Page 40 of Wicked Queen

And then he had said there were more things to come. I’d chosen to ignore that, but I tried not to think about where Jacobson was right and what he was planning.

“I’ve been trying to figure that out,” Smith admitted. “The bombing doesn’t make sense. It felt like a—”

“Distraction.” I rubbed my jaw, shaking my head. It wasn’t a good sign if Smith was thinking the same thing. “The thought had occurred to me.”

“What does Norris think?” Smith asked. Norris had been Smith’s primary point of contact during the operation. The two had developed a respect for each other that I didn’t understand. Then again, Norris was also a man who would act without hesitation to protect his own. It’s why I kept him by my side.

But Norris didn’t have any more insight than we did. “None of it makes any sense, which makes it even more worrying.”

No groups had claimed responsibility for the attack on the Child Watch symposium my wife had been attending in January. No credible groups, at least. We’d had even fewer leads. The source that had warned us in time to get Clara out safely had vanished. “It’s too convenient. The intelligence arrived with minutes to spare.”

“Enough time to save everyone, but not to stop the device from going off.” He paused, chewing on the thought. When he finally spoke, he chose his words deliberately. “Are we certain Clara was the target? If they wanted to hurt her, they could have.”

“What else could it be?” I’d dismissed this idea outright before, but that was when I’d still expected answers.

“Why would you threaten a queen but not take her?” Smith asked.

“You’d only do that if you were…” My hands gripped the arms of my chair, my nails digging into the leather. Clara might not have been in real danger that day, but she would fall with the rest of us if the other player had us in check.

“She was a distraction. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,” he said in a hollow voice. “Everyone—all your men—were focused on that. What didn’t we see?”

“You know as well as I do what it’s like to be at war.” Smith hadn’t been an actual soldier like me, but he’d been on the front lines in his own way. He’d been raised by Jack Hammond, one of London’s most prominent crime bosses —an old family friend and an old family enemy.

“This doesn’t feel like war,” Smith said.

“Because it isn’t. We’ve been treating it like it is. That’s our mistake. We assumed they wanted us dead.” It was much worse than that. There was an honesty to war—a brutal, violent truth. The enemy wanted to kill you. That was how you won a war. The enemy didn’t play with you. “If this is a game, what is the prize?”

Chapter 15

Alexander

“Aren’t you ever coming to bed?”

I looked up to discover night had fallen and that I was sitting in a nearly dark room. There were papers in my hands that I’d been staring at for hours without seeing. Clara stood in the doorway, light silhouetting her from the waiting area. She was an angel sent to save me from my demons, but I wasn’t certain I deserved redemption.

We’d taken a step in the right direction the other day, but where our relationship was concerned we often started sprinting before we were near the finish line. I couldn’t bear to lose any more. I needed this to be right. I needed us to be right. The truth was, all was not forgiven, and it was up to me to atone for what I’d done. She needed to trust me and I needed to give her enough space to see that she could. “Do you want me to?”

“I thought you might last night,” she admitted. She moved into the office, revealing she’d come down here in only a dressing gown. Its soft pink silk fluttered around her, caressing her curves in a way that made me jealous. “Of course, with everything going on, I understood why you didn’t.”

I’d filled her in on the details regarding Oliver Jacobson. In the past, I’d made the mistake of keeping things like that from her. Even now, I wondered if I’d made the right decision. Clara had enough stress to deal with between the baby and my sister moving into our home, but these things had a way of coming out. This morning, I’d woken to my sister gracing every gossip rag in the country and Jacobson’s face headlining every legitimate news source.

Clara circled round my desk and leaned against it. Her hair was damp from the bath and faint traces of rose clung to her skin. My self-control slipped and I reached for her hips, drawing her body along the edge of the desk until she was in front of me. I wanted to bury myself in her and forget the last few days. I settled for resting my head on her stomach, listening to the miracle she guarded for us.

“I wasn’t sure if you were ready for me to come back to your bed,” I said in a low voice.

“Our bed,” she corrected me, her fingers brushing through my hair. “First, I was sleeping somewhere else. Now you’ve been sleeping in your office. It’s our bed for a reason, X.”

“I should earn it.”

“What?” she asked softly.

“My place beside you. In our bed. In our life.” There were a million reasons I should stay here. I wanted her to go away from London and from me. To somewhere these twisted games couldn’t touch her—and I couldn’t hurt her.

“Earn? You earn trust. You earn respect.” Her hand cupped my chin and urged me to look up. “Love isn’t something you earn, X. My heart is a gift, and I gave it to you. You carry my heart inside you and I carry yours.”

“You’ve done a better job of protecting mine,” I whispered, drawing away from her as though breaking physical contact might help me resist the truth in her words.

“Stop punishing yourself for the past and be with me. We have to start somewhere.” She held out a hand. It was an offering. Taking it was a beginning. It was up to us where we went from here.