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“You’re a princess now, Clara,” he snapped. “A future queen, and carrying the heir to the throne. You can’t just waltz off anytime you feel like it. Things are different.”
“You’re right.” She stood and poked a finger in his chest. “Things are different. Let’s talk about that, shall we? How long are you going to keep shutting me out and treating me like I’m some spoiled princess when I’ve done nothing but work my tail off to support you and your country?”
He stepped back. She remembered the first time she had seen surprise flash in his green eyes. Her first day on the job when she’d offered a suggestion on an email he’d written, he’d looked thunderstruck, like no one had dared oppose anything he said.
“It was not my intention to shut you out.”
“But you have.” She wasn’t going to let him make excuses. If he had a reason for taking away everything from her and locking her inside a gilded cage, she deserved an explanation. She had gone forward with the marriage in good faith, knowing it was the best decision for her child and for the country even if she’d had valid concerns. And this was how dared to treat her?
“What did I do?” She barely kept her voice steady through her anger and hurt. “I’m not Celestine, Alaric. Stop treating me like her.”
His expression darkened, warning flickering across his face as his jaw tightened.
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? You are. You’ve taken away my work, told me to relax, basically clipped my wings and stuffed me into a cage. I don’t want to be worthless, Alaric. I want to be a partner. I want to keep doing my job.”
“You are not worthless,” he ground out.
“Yet you treat me like I’m not good for anything but sitting around and eating fancy treats all day.” She cast a glance at the curtain and made a conscious effort to lower her voice. No mean feat when her heart was beating frantically, a headache starting to pound in her temples as she looked ahead to her future and saw nothing but confinement, restriction. “At least when I was your assistant we had tea together and even the occasional meal. Now that we’re married, you disappear but seem to expect for me to be ready and waiting whenever you come calling. That’s not how this is going to work.”
She started to poke him again for emphasis, but he caught her wrist in his grasp.
“Don’t tell me how things are going to go, Clara. I’ve always called the shots. Us getting married hasn’t changed that.”
“Then it seems I’ve made a mistake.”
He froze. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not going to be a prisoner, Alaric. If our honeymoon means I’m going to be stranded in that house by myself for the next two weeks, I’m flying back to Linnaea tomorrow.”
She started to pivot away. With a gentle tug he turned her back to him, slid an arm around her waist and pinioned her against his chest.
“Don’t leave.”
Words of protest rose to her lips. But beneath her anger, her brain picked up the slight hint of apology in his voice.
“Why not?”
He let out a deep sigh.
“I’ve never been a husband before. When I was engaged to Celestine, she made it perfectly clear in her communications to me what she expected of our relationship. She was to be taken care of financially and, as long as she conducted herself with discretion, would be allowed to do whatever she wanted. In her mind, I owed her since my father essentially bought her and her fortune. Guilt guided my actions.”
Her past slammed into her present with sickening clarity. Miles had bought himself a trophy wife. Alaric had snagged himself a future queen.No, Daxon was behind the contract, she amended. Alaric was placing too much blame on himself for the arrangement with Celestine. But he had let it continue, even as he’d grown and matured. And now he’d entered into yet another contract with another fiancée he’d purchased, not for her wealth but for the child she carried. Worse still, he was treating her like she was his former fiancée and not the woman he’d been working alongside for the past seven years. That he had so quickly put her into the same box as Celestine, a woman who had seemed to glory in creating as much drama for Alaric as possible, made her chest tighten in pain and shame.
She’d made the same mistake. Again.
She tried to pull away. Alaric kept a firm grip on her waist.
“But you’re right.”
She leaned back and frowned.
“Are you ill?”
“Not to my knowledge. Why?”
“I think I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve told me I was right.”
