Page 16 of Wicked Queen

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…”