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“Alexandra, baby… I’m… I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t baby me. You have been lying to me?—”
“Not about my feelings. Not about how I love you. Not about how you make me feel, Alexandra. No. I want you. I need you. I want to marry you.”
“I know. Because it will save your family’s skin,” she sobbed. “Fuck you! You don’t deserve me!”
“We agree on that, yes.”
She shook her head. “Don’t worry. I’ll not break it off. You and I will do the thing and look the part. But this is it. We are teammates with the same goal. Your job is to ensure Celeste goes her merry way. We will keep everything above board, so she suspects nothing. And the girls will be free. Do you understand?”
She smashed my heart.
I quietly agreed to her plan. “Yes, Alexandra. Anything.”
“I don’t want you to think anything is ever going to happen between us,” Alexandra said.
“I…I will always follow your lead, Alexandra. I am sorry I hurt you. I am sorry I ever lied. I wish I would have been honest with you because you don’t deserve this. I don’t blame you, but I do love you.”
“Stop saying that!”
“I cannot.”
“It’s contrived!”
“Alexandra, I never meant to say it. Saying it is frightening. Baby, I do love you. And because of that, I will wait. As long as it takes. And Lord knows we have an eternity to wait it out.”
She crossed her arms. “No. Nothing will change. You can wait, but this is where it stands. That is your folly.”
“I have the audacity to believe it will work out,” I said.
“Just… forget I ever said anything to you about wanting anything real,” she said. “I didn’t. I lied.”
But she didn’t lie. She felt every bit of the same for me. I had broken her heart. And now, I was breaking my own. This was all my fault. I had—once again—destroyed my happiness. She was right. I didn’t deserve her. However, I believed this time I might have a second chance. I had nothing but time.
“I will wait. And always take care of you and the girls,” I promised. “Hate me all you want, Alexandra. That makes two of us. But I will take care of you all to the best of my abilities. That cunt won’t win.”
I expected at least a snicker out of Alexandra, but I got nowhere. So, I turned and left. As I did, I could hear her body racked by sobs in the echo of the vast hall. It killed me. I could not have hated myself more if I tried at that moment. I vowed to show here through all my best intent that we could make it work.
Thirty-One
Alexandra
“Darling, I know you are upset. I understand why. He doesn’t deserve you. However, you’re getting married, and we have a million plans. You cannot simply lie in here all day and ignore everyone. The entire house is getting nervous the longer this goes on. They will suspect something.”
Astrid sat on the edge of my bed. It was the week before my wedding. Rick’s family were about to arrive any moment now and we still barely spoke. Tonight, we had to open the opera together. I dreaded it.
“It doesn’t matter. Everything will work. It must. He has everything to lose,” I said.
“She is set to hand the documentation to end the regency off to the PM,” Astrid informed me.
“How do you know?”
“I overheard Lord William running his mouth to someone in the hall.”
“You were snooping.”
“What do you care?”
