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“Consider it a done deal, Mr. Duke,” the Chancellor says. “I’ll have the details sent to your assistant.”
“I would like the erroneous bulletin to be amended, as well,” Alexander says. “Before it does too much damage to my family’s reputation. It could even damage my bid for Head Kingmaker.”
Dr. Martin chuckles. “Of course. In the future, we’ll investigate before the bulletin is sent out.”
Why did it takethisto make him consider that? My mind travels to the last person that was killed here in the name of the Treaty. He didn’t get this chance. They probably don’t even know if he’s actually guilty of anything other than lying about who he is.
But it didn’t matter to them.
The two men stand and shake hands over the table.
Shakily, I rise to my feet. I sway, and Alexander is there to steady me with a hand on my shoulder. He wraps an arm around me, pulling me into his hard body. We exit the room that way, the Chancellor’s eyes on us.
As we walk through the threshold, past the armed guards at the door, I look up at Alexander. His gaze is fixed straight ahead, a slight smile on his lips. Even though our closeness makes my core throb, it also chills my blood.
If I want him to leave me alone, one of us will have to die. But not me.
I’m sick of being the one always wanting to die. It’s his turn to suffer.
SEVEN
ALIZE
Alexanderand I walk out into the courtyard.
It’s still deathly silent out here, but each step I take seems to push me closer to blowing up. This moment, it feels too casual, too familiar.
It doesn’t feel like he’s just completely upended my life to suit his whims, and Ihatethat. I’m furious, and I need him to know that I am—that I’m not the willing participant in his fuckery I used to be.
That I’ve been irreparably changed.
I try to wrestle out of his grip, but he doesn’t allow it. Instead, he half drags me to a gazebo tucked away in the corner of the courtyard. It’s shaded by an alcove of trees and flowering shrubs, with creeping vines wrapped around the white-painted wood columns.
The encroaching greenery gives it a bit of privacy, shielding us from the eyes of the guards dotted around the perimeter and whoever might be watching us from inside the building. My heart feels twice its size—full of all the things I left unsaid in the hotel room.
Full of the pain and hurt I’ve carried for the last two days.
When we’re standing in the gazebo, Alexander glares down at me. The calmness he wore in front of the Chancellor is gone. Now, he looks like the painfully beautiful monster I know all too well.
The one with the harsh blue eyes and sharp jaw. The one who wears his piercing aura like armor, who forces his will on everyone and everything. I straighten my shoulders, bearing the brunt of his sharp consideration, meeting his animosity with my own.
I press my lips together.
The silence between us is thick, tense, simmering. Despite his demeanor, he seems reluctant to speak first, for whatever reason. As if he’s waiting on me.
Does he want me to thank him? Does he think I don’t know that this is all his doing?
“This changes nothing between us,” I hiss. “What you said to the Chancellor doesn’t matter to me. I broke up with you, and I meant every word of it.” He doesn’t react to me. “This is a farce. I won’t stop until I’m free of you, son of abitch.”
I want my words to settle in his chest. To rip him open the way he did me. I wish I could make him feel the way I felt when I learned of his deception, to make his heart shatter the way mine did.
He’s unaffected, still suspended in quiet abhorrence.
Good. I hate you too.
Then, as if I’ve just confessed my love for him, he smiles.
It’s wide and pearly white, and it looks genuine and I hate that I admire it for a split second. Alexander is still the most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on.
