TWELVE

Macalister sat behind the desk in the library, looking like he was a king and ready to hold court. If he expected me to bow and cower, he could think again. The sting of the needle that had buried ink in my skin was still there, and I used the pain as fuel.

He’d crossed a line last night, and I was determined to push him away, back over to the side where he belonged.

“Good evening,” he said. There wasn’t a smile on his face, but it lurked in his voice.

I locked down my shoulders to prevent the shudder from rippling out and focused on my task. I sat in my seat and moved my pawn, not giving him any of my attention.

Even though my gaze stayed focused on the board, I sensed his hesitation.

“Don’t be rude.” He said it like a threat.

I lifted my defiant gaze to his and matched his cold tone. “Hello.”

He looked dissatisfied with my short response but made his opening move. “I read your book.”

I moved another pawn, using that to make my statement.

“Aren’t you curious to know what I thought of it?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me, regardless.”

Oh, he didn’t like that. His eyes went to slits. “I do not appreciate your tone when I’m trying to hold a conversation with you.”

“And I didn’t appreciate what you did last night, so no more conversations. I’m here to play chess, and that’s it.”

He didn’t take his calculating eyes off me as he moved his knight. “Am I to understand you’re upset that I gave you two orgasms?”

I wasn’t going to take his bait or blush at what he’d said. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my keys, and surrendered them to the desk. “That was the last time I’ll play your game.”

“Is that so?” He glared at the keys, offended by them. “I believe I told you to turn those in to Royce. I think he should know why you’re giving them up.”

“I agree,” I said. “That’s why I already told him this afternoon.”

His reaction was subtle, but I caught the way his shoulders straightened, and his eyes widened. My move had caught him off guard. “I don’t believe you.”

“Call him in here and ask him.” I crossed my arms over my chest, touching the sore spot beneath my arm where Medusa lived. “I’m not a good liar, but I’m not a Hale yet. I’m sure I’ll get better.”

Macalister’s eyebrow spiked up so high it was a perfect upside-down V. “You should think very carefully about the next thing you say to me.”

It was silent for a tense moment before I spoke, and I meant it in more than one way. “It’s your move.”

Anger simmered through his expression, but then it faded as he brought it under control. “I won’t allow you to quit when we’ve barely begun.”

I shook my head. “I’m done.”

He’d told me to think two moves ahead, and I had. I couldn’t win—the only way was to not play at all.

“No,” he said. “We had an agreement.”

I didn’t acknowledge his protest. “When we’re done with our chess match, I’ll bring the box back to you.”

“No, Marist.” He looked strangely human and desperate. “I’m not ready for this to be over.”

His admission seemed shockingly genuine and froze me in place.

After a heavy pause, his shoulders lifted on a deep breath. “I realize now I came on too strong last night. I apologize. Going forward, we can move at whatever speed you feel comfortable with.”

He still didn’t get it. “Macalister, there is no going forward. I’m never going to feel comfortable with what we did, and we’re never doing it again.”

His hand was resting on the desktop, and it curled into a fist, his thumb brushing back and forth over his fingers absentmindedly. He was deep in thought, figuring out how to get what he wanted.

“Keep it,” he said abruptly. “It was a gift, and you’ll change your mind.”

My voice was steel. “I won’t.”

The setting sun outside the window cast a soft glow across his face, but the warmth didn’t touch him. His expression was absolute.

“We’ll see.”

Since I’d confessed my sins to Royce, he’d largely steered clear of me. There were no more offers to leave the grounds and go someplace where his father’s rules didn’t apply. We continued our charade of being a lovestruck couple when we were in public, but as soon as we were safely out of view, he’d drop my hand and dig out his phone.

To be fair, he did have a lot on his mind.

I hadn’t let on that I’d figured out his plan. I wasn’t sure what to do with the information, partially because I only knew the broad details. I had no idea when he was going to pull the trigger on it, or if his offer to buy Ascension would be friendly or hostile.

And even if he acquired his target company, what then? He had a lot of HBHC stock personally, but once Macalister got a hint of what his son was planning, he’d employ all the defenses available to keep his company in his hands.

Takeover attempts were expensive for everyone involved, and most of the time they failed.

The odds were so heavily stacked in Macalister’s favor, it was shocking to me Royce was even considering it. Yet he’d been planning this thing for a while. It had to have taken him years to accrue that much Ascension stock on the open market.

I could disrupt his life so easily now. One careless mention to Macalister as we played our nightly chess game, and Royce’s plan would disintegrate. And it was probably in his best interest if I stopped him now, before he lost everything. Macalister would take away Royce’s seat, and what was left of their strained father-son relationship would implode, but at least my future husband wouldn’t go broke.

I had good reasons to tell Macalister what I knew, and yet every night I couldn’t bring myself to do it. For weeks, we played, he talked, and I lost each night. It was like we were stuck on repeat.

The first week of my final year at Etonsons was surreal. It felt like I was back in my old life. I sat in the lecture hall, disappearing amongst all the other faceless students . . . until I noticed the magazine the girl in the row in front of me was reading before class began.

Our engagement pictures had been released to the media last week. Alice had selected two. One where I was sitting on Royce’s lap beneath the fountain, and a closeup where he was kissing my hand, showing off the stunning engagement ring. The first time I’d seen the photos, they’d taken my breath away.

Sophia Alby had said Royce and I were a fairytale, one that everyone wanted to be a part of. But I was convinced no one truly wanted that fairytale story more than I did. The camera made a very convincing liar out of me. It all looked so real.

On a Friday, I met Alice in the lobby of the dress store. Donna Willow, the designer who’d dressed us both for Royce’s promotion party, had flown in exclusively to show us her designs for the anniversary gala. It was quite the contrast from the shopping experience last month with my mother who, as I’d feared, had tried to exceed her budget and asked for my help convincing the financial manager to give her more money.

She had caviar tastes and would never get used to having to live on a tuna fish budget.

The designer, wearing all black, stood next to a rack of her dresses and supervised her assistant as the girl steamed wrinkles out of the garments. When she saw us, Donna smiled and gestured for the assistant to stop.

“Alice,” Donna said, “I swear you look younger every time I see you. How are you?”

I stood awkwardly by my future step-mother-in-law’s side while she chatted with her friend. It was only the first week of classes, and I already had a ton of work to do, so I was hoping this appointment would go quickly.

Donna pulled a peacock blue dress down off the rack, handed it to Alice, and sent her off toward the dressing room. There was no discussion between the women. No comments about color or any other options presented.

“Now,” she set her sights on me, “do you trust me?”

Of all the people I’d gotten to know over the last few months, ironically, Donna Willow was the person I trusted most. “I do.”

“Good. Don’t let Alice tell you it’s too costume-y.” She dug through the rack and had to use both of her matchstick thin arms to support the full dress as she pulled it out for me to see.

“It gorgeous,” I breathed. And it was beyond perfect.

She beamed at me. “It’s also quite heavy, so if you don’t mind?”

“Of course.” I eagerly took the hanger from her, scooped up the bottom half of the garment in an arm so it wouldn’t drag on the floor, and hurried to change into it.

It was strapless like the red dress, but not a corset. The fit and flare style dress hugged my figure all the way to my knees before bursting out into a skirt full of volume and layers. The silhouette was flattering, but that wasn’t what made me fall in love. It was the rich green fabric with slightly different tones that gave it a texture quality. Clear beading was carefully placed, flashing a hint of sparkle when I moved, like a scale catching the light. It gave a subtle nod to the interpretation of a snake, including the train trailing behind me like a tail.

I was the modern Medusa, a serpent ready for a black-tie event.

Alice was already on the pedestal out front, scrutinizing herself in the mirrors. The off the shoulder blue dress fit her like a second skin, flaunting her statuesque form. The outer layer of the skirt was tulle and see-through, and it trumpeted outward while the underskirt stayed straight. Like a peacock’s fan of feathers against its svelte body.

I was Medusa, but she was the perfect vision of Hera, queen of the gods.

“You look amazing,” I said.

“Oh.” Alice pressed her fingers to the hollow of her neck as a shy smile teased her lips. “Thank you.”

Her gaze met mine through the mirror, and she took in the green dress I wore, and for a moment she looked . . . displeased. But the emotion retreated. She flashed a vacant smile, stepped off the pedestal, and gestured for me to take her place.

I fell even more in love with the green dress when I could see it from all the angles, but Alice gave me a hard look in the mirror. “I’m not sure about this one.”

“I am,” a male voice said.

I didn’t have to see him to know who it was, but my heart fluttered as I turned and gazed at Royce over my shoulder. I’d been so busy with school I’d barely seen him all week, and . . . was it possible he’d gotten hotter? There was a brightness in his eyes that made my knees go soft.

“What are you doing here?” I asked lightly. Could he hear I was happy to see him?

He shrugged. “I had time.” His gaze left mine and swept slowly down the lines of the dress. “Green is my favorite color.”

A nervous laugh bubbled from me because he’d said it so seriously, and the way he looked at me made my fluttering heart worse. “You only like it because it’s the color of money.”

“Well, all of my favorite things are green.” His expression was cryptic. Unreadable. “Or they were, at some point.”

I flashed back to our first night together more than a year ago when he’d cornered me in the library. I’d had green hair and red lips, and he’d told me I was beautiful.

God, if he kept this up, I was going to need to sit down.

“Do you like it?” he asked me.

I nodded, hoping it could shake loose the fog he created in my mind. “It’s perfect.”

His lips lifted into an effortless smile, and my insides went boneless. Had something good happened? It was like a switch had been flipped in him, and the man he’d been with me before had returned.

Royce’s focus shifted to Alice, but he nodded back toward me. “Mind if I steal her for a moment?”

She waved a hand, dismissing us, and went back to admiring herself in the mirror, pulling at the waist of the dress where she wanted a tighter fit.

His hand was warm as he grabbed mine and led me back to my dressing room.

“It’s been weird not having you at the office,” he said.

“Missing me?” I teased.

His intense eyes drilled into me as he pushed the door closed. “Yes.

And then he launched himself at me like he couldn’t hold himself back another second. I was jerked into his kiss, our mouths smashing together and cutting off my sound of surprise.

The way his mouth dominated mine ripped me open and poured fire inside. The desire for him flared white-hot, a fuse being lit on a stick of dynamite, ready to explode. He wasn’t soft or gentle. He was firm and rough as he claimed me, like I was his and could never, ever belong to anyone else.

A tremble started in my knees and graduated to my center when his demanding tongue pushed inside my mouth. He didn’t ask for permission or give me a chance to stop him. Royce overtook me. His hands slid up my front, and he cupped my breasts, crushing and massaging me through the dress.

He squeezed a throaty moan from me, and the satisfied sound clung in the air of the dressing room.

Where have you been? I wanted to ask but didn’t. I should just be happy he was back and that I hadn’t lost him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sandwiched between two mind-numbing kisses.

His mouth roamed down the column of my neck, and when he sucked on my pulse-point, it felt like it was directly between my legs. It made it impossible to think about what he could be sorry for. Surely it wasn’t for what he was doing this very second, because it was the only thing that felt right.

“Hmm?” That was the best I could manage to ask for clarification. My hands were inside his suit coat, my fingers stroking over his dress shirt and wanting to get at the hardened chest beneath. It was exciting how he seemed to be having as difficult of a time breathing as I was.

“I’ve been avoiding you.” He carved a path with his mouth down my neck, across the center of my throat, and back up the other side. “You told me everything, and I didn’t do the same, and it wasn’t fair. It didn’t feel right.”

I pulled back. “And it does now?”

His eyes were lidded, and he looked vulnerable, but I wasn’t deceived. He was more dangerous than ever like this. “No, but it will. I’m going to make it right.” A smile hinted. “But also, I’m an impatient motherfucker. I’ve been waiting for this day for . . . a while.”

The way he’d said it, you’d think he’d been waiting years.

Perhaps he had been. Maybe tomorrow I’d read in the finance section of the news that he’d tendered his offer to buy Ascension. The question was on the tip of my tongue, but then he was there, his mouth pressed to mine again, and all the words fell away.

He eased me back against the mirror in the dressing room, and I gasped as my bare skin pressed to the cold glass. It was immediately followed with a heavy moan because the rest of him pushed against me, all hot and urgent.

A female voice carried loudly through the closed door. “You’re not damaging all my hard work, are you, Mr. Hale?”

We both froze at Donna’s question. A wild, guilty smile splashed on Royce’s face, and—fuck—it was so sexy, it was indecent.

“No, ma’am.” He straightened away, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. His gaze assessed every inch of me, and I could see him weighing his options. He could have me right here and now, if I was willing. Which—oh, yes—I was.

His money meant he could do whatever he wanted. Pay off the staff in the shop to leave us. Tear this dress off me and hire whoever Donna would need to make a replacement in time. Everyone in Cape Hill, and especially the Hales, viewed wealth as a superpower. It could do anything.

But fucking his fiancée in a tiny dressing room while his stepmother and her dress designer waited outside would certainly get back to Macalister, and the distance Royce put between us cooled our raging bodies enough to see reason.

He raked a hand through his hair and settled the mess I’d created, pulling himself back together. He took a final look at me, all wanton with my kiss-swollen lips and wrapped in his favorite color, and his eyes smoldered. They made a promise he was going to deliver on very soon.

“I should get out of here,” a smirk broke on his lips, “while I still can.” He strode to the door and pulled it open but hesitated before going through it. “Come find me tonight after your game.”

He vanished through the door, and a moment later Donna appeared, gazing into the dressing room to survey the aftermath. She scoured the dress with her sharp eyes, and when she discovered it was unharmed, relief softened her expression.

I hadn’t finished recovering, so my voice was shaky. “Do you do wedding dresses?”

The woman’s laugh was bright and full. “For you? I’d be honored.”

With practice every night, I’d become quite good at chess.

The unfortunate thing was Macalister benefited from the practice as well and was also improving. Playing the same person repeatedly taught him my thought process and my weaknesses, and he used all of it to his advantage.

Tonight, I’d gotten closer than ever to beating him. The game had taken forever, and I’d put him in check more than once, but then he’d castled his king, and the repositioning move obliterated all my plans.

“You’re a worthy opponent, Marist,” he said as he took my king.

I mumbled a thank you and a goodbye before scurrying back to my room, anxious to put on some lipstick and go find Royce. It was a Friday night. Would we go out and make appearances? Or would he carry me off to a place where we could be alone?

There was a black box waiting on my bed, and my heart slammed to a stop before it crashed to the floor. It was roughly the same size as a shoebox, and I approached it with fear until I discovered the handwritten note beside it.

Open me.

I’d seen Royce’s scrawling handwriting enough times at the office to recognize it, and I let out a tight breath. My emotions swung wildly from dread to excited anticipation about what could be inside.

The fancy box was closed with a magnetic latch, and I slid my fingers beneath the lid, peeling back the hinged top. The white diamonds glinted and winked brilliantly in the light, set against the black velvet interior, and the beauty of it forced me to clasp a hand over my mouth.

And it grew more amazing the longer I stared at it.

From a distance, the masquerade mask just looked like glittery lace, but up close was where the finer details emerged. Delicate lines of diamonds curved and scrolled, each ending in a tiny head complete with emerald eyes. The half-mask was a beautiful tangle of slithering snakes.

I gingerly lifted it from the box, and another note dangled from the ribbon I’d use to hold the mask in place.

Leave this here and meet me where I proposed.

The girl who loved the movie Labyrinth swooned. Emotions surged through me in a frenetic mix of excitement and anticipation. What was going to happen when I found him? Was he going to tell me all his plans? Open up?

Would he show me our future?

The desire to put on lipstick was pushed aside—it’d only slow me down. And it would be wasted, anyway, because all I wanted to do was finish what we’d started in the dressing room this afternoon. I tucked the mask back in the box, placed it on the dresser beside my stack of mythology books, and darted out into the hallway.

Where I faceplanted into Macalister’s hard chest.

He gave a grunt of pain, dropped whatever he was holding, and his arms came up around me to stop my fall.

It wasn’t the first time he’d had me in his arms. We’d waltzed together the night of the initiation, but as we stared at each other now, I wasn’t sure which one of us was more uncomfortable.

“Macalister,” I gasped.

I was going to say more and tell him how he’d startled me, but the words died in my throat. Upon hearing me say his name, the glaciers in his eyes melted. His hands clamped down and urged me to stay.

“Are you all right?” He peered down at me like my answer was irrelevant. He’d judge for himself.

No, I wasn’t all right because he had his hands on my waist and it was unnecessary. I was steady now. “I’m fine.” I jerked out of his hold, and he didn’t bother to hide his dissatisfaction. I frowned. “What are you doing here?”

He bent, retrieved the item he’d dropped, and thrust the Greek mythology book toward me. “You seem to be in quite the hurry tonight. You left before I could return this.”

He was a voracious reader and had devoured almost all my books. I couldn’t tell if he genuinely liked the subject or if he only read them to get under my skin.

“Oh,” I said. “Do you want another?”

His expression was ominous. “Not tonight.”

“Okay.” I took the book from him and added it to my stack in my room, and was dismayed to discover he was still in the hallway when I returned, waiting for me.

He asked it like he somehow already knew the answer. “Where are you off to?”

I was reluctant to tell the truth, but he’d be able to tell if I were lying. “I’m meeting Royce.”

“Oh? Where?”

I had to pull the words from my body. “Uh . . . the maze.”

Dark clouds gathered in his eyes at my answer. “The hedge maze?”

I nodded and squeezed out a tight smile, trying to inch past him in the hallway. “He’s waiting for me, so I—”

“I’ll walk with you.”

Alarm coasted through me. “Oh, that’s okay. You don’t have to.”

“I insist. It’s easy to get turned around, and I believe last time you went in there on your own, my son had to rescue you with an umbrella.”

Last time—? I’d been in the maze dozens of times since that stormy night and probably knew it better now than he did. But Macalister often worked late. He wasn’t aware I spent most of my afternoons before dinner sitting beneath the fountain and reading.

“Besides,” he added, “there’s something I’d like to discuss with both of you.”

There was no room to argue. He left me and strolled down the hall, wordlessly demanding I go with him, and all the excitement I’d had for my rendezvous with Royce died.

Macalister reviewed the most recent book I’d lent him as we made our way out of the house and toward the maze, but it was hard to focus on what he was saying. Every step brought me closer to a situation I didn’t want to be in. What was Royce going to think when I showed up with his father by my side?

And what the hell did Macalister want to talk to us about? I imagined all sorts of new, terrible rules he’d enact. More control he’d try to exert over us. I was so tired of it, and I’d only been living in the house two months.

The sun had set more than an hour ago, and even though the landscape lights were on and the weather was warm, there was a strange menace that lurked in the edges of the shadows. The breeze rustled through the trees and made the branches scrape against each other like fingers trying to claw their way out.

When we entered the maze, I could tell he was frustrated by how slowly I was moving, but he didn’t comment. Perhaps he thought my slow speed was because I was carefully trying to learn the correct path, rather than delay the inevitable. When we reached the opening to the center, he made me go first.

Each tier of the fountain was up-lit and glowed, casting amber light onto the cascading water and the ripples in the collection pool below. As he’d done while waiting to propose to me, he sat on the edge of the bench, his elbows on his knees and his head tipped down to the ground.

Only this time he wasn’t in a tuxedo or even a suit. He wore a stone blue button-down shirt over pale gray shorts, effortlessly casual. The crunch of my footsteps on the pebbled path drew his gaze up, and when he caught the sight of me, his smile was epic.

He pushed to his feet. “I was beginning to wonder if you weren’t—”

Macalister stepped into view, and Royce became a new statue in the garden. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking because his frozen expression was devoid of emotion.

“I’m sorry to interrupt.” Although Macalister didn’t sound sorry at all. “Marist told me where she was going, and I asked if I could come with her. I believe the three of us need to have a conversation.”

Royce must have rebooted himself because he blinked and came back online. Gone was the smile and the warmth he’d had ten seconds ago. He was the prince of Cape Hill now, and he eyed his father with veiled suspicion. “You know what? You’re right.” He lifted his chin, and his chest expanded with a deep breath. It made him look bigger and more powerful, and his tone was firm. “Marist is mine, and I’m going to buy her back.”

I couldn’t hear the bubbling fountain or the insects singing in the distant trees. Everything dropped out so the only sound was his statement playing in a loop in my head.

Marist is mine.

Macalister jolted, visibly as surprised as I had been, but he recovered faster. “Oh? And why would I let you do that?”

Royce didn’t look at me. He kept his intense gaze fixed on his father. “Because I’m going to give you fifty million dollars.”