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My own body is howling for release, and I quicken my thrusts. Faster, faster, until I’m pounding into her at punishing speed.
I will drive out every evil thing that’s happened to her, not only tonight, but ever.
When I slam into her when I come into her, I’m gasping in time with the heaving of her chest. Our bodies rock together as we ride the last seconds of our pleasure, drawing it out as long as we can, reveling in the heat and sweat between us. My fingers tingling, I run them through Clara’s hair, remove sticky strands from her forehead. She’s flushed and breathless, and so, so beautiful.
“You were never my tool- my pawn,” I tell her again, and I don’t care that my voice is hoarse.
I think of the empty spot on the display shelf in my office. The queen of the second chess set that I never commissioned, missing all this time. I could never find the right artist who had the right vision. How could I have known that the artist and the queen were one and the same, and that she wasn’t made of marble or glass or wood, but flesh and blood? That she’d walk into my life and ruin it, ruin me, and then rebuild me better than ever?
“You were always my queen.” I swallow, stroke her cheek. “Stay with me. Be my wife.”
Clara’s eyes, dreamy with bliss, slowly widen as she realizes what I’ve just asked of her. She takes a deep breath.
But she says… nothing.
Her silence is too heavy between us. It’s suddenly difficult to breathe this air. I sit up.
“Of course, if you aren’t interested, you can leave any time you like,” I say, in a voice I recognize as my blankest negotiation tone. I’m still inside her- it feels wrong to speak to her like this, formal, detached, like we’re discussing a paltry business deal. But when I’m about to lose everything, it’s my last line of defense.
Slowly, trying to feel as little as possible, I pull away and climb off the bed. Clara sits up, still staring at me, but still horribly silent.
“Whatever you choose to do, you’re free now,” I tell her, because that, above all else, she should understand. “We owe each other nothing.”
It’s a relief to look away from her. I dress quickly and leave the room. She can have my bed- I’m not sleeping at all tonight.
CHAPTER 39
Clara
When Raleigh and I sit down to a fresh breakfast of waffles and coffee the next morning, I feel the difference between us immediately. Raleigh is still reserved, but it feels less like she’s hiding her thoughts from me and more like she’s not sure what her thoughts are at all. She keeps looking at the bruises on my face, and every time she does, fury and pain spark in her eyes.
Because it feels unfair to keep it from her, I give her a brief summary of everything that happened after she helped me leave the Warwick estate. I gloss over the pain inflicted and how much blood my uncle shed as he died. Instead, I focus on how relieved I was to win Paul to my side, how cathartic it was to take a page from her book and burn the whole thing down, and how surprised I was when Paul took Iris in his arms and kissed her.
Raleigh isn’t distracted by any of the shallower aspects of my story- not even by the headline-worthy gossip of Iris having a secret husband in a rival family. My best friend’s role in everything I went through is too significant, after all. She told me not to come back until my uncle was dead, and I took that order seriously. The pain I suffered at his hands, the sleeplessness and hunger and fear, they were all necessary. I don’t regret a moment of what happened, but I can tell she does.
Someday, I hope I’ll find the words to tell her she wasn’t wrong to push me to do what needed to be done. That if she hadn’t given me that ultimatum, I might’ve turned away right at the end, and caused greater damage for my cowardice.
But today, I don’t want to talk about what’s already over. I want to talk about what might happen next.
“Raleigh?”
She looks up from her hot latte, cupped in her hands but not even tasted yet. “Hm? What?”
I blush, and almost lose my nerve. She knew when we were kids that I liked her brother. But back then, it was a crush, and we were teenage girls. Everything was too serious to us, and at the same time, nothing was. But now we’re women, and when I tell her I’m in love with her brother, and he proposed to me in bed… that means something.
And in a way, I won’t feel right about this- living in the Warwick house, being with Thomas, any of it- until I know that she does too.
“Thomas… He… asked me something last night.”
Raleigh’s expression immediately switches from melancholy to mortified. “Oh- um. Okay.”
“He wants me to stay,” I manage. “He wants me… t-to marry him.”
Raleigh buries her face in her hands. “Oh- Gross! Bad enough I thought it was a one night thing but- guh. You’re telling me I’ve got to live in the same house as my best friend and my brother being intimate every day? Why couldn’t he stay a boring bachelor forever?!”
I twiddle my fingers in my lap. “I’m… sorry?”
“You should be,” Raleigh huffs sarcastically, raising her head. “Him proposing to you is definitely all your fault. Ugh, I can’t believe you said yes though. You couldn’t at least make him work for it?”
