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It’s something I had to do too, and I fucking hate that we aren’t in a place yet where we don’t have to deal with shit like this. I keep up my ministrations, hoping she’ll focus more on my hands on her than the emotions that are about to explode between us.
“My father doesn’t think I can choose a wife for myself, so he’s found one for me.”
TWELVE
ALIZE
I just keep staringat him because I don’t believe I’ve heard him right. He keeps talking, and I stand there watching his lips move, wondering when it became possible for sentences to hurt more than cuts and bruises.
“When I went to see him, he was expecting me. The girl’s father was there in his office. He told me that if I don’t marry her or if I even try to leave this house, I’m going to lose my inheritance.”
I’m feeling a million different things at once—hurt, betrayal, devastation, even a little bit of rejection. Alexander’s fatherobviouslyknows we’re engaged, but it’s unimportant. Me, my feelings, the relationship Alexander and I have is unimportant, because I’m not the person he sees his son with.
I suck in a shaky breath, looking away from Alex’s piercing gaze. My eyes settle on one of the bushes behind us, with its blossoming purple flowers. Dread sinks into my stomach. I’m not safe either, am I? I’m probably even more at risk here than I was at Saint Frederic University. Isn’t that what Alex was trying to tell me all along?
But clearly, even he didn’t think it could be this bad.
“Who is she?”
I try to picture the kind of person Alexander’s father would want him to marry. I don’t know much about the man, but from my experiences the past few months, I’ve come to learn a lot about what it’s like for people inthisworld. This world of wealth, prestige and power.
This world, and all its toxic glory.
We’re standing in an immaculately landscaped garden, just a small swath onacres, in the shadow of his family’s imposing mansion. To his father, I must seem like I’m in way over my head. I’m not the kind of girl a man like him would ever allow his golden son to marry.
“Ottilie Welser.” For what its worth, Alexander’s voice is filled with contempt. But it does little to help what I feel. “Her father and mine have been business partners for a long time. My father just wants more access to his money.”
Alexander’s massaging my shoulders as he speaks. I reach up to hold his wrists and try prying his hands away—should he really be touching me like this when he’s literally telling me he’s going to marry someone else?—but he doesn’t budge.
“As you can probably tell from my injuries, the conversation didn’t go well.”Jesus.Is that why his father bashed his face in? “And I don’t like the look on your face, sweetheart. You look like you think I’m going to do it.”
My eyes snap to his face then, and my foolish heart swells with a little bit of hope.
“You’re not?”
Alexander’s face drops, glaring at me like I just insulted him. “Are you out of your fucking mind, Alize?” His hands move to cup my cheeks, pulling me into him. “I’ve already found the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. She’s a little over five-foot with pink streaks in her curly hair and an anxiety disorder.”
I roll my eyes at him, even though my cheeks start to heat up.
“They’ll have to drag my corpse down that aisle,” he says, and even though there’s a slight smile on his lips, I know he’s dead serious. That’s the fucking problem. “I’m marrying you, Alize.”
I had been sitting in the garden trying to think of the best way to tell Alexander that he’s going to be a father, that I’m pregnant and we’re going to be a family. I pictured his joy, his resolve. If he’s so good about protecting me now, I can only imagine what he’ll be like with a child of his own.
Whenever Alexander’s got his mind set on something, it doesn’t change. If I tell him I’m pregnant now it will move from just fighting to keepmesafe, to fighting to protect our family. And I’m so fucking scared his father might actually kill him for that.
Or worse yet, his father will kill me because of the baby.
“Do you have a plan?” I ask.
Alexander’s quiet for a few heartbeats. “I could kill him.”
There’s no question of who he’s talking about. I entertain his suggestion for all of two seconds, but I squash the thought as quickly as it appears. Alexander might say this now, but I don’t want him to have to live with that kind of guilt.
As horrible as he is, Griffin is still his father.
“Let’s not start with that.”
“Should I kill Ottilie’s father, then?”
