AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Madeleine smothered a laugh and watched Jayla fight to keep down a blush. “Oh, arival,” she said. “Let’s figure out how we can get rid of her.”
She expected Jayla to deny her conclusion, but the topic of Rovyn seemed to get under her skin. “No point in fighting over a man,” Jayla said. “Either he loves you or he doesn’t.”
“True,” Madeleine said. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t scheme to get him to yourself.”
“I have other things to think about.”
Aussen was inspecting Madeleine’s plate. “You haven’t eaten all your breakfast,” she scolded. “Norrah always makes me eat all ofmybreakfast.”
Madeleine shoveled a forkful of eggs in her mouth. “I’ve been too busy talking toyou,”she said around the food.
Jayla rested her hands on Aussen’s shoulders. “Stop being a pest,” she said with stern affection. Then, addressing Madeleine, “If you don’t need me, I can take her away for the day.”
With Reese’s men deployed around the grounds, it should have made very little difference if Jayla was in the house or not. There were plenty of people on hand to protect Madeleine. And yet she found herself almost panicky every time she gave Jayla leave to take a few hours off. As if Jayla was the only one she could trust to keep her safe.
“Tomorrow, if that’s all right,” Madeleine said. “I’m expecting Tivol this morning and Harlo this afternoon. And I know it’s irrational but—”
“I don’t want to be gone when either one of them is in the house,” Jayla interrupted. “Tomorrow is fine.”
“Thank you.”
Tivol arrived less than an hour later. She received him in the most formal room in the house, where her father used to meet business contacts he wanted to intimidate. It had a high, rounded ceiling, painted an accusing white; three walls tiled in a hostile red; and a collection of black wooden chairs that were hard and unyielding. The tall windows let in a brooding sunlight that didn’t even attempt to lighten the mood.
Tivol’s mouth quirked as Ella showed him in, because he understood very well why Madeleine had chosen this setting, but he did not complain. “Thank you for seeing me,” he said.
She had refused his request the last three times he’d made it, but each time she’d felt a little more wistful. He was the person in her life she had liked the longest; she found herself grieving his absence as if he had died. Could she make a kind of peace with him? Would that, in some small way, heal her lacerated heart?
She gestured at a couple of chairs and they took their seats, both of them squirming in a futile effort to get comfortable. Madeleine folded her hands in her lap. “I am wondering what you think you have to say to me,” she said. “Or I to you.”
He had clasped his own hands together, and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His expression was open and earnest. “I don’t know what is more likely to make you forgive me,” he said. “An apology or an explanation.”
“I don’t know that forgiveness is even an option,” she said. “But I would like an explanation.” As he thought it over, seeming to debate where to begin, she added, “How long have you known?”
“Forever, I think,” he said. “I don’t remember learning the story, so my mother must have told me some version of it when I was quite young. It’s as if, from the time I was born, it was made clear to me that there was a special fate in store for you, and it would be my job to see you through it. I always thought this made me—” He straightened and lifted a hand in a vague gesture. “Heroic, somehow.”
“Heroic.”
“Your protector. The thing you had to do was so hard, but I could make your life so much easier. That’s how I always viewed it.” He sighed. “It sounds stupid, said out loud. It’s what I believed.”
“And you weren’t—shocked? Horrified? Repulsed? These are not justmychildren we’re talking about, you realize. If you were my husband—”
“I know. I know.” He ran a hand through his hair. “My sons would be sacrifices and my daughters would be forced into the very same position you’re in now.” He leaned forward again. “But their fates would be noble. Tragic but transformative. I always believed it. “
“Did you ever think totellme?”
He nodded. “So many times. You’re my closest friend, Madeleine! The woman I love best in the world! And to know I had been lying to you my whole life— But then I thought how such knowledge would break your heart. I couldn’t bear to hurt you that way.”
“I think I have been hurt in a way that is so much worse.”
“I know. And I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to undo the harm.”
“You can’t.”
There was silence between them for a moment, and then Tivol spoke again, hesitantly. “What do you think—what do you plan to do now?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have felt the tremors. You must realize—”
