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Her entitled voice responded. “Les hommes ne se désintéressent pas des femmes comme moi. Alors si tu la gardes dans ton froc, ça veut dire que tu te réserves pour quelqu’un d’autre. Intéressant. C’est qui ?” Men don’t lose interest in beautiful women like me. Who are you fucking?
Magnus didn’t answer before he stormed out and kept going down the hallway, not seeing me because he headed in the opposite direction.
Stasia remained inside, probably recovering from his rejection.
I went after him. “Magnus?”
He stopped in front of the bathroom and slowly turned to look at me, his eyebrows raised. He immediately glanced behind me to make sure Fender was nowhere in sight. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Thank you…for being loyal to my sister.” I had a whole other agenda, but I had to show my gratitude for the one man who looked after her, who was loyal to her despite the dangerous position it placed him in. “I really… It means the world to me…that she has you.” I got choked up when I didn’t expect it, but this man deserved every ache of my heart. “You love her.”
Just like his brother, he had a face carved out of stone. No reaction of any kind. “What do you want from me?”
“Just to talk.”
His eyes filled with irritation, and he glanced over my shoulder several times to make sure Fender hadn’t come looking for me. “You better make it quick, because I won’t be able to help you if he catches us.”
I ran with it and didn’t waste a second. “I know you don’t agree with the camp. I know you don’t agree with the way it’s run. You wouldn’t risk your life for my sister repeatedly if you did.”
His gaze remained hard.
“Do you believe…that Fender can change?”
Subtle differences moved into his face, a softness he couldn’t fight.
“Because I think he can. I just…don’t understand why he is the way he is. If I knew…it would help.”
His eyes shifted behind me before he responded. “Yes.”
I inhaled a breath of relief, like Magnus had literally lifted a burned-down cabin off me. “Then can you talk to him—”
“I’ve tried.”
“Again—”
“I’ve tried more times than I can count.”
Disappointment hit me like a punch to the gut. It took me a second to recover. “Then why do you think he can change?”
He inhaled a slow breath, like the answer was so complicated that a response was daunting. “Because he’s a good man. He’s just obsessed with a goal to the exclusion of everything else. It doesn’t matter who he hurts in the process…since he was hurt.”
“What hurt him?”
Magnus shook his head. “Can’t tell you.”
“Why—”
“Because I’m literally the only person in the world who knows—so he’ll know your source.”
I inhaled a deep breath in disappointment. “I won’t tell him.”
He shook his head. “I won’t betray my brother. If he wanted you to know, he would tell you.”
“But if you tell me, I might be able to get him to stop.”
Magnus stared me down for a while, like the thought was tempting. But his answer cut through my dreams. “Then get him to tell you. Not my place.” His eyes flicked past my shoulder. “You should go back now. I’m surprised he’s left you unattended this long.” He turned away.
“He won’t sleep with me. Why?” I barked out my question because I knew the conversation was over and I’d never get this opportunity again.
He hesitated before he turned back to me. A deep stare ensued. “Same reason.”
“What do you mean, same reason?”
“Everything he says, everything he does, everything he’s become—it’s all for the same reason.” He glanced behind me before he turned to the bathroom door. “Go.”
Sixteen
Death of Innocence
Fender
Days passed, and we barely shared a few words.
She read in my office while I worked. We had dinner together in my bedroom, sharing looks across the table, but having no conversation. Clothes came off, and we made love in my bed. We’d done it a hundred times, knew the other’s body better than our own, and it was somehow just as fascinating to me every time.
My life had always been full of money, power, and sex.
But it was filled with something more now.
I pictured her walking around the palace with her hand over her bulging stomach, chasing down a little boy with my dark hair and eyes. She gave me back the very thing I’d lost—a family.
She was propped on her elbow with her hand on my stomach. “What are you thinking about?”
My eyes shifted to hers, seeing the way she absorbed my stare. She knew when my thoughts were outside the four walls of this bedroom. She knew when my thoughts strayed, when my heart changed its pace, when a glaze settled over my eyes. I held her look and never answered, my hand moving to her flat stomach. That fantasy was for a time in the future, a dream on the horizon. Not today. Not tomorrow. Time would ravage our appearances, but my love for her was a candle with an endless wick. It would burn—always. For her and no one else.
