t you see that? My life is your life. I gave it to you.”

  “And I am giving it back!” he shouted. He whipped around, turning his back to me. There was a moment of silence as his words settled around us and then his fist lashed out and went through the wall. He sank against it, his hand covered in plaster.

  I couldn’t breathe. It was as if all the air had been sucked from my lungs. I gulped desperately, falling to my knees, as the weight of what was happening hit me. My heart had been ripped from my chest and my hands pressed to the gaping wound. “Please,” I gasped. “Please…I can’t breathe.”

  Alexander was in front of me in what would be a heartbeat if I still had one. He knelt down, brushing tears from my face. “Poppet, inhale,” he coached. “You are going to be fine. You are going to be better without…without me.”

  I shook my head against his words and grabbed his shirt, afraid he would slip away. I couldn’t do this. Not now. “Make me feel something else. Please, I need to feel something else. Please, X.”

  His lips were on mine in an instant, speaking a language only we knew. Maybe for the last time.

  I knew then I would trade any of it for him. I would sell my very soul if it still belonged to me.

  He pried my fingers free of his shirt, but before I could protest, he’d gathered me in his arms and lifted me to my knees. My arms tangled around his neck, drawing him back to me and he answered, cradling my head as he captured my mouth.

  We were drowning together, each of us struggling for air and knowing it was a lost cause. There was no saving either of us now. It was too much to bear and I reached down, trying to find his belt past my stomach, but Alexander was faster. His fingers deftly undid it, releasing his cock. He grabbed my hips a
nd urged me around.

  “I’m afraid our options are limited,” he said as he yanked my skirt to my hips.

  “Take me,” I begged, spreading my legs with the new freedom he’d given me. “Make me yours. Make me yours again.”

  I heard him shove his pants down and then an arm wrapped around me, guiding me over him. A grateful whimper rolled through me as I stretched over his cock.

  “Shhh, easy,” he murmured, his other arm snaking under my arm to press against my chest. It flattened over my heart, and I wondered if he felt how hard it was beating. “That’s it, Poppet. I don’t want to hurt you. Take it slowly.”

  Tears continued to fall as our bodies joined together. I wanted to remember every inch of him, every brush of his skin against mine, every soft word from his lips. When I slid the final distance over him, a moan fell from me.

  “You will always be mine,” he whispered as he began to move inside me.

  My hips joined him, moving in a hypnotic rhythm. I didn’t want this to end. I didn’t want to know what life was like on the other side of this moment.

  “No matter where you are, Clara. There was only ever you. There will only ever be you.” His lips pressed to the nape of my neck, sending shivers racing down my spine. “Let go.”

  His command carried me over the edge, shattering me as his next words destroyed me. “Let me go.”

  He held me until my trembling body stilled. I bit my lip, holding back the next barrage of tears that were making their way from my broken heart. When his hands lifted me away from him, I swallowed hard. He hadn’t come. He hadn’t claimed me. I knew then he’d given me up.

  Alexander stood and reached down to help me to my feet. Bending down, he straightened my skirt, smoothing it with agonizing tenderness, his hand brushing over the place where our child grew. I caught it and pressed it there. The baby kicked and Alexander’s eyes closed, his jaw tightening.

  “I’m not leaving,” I said softly. He could try to force me, but I was through taking orders. I was his, but he was mine, too.

  His eyes stayed shut, his palm lingering on the swell of my stomach. He turned away, drawing his hand free slowly. “Yes, you will.”

  Chapter 8

  Alexander

  The bourbon burned down my throat, but it didn’t erase the pain. I poured another glass, wondering if a second one would. There was no way out of this situation. For years I carried my guilt like scars. With Sarah’s return I should feel healed. I felt anything but. Without realizing it, I’d let her, and that night, go. Now she’d returned to exact innocent retribution.

  It was never my place to forgive myself. Not knowing what I did. Not knowing the truth the whole time. Her life had been stolen from her. I’d failed to protect her and then I’d failed to stand by her.

  For the first time in a long while, I wished my father was here. I’d accepted his order to keep silent that she was alive. After I’d returned home, we’d never spoken of it. I’d given my sister exactly two minutes of my time every month when Norris offered me an update on her condition. I’d abandoned her, and my punishment would be losing everyone I loved.

  I’d become what I feared most. I’d become the man I hated—the man who’d put me in this goddamn impossible situation years ago. And the most terrifying reality was that I was nowhere near turning away from that path.

  I understood secrets now. I understood how fear turned a man into something primal. I would do anything to protect my family—to protect Clara. I would hurt her again and again if that’s what it took. There was no doubt in my mind. Every time I promised her that I would stop making decisions without her, I lied—and I was killing her. It had to stop.

  She needed protection—from me.

  “Drinking alone again?” Norris asked, entering my office.

  Reaching over, I plucked a crystal glass from the tray some angel from the household staff had left me and poured another. “Not anymore.”

  He unbuttoned his suit jacket and took the drink without comment.

  “No more lectures?” I asked. I wanted him to yell at me. I wanted someone to yell at me, so I wouldn’t keep hearing Clara’s broken sobs in my mind.

  “You wouldn’t listen anyway.” He drank slowly like a man who wasn’t trying to chase away ghosts.

  “What’s next?”

  Norris raised an eyebrow. “Next?”

  “On the list of messes I need to clean up.” I would have thought it was obvious. I’d been setting fires everywhere I went for weeks.

  “We will need to discuss your sister’s return,” he said carefully. “You told the press she would be coming home to London.”

  “I assumed she would be.” I scratched the back of my neck.

  “It won’t be long,” he informed me. “The medical reports are astounding. The doctors have never seen anyone react this well after such a long vegetative state.”

  His information tickled at the back of my mind. If I’d been paying more attention to the reports, I might have seen this coming. I could have planned. Her body had been trying to wake up for a long time. “It’s not normal?”

  “She had the best specialists overseeing her care. One of them was using an experimental therapy to keep her muscles from atrophying,” Norris explained. “It was your father’s idea.”

  He’d never told me. Or maybe he had, and I hadn’t been listening.

  “Alexander,” Norris called my attention back to him. “Her body may be strong, but it will take her longer to adjust to all the changes. Life has moved on without her. Are you certain bringing her here is the best option?”

  “Where else would she go? You said it yourself. She left behind a life half-started. All she has now is here.”

  “Have you discussed it with Clara?” he asked, taking another studious sip of his bourbon.

  “Don’t ask stupid questions. It insults both of us,” I snapped. “My wife and I aren’t speaking. She’s turned on me.”

  He inclined his head, narrowing his eyes to display a network of wrinkles. “You don’t believe that.”

  “No,” I said after a moment, “I don’t.”

  “She’s holding you accountable.”

  “Someone has to.” But it wasn’t what I wanted from her. I wanted her to remind me that I wasn’t a lost cause. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t see past today. Every hour in front of me is a void. I haven’t felt this since…”

  I didn’t have to finish the thought. Norris had been there during my darkest moments. He’d pulled me out of a private club nine years ago after I’d nearly killed Georgia Kincaid. He was the one who saw the truth. I wanted it to be me dying on the other end of a strap. He’d protested when my father had sent me to the warfront, but he’d put me on the plane all the same.

  He couldn’t send me away now. I had to face this.

  “There are other matters.” I took a drink, my throat suddenly dry. “She’ll need a security detail. Brex?”

  “He’s keeping an eye on Anders,” Norris reminded me.

  I’d forgotten I’d assigned him to watch my bastard brother. It was mental to think that in the course of a few months, I’d gone from one brother to two and then topped it off with the return of my sister. It was worse to consider how much they all hated me. “I’m sure they’re both enjoying that.”

  “Actually, they’ve become friends.”

  Of course they had. It was no use pretending that my issues with Anders had anything to do with him. Save for the fact that he’d tried to steal my wife, he seemed like an okay guy.

  “Speak with him about it. We’ll need to make a decision soon.”

  “There’s also the next round of the Sovereign Games,” Norris began.

  “Sod the games.” I had more important issues to worry about.

  “You will need public opinion in your favour. Your grandmother and uncle will be returning to London to attend. It’s an opportunity to show the Royal family is—”

  “Not as fucked up as everyone assume
s.”

  “United,” he corrected me. “It’s what you want. It’s what your wife needs.”

  “I can’t even see my wife,” I murmured. “She’s not here with me now.”

  “The only way to get out of the darkness is to move toward the light.” He placed his glass on the desk, still half full.

  “I can’t see any light.” Not without Clara, and she was going to leave. She had to, and I knew it. I had to be strong enough push her away, but I’d never been able to shut her out. I was addicted to her. Nothing would matter if she left.

  “Keep looking, even for a speck. Follow it like the North Star and you’ll find your way home.”

  “Where should I look?” I asked.

  “Start where you found it before.” Norris checked his watch, frowning at the hour. He stood and buttoned his jacket. “With your wife.”

  “I can’t ask that of her. I can’t—” I swallowed on the truth sitting like a lump in my throat “—keep hurting her and I will. I can’t be the man that deserves her.”

  “Perhaps being the man that loves her is enough,” he said gently.

  “I don’t know how to fix this.”

  “The only way to fix anything is to start. Your brother is angry as well. You’ve been making all the decisions without them. You will need each other more than ever. Don’t make the decisions regarding Sarah without them,” he said. “If you want your family you’re going to have to fight for them, but might I suggest you start by talking to them?”

  I grimaced, knowing exactly what he was proposing. “I guess it’s time for another family meeting.”

  “Indeed.” He picked up the bourbon and headed toward the door. “You have a country to rule.”

  And a family to win back.

  * * *

  It was harder to admit Norris was right when I received news that my grandmother and uncle would be returning to London the following afternoon. My grandmother seemed to have a sixth sense for picking the worst fucking times to visit. Probably because she thrived on drama. I’d never made my mind up about Henry. My father’s brother had been a fixture in my life as a child but I’d seen him very little since my return from Afghanistan. My grandmother had moved in with him after I’d become king, and he had taken my father’s place in her life. It was no surprise that she had a leash on him, although he did have an unusual ability to keep her in line. I didn’t relish either of them coming, though, especially with Norris’s proposed family meeting scheduled for that evening. I couldn’t risk calling it off. Not after getting both Edward and Clara to agree to come.