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His face turns puce. I’ve never seen him that color. “Marry her? Fucking marry her! No, never.”
“Why not? You’re marrying the mother, and you brought her here when my mother was barely cold in her grave, you bastard.”
He clenches his fists, and I brace, but there’s a knock at the door.
“For the love of Christ, Lucia.”
“It’s Jeremiah Pickman,” a deep voice says.
He’s a math tutor here at the college.
“For our appointment. You asked me to meet you here?”
“Fuck,” Father whispers under his breath. “Yes, of course. One moment.” He says this more loudly. Then he addresses me in a hiss. “Go into the fucking bedroom and don’t come out until I tell you to. This conversation is not over.”
He pushes me roughly in the direction of the bedroom, and I stumble, dazed and reeling down the corridor.
When I enter the room that used to be my parents’, I still get that awful jolt to the stomach when I see Lucia’s things. I used to want her gone as soon as I saw them, but now I know that means losing our Duchess, too, and that can’t happen.
I pace in the bedroom, the door closed behind me. Will I have to do as Kirill has and kill my own father like something out of a Shakespearean tragedy if I want to be with Duchess?
The closet door is open, Lucia’s clothes where my mother’s once were. I’m drawn to them even though they make me sick. I put one to my nose and inhale, but the perfume is all wrong. It’s not the floral scent my mother used to wear, but something musky.
I move away, my stomach like a block of ice at the sense of loss.
My father’s side is as anal as it’s always been. I pull out his sock drawer and smirk at the rolled up, color coded Hermes socks. Fucking asshole.
The ties are next, and I resist the urge to throw them all over the room like silk streamers.
Then his cufflinks. What a fucking peacock. So many of them.
I pull out his handkerchief drawer and can’t believe one man can own so many pocket squares. As I’m pushing the drawer back in, it catches on something. I frown and pull it farther out and see in one of the very back slots, instead of a handkerchief, there’s a folded piece of thick paper.
Three words are visible. Three words that make my throat run dry because they are in the familiar, sloping hand of my mother.
Fingers shaking, I reach for the paper and unfold it. My eyes scan the page, and I sit heavily on the bed behind me as I read.
Chapter 23
Mackenzie
I stand in my bedroom with my mother. Her expression is creased in concern, but her shoulders are rigid.
“What the hell is going on, Mackenzie? It’s like every time I dare take my eye off you, something else blows up. Why is Nataniele so angry?”
There’s no point in not telling her. She’s going to find out anyway. A rush of heat floods over me at the prospect of telling her the truth. I should be proud of my three men, not ashamed, and I hate that she’s making me feel this way.
“Nataniele discovered I’m in a relationship with Domenic.”
Her eyebrows lift. “You’re what?”
But I’m not finished. “And Valentino… and Kirill.”
She blinks several times, trying to take it in. “I-I don’t understand.”
“I’m with all of them, Mom. All three of them.”
“Together?”
