AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Fifty percent?” The duke’s nostrils flare. She’s got his attention. “What makes you think for a moment I’d agree to these terms? Nero is more powerful than you.”
“Is he now?” Claudia smiles again. I love watching her work over my father, taking his carefully laid plans and throwing them into the sun. “Ask your people what happened on New Year’s Eve when Nero found himself without a shipment of women for his clients. Without the support of Lucian’s trade routes, he’s not as powerful as he thinks he is. I control the flow of goods into and out of this city, which is the key to expanding your drug trade in the US. I may be little, but I’m mighty. Remember, Duke, Lucian and Dio are fighting over who will marry me. They don’t know yet that I’m going to marry your son. Your heir will inherit the empire we build together. What do you say to that?”
I purse my lips, trying to hold in all the things I want to say. I can’t bear to listen to Claudia talk about a child, our child, so callously. Not after she promised me that she’d consider it if I could get myself together.
I’ve been so, so good. I haven’t caved on my celibacy, even though my balls have shrunk into my body from underuse. I haven’t had a drink in over a week, unless you count the three shots of ouzo I had needed to get to sleep last night. Which I don’t count, because everyone knows that Jesus himself drank wine so he could sleep, especially when he was forcing himself to remain celibate and his rock-hard cock didn’t know when to quit.
Jesus and I have a lot in common.
I’ve been doing everything right, hoping she’ll see that I could be a good father, trying to resist the pull of sweet substance oblivion to be there for my queen. But she’s been so busy helping George bust down walls and rifle through closets looking for treasure, I don’t think she’s even noticed my new leaf.
I know what she discovered about Ainsley Malloy has freaked her out, but that doesn’t mean she has to follow in her father’s footsteps. I’d rather not have a child at all than let my father use them as a pawn.
The duke leans back in his chair. It takes everything I have to remain casual and not to leer at the computer and scream in his face.
I could use a drink.
“We’re not interested,” he says. “We will take our chances with the status quo.”
A figure walks around my father’s desk and drapes herself over his shoulders. It’s Cleo. She’s wearing another cropped designer hoodie and a wide-brimmed straw hat that hides her sacer. She waves into the camera and blows me a kiss.
“Claudia, Gabriel, hiiiiiii,” she drawls. “So cool to see you again.”
Claudia hisses through her teeth.
The duke turns to Cleo, and with a tone like he’s discussing the weather, says, “I think it’s time you told them our news.”
News? What news?
“You should have taken the duke’s offer to marry me while you had the chance, boo.” Cleo places her hand over her flat stomach and flashes me the look of a snake closing in on a tasty mouse. “You’re too late. I just got back from the doctor. I’m pregnant with the duke’s child. As soon as we’re wed, my baby will inherit the title and the Blackwich estate, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Claudia
“I can’t believe she’s going to marry that old goat,” George says as she stuffs a second candy bar into her mouth. It’s lunchtime at Stonehurst Prep, and she’s flipping through Cleo’s social media and the UK papers, where the headlines loudly proclaim the impending divorce for the Duke and Duchess of Blackwich. George shows me a selfie of Cleo and the duke sitting on the edge of the artificial lake. Gabriel’s father almost looks relaxed.
I’d be relaxed, too, if I was fucking someone fifty-five years my junior. I’d be peaches and fucking cream.
“I didn’t want that shitty pile of rocks, anyway,” Gabriel declares as he does battle with a package of corn chips. “At least Malloy Manor has personality. It may be the personality of an evil old goat with no taste in art, but it’s still a personality.”
He’s not wrong. Unlike the stuffy, cold halls of Blackwich Castle, where the weight of Gabriel’s lineage crushes his beautiful spirit, the manor is the vision of one man, and Howard Malloy knew what he liked.
Gabriel’s trying to pretend he’s perfectly okay about Cleo becoming his new stepmother (gag me). So, of course, it’s obvious he’s not okay. Noah told me he saw Gabe get a bathroom pass first period. When he came back, his breath reeked of alcohol. He’s making a big show of refusing alcohol when he’s around us, and drinking in secret. That’s not an improvement.
The worst part is that Gabe’s distress isn’t even about losing the Blackwich estate to Cleo and her gross demon child (which is a pity – I was looking forward to solidifying my rule with an actual castle). He’s upset because I waved the marriage-and-baby thing in his dad’s face. Because I told Gabriel I didn’t want to have a kid with him and then pretended we were all ready to conceive.
It was a tactical move. Nothing more. Surely he can see that?
“You know,” Eli says, stirring his zucchini noodles around his plate. “An heir might be one way out of this marriage mess.”
I turn to him with interest. Did Gabe tell him about the conversation with the duke? Is he going to back me up on this? “Explain.”
“This whole marriage thing is about heirs, right? Nero and Constantine – whichever one puts a baby in your belly first, they’ll be the one with the power to claim a true alliance. But that only works if there’s no other heir to claim the August empire. So we make an heir.”
I hold out a hand. “Stay away from my uterus. I’m not getting pregnant just go fuck up Nero’s plans.”
“We don’t have to actually give you a baby. Just get Galen to fake scans or something. It could buy us some time—”
“I’m leaving.” Gabe stands up. “I’ve got songs to write.”
