ELEVEN

After the holidays were over, I’d hoped things would settle down, but they only grew more frantic. I entered my final semester of college with a plate full of wedding planning. Even with a team of event coordinators to handle things, there were still obligations I had to fulfill personally.

Like my bridal shower.

Since my sister had a newborn and was still recovering, another bridesmaid stepped in to help—Sophia Alby. Paired with Alice as a host, my two frenemies threw a lavish luncheon, complete with a fairytale theme and specially commissioned Swarovski crystal figurines as party favors. They were a glittering version of Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage, and I wanted to laugh at Alice’s shade.

She wasn’t wrong. I was the poor girl, playing dress up and pretending to be someone else while I fell in love with the prince. But her plan to get under my skin backfired. The figurine said more about her than it did me. It was a paperweight in the digital world—its only use was for the background of Instagram pictures.

The weekend after my twenty-second birthday, Royce attempted to take me to the British Virgin Islands, only to discover when we arrived at the airport the jet was already gone. An emergency with the German branch had called Macalister away with just enough time to change the jet’s flight plan, but apparently not enough to let us know about it.

It was Friday evening, which made it impossible to arrange anything spur of the moment, and with such a short trip anyway, we were forced to scrap our plans. Frustration rolled off Royce in thick waves.

“It’s okay.” I curled my hand around his arm and snuggled closer as we stood in the frosty airplane hangar. “I just want to be alone with you. I don’t care where.”

The irritation raging in his expression faded. “I know. Me too. But, fuck, Marist. I was promised you were going to wear a bikini.”

I snorted. “I can still put it on. You just have to let me wear socks too, though, because your dad keeps the house freezing.” My voice trailed off at the end. Why the fuck had I said that? With the mention of Macalister, Royce stiffened. I had to try again. “There’s always our honeymoon.”

He’d booked the yacht for the French Riviera like we’d talked about, and we’d leave for Nice the day after our wedding in June.

At least, if there wasn’t an emergency for Macalister that required our yacht.

In March, HBHC presented its offer to Ascension with a ‘bear hug’ letter. It was called a bear hug because it was an overly warm and generous offer to the target company’s shareholders. Ascension had been trading at forty-two dollars. HBHC’s tender offer was fifty a share. The market went nuts. I could feel the frenzied air sweeping in from New York all the way up in Boston.

Everyone was abuzz with the announcement that Hale Banking and Holding was plotting a takeover. Wall Street sharks smelled blood in the water. Royce and I were up late the night the news broke, and we watched the scrolling banner on CNBC in bed together, our breath tight.

Maybe he already felt he’d passed the threshold, but for me, this was the moment where there was no turning back. The offer was out, done, and it was Ascension’s move now. They could counter the proposal, or fight, or reject it, but each path had its own pitfalls. If they turned it down, they risked being sued by their shareholders.

And I was currently in bed with one of them. I didn’t know how much stock, specifically, he owned, but if the company accepted HBHC’s offer, he stood to make a fortune larger than most third-world economies.

Some of my classmates were talking about the offer the next morning, but to each other and not me. Since becoming Royce’s fiancée, I suffered from a different type of ostracism. The other students in my Financial Crises class viewed me as one of the gods from Mount Olympus, and as mere mortals, believed they were forbidden to speak to me.

It was lonely, but familiar.

I stared blankly at the table at the front of the classroom, waiting for the lecture to begin. Where was the professor?

As if on cue, she breezed in, moved the strap from her bag over her head, and dropped it on the podium. “Sorry. This is last minute, so please bear with me.” She took out her phone and tapped the screen. “We have a guest professor for today. Hold on while I pull up his bio.”

She didn’t give a name as she began reading, but it only took a few details before my stomach dropped. Harvard MBA. CEO of one of the biggest banks in the world. Enjoys chess in his spare time.

My professor’s smile was wide. “We all know the impact of the subprime financial crisis of 2008, but this is a rare opportunity to get an inside look at how one bank found themselves in jeopardy and then responded. Let’s give a big welcome to Macalister Hale.” She gestured to the open doorway. “Mr. Hale?”

There were audible gasps when he strode into the room, looking powerful in his black suit and red tie. Some of the women clapped. Others were too busy gazing at him as if Gordon Gekko had magically come to life and decided the first thing he’d do was give a lecture at a women’s college in Boston.

He’d just announced to the world he wanted Ascension. What was he doing here?

His surveyed the room critically as he moved to the podium at the center and noted the bag on it with a look of disdain.

“Oh,” the professor said with a too-bright, enamored smile. “That’s mine.”

She grabbed it by the strap and in her flustered state immediately dropped it, sending makeup and car keys scattering loudly across the hard floor. He didn’t help her as she apologized and scooped the items up. He simply stared at her, and I could hear the thought running through his mind. Be gone with you.

When she finally stepped to the side and took her seat, he placed his hands on the podium and lifted his steely-eyed gaze to meet mine.

I’d barely seen him in the last few months, and when I had, all I could ever see was his face the moment he’d reached his orgasm. How his mouth had parted to drag in breath and how his eyes had gone hazy, but he didn’t dare drop his focus from me.

The air in the classroom went thin, but Macalister and I were the only ones who seemed to be having difficulty breathing. He held my gaze for a lifetime and a single beat, and then his focus shifted away to the class in general.

“Thank you.” His tone was cold and professional. “I’m happy to speak with you all this afternoon, and hope you find what I have to say informative.”

For the next forty-five minutes, he recanted the tale of how he, as a newly-minted CEO in 2007, had struggled to lead the bank through the darkness of the housing bubble burst and come out the other side of the Great Recession with his family’s company still intact.

Once I divorced my mind from the man I knew personally, I was able to absorb his lecture from a business standpoint. He talked about his successes and was somewhat forthcoming about his failures too. But there was a glimpse of the real Macalister near the end. Defensiveness crept over him when he brought up the Troubled Asset Relief Program money HBHC had accepted to bail them out and was quick to remind us that over five hundred banks in America had needed taxpayer dollars to keep from collapsing.

He took a few questions at the end, but they were softball ones. Unsophisticated questions meant to flatter, but he saw through the bullshit and was irritated.

I raised my hand, and when he nodded, “Do you think the bailout created a moral hazard for big banks?”

“I can’t answer for every bank,” he said, “but I believe the answer is no. There are protections in place like Dodd-Frank—”

“But you created the problem with your greed, were deemed too big to fail, and then given billions of dollars to get out of it. Without having to suffer the consequences, was there a lesson learned?”

If a pin had dropped in the room, everyone would have heard it, except perhaps him. His anger moved almost as slowly as a glacier as it rose up over his face, but I could see in his eyes it burned hotter than the sun. It was so rare he lost control.

“First of all,” his speech was crisp and deadly, “I have been credited with a great many things, but personally causing the subprime mortgage crisis is a new one. Second, there were consequences—some of which my bank is still grappling with.” The walls in the classroom closed in so it was just the two of us. Macalister speaking only to me in his sharp tone. “And third, I don’t use the term ‘too big to fail,’ because failure isn’t a word I allow in my vocabulary, Marist.”

He’d scolded me like a child in front of the whole room, and I wanted to melt under the table and disappear. As he said his goodbye, I sensed the rest of the class wanted that as well. I’d meant to embarrass him, but I’d done it to myself instead.

I stayed up later than Royce did on the weeknights. I was a night-owl, and my earliest class wasn’t until nine thirty, and there were some mornings where he’d gone into the office and was seated at his desk before I’d even gotten out of bed.

He told me to enjoy it while I could. After graduation and the wedding, Macalister had informed me I’d start as a credit analyst at HBHC and work on my master’s in my spare time. It was an entry-level position, and I could probably land a better one on my own somewhere else, but he’d never allow a Hale to work outside the company. If I put in my dues and proved qualified, there would be fewer cries of nepotism when I moved into higher positions.

The past few weeks, I’d been staying up even later, studying or reading or just lying in bed unable to quiet the thoughts in my head. The wedding was in less than two months.

My wedding.

The one where I’d marry the man currently snoring softly beside me, who still hadn’t told me he loved me. He showed it, though. He was caring and attentive and devoted, and he couldn’t keep his hands off me either. But Alice’s words haunted me. Once I was Royce’s wife, the chase was over. Would he lose interest in me? Be on to the next thing?

I threw off the covers. If I wasn’t going to sleep, I’d go downstairs and grab something to drink, then retreat to my own room with a book and read until Hypnos, the god of sleep, came for a visit.

Lucifer meowed softly when I walked past the library. He was curled up in his favorite spot on the back of the chair and tried to entice me to come pet him, but his single meow wasn’t a strong effort, and a half second later he put his head back down.

It had snowed this afternoon, hopefully the last of the season since it would be April next week. There was just enough to be a dusting of white blanketing the ground, and since it was a full moon and cloudless night, it was unnaturally bright outside.

I didn’t bother turning on the lights in the kitchen. Instead, I used the light coming from the screen of my phone to help illuminate my path. I always carried it with me now as I moved from room to room in the Hale house, paranoid to be without the ability to call for help, even when Alice continued to live in the converted stables.

I poured myself a glass of water and padded over to the back window, looking out at the grounds while I drank. The evergreens of the hedge maze looked beautiful and deceptively enticing. It was bitterly cold outside, and I could feel it seeping through the glass pane, trying to get at me.

I shivered and turned away.

After I refilled my glass, I started for the door and was halfway out of the room when footsteps pounded loudly, approaching the kitchen from the back staircase. I turned in place and was silent as the door was thrown open and Macalister burst in.

He was shirtless and drenched in sweat, and he stormed over to the fridge like a guided missile. The door was yanked open, a bottle of the fancy sports drink he preferred was snatched up, and he didn’t bother closing the door before he started drinking. The interior light of the fridge lit him up and made his sweaty chest gleam.

How many miles had he run tonight? It had to have been a lot because he drained the entire bottle and then reached for another.

It was interesting to learn Macalister Hale was not his meticulous self when he was tired. He haphazardly tossed the black cap onto the counter and gulped his drink straight from the bottle, rather than pour it in a glass and sip it calmly like the refined gentleman he pretended to be.

For the first time since Aspen, I saw him as something other than the Minotaur. He was just a man, running himself to the point of exhaustion so he could find sleep. His grace and elegance were missing, and I had to take advantage of his weakened state. It was exactly what he would have done to me.

“Any word from Ascension?” I asked, puncturing the silence.

I’d meant to startle him, and it worked. He jolted, the red liquid inside his bottle sloshed around, and his head snapped toward me, his eyes narrowed like he’d been ambushed. But the defenses came down when he spied me across the way. The fridge was shut, and he turned to fully face me, resting one hand on the counter and the other on the island on the other side. It gave me a view of the rapid rise and fall of his chest, faintly darkened with hair.

“Royce hasn’t told you?”

“No. We don’t talk about it,” I lied.

His face was in shadow and the smile didn’t materialize, but he knew I wasn’t telling the truth. “Ascension’s board voted to enact a shareholder rights plan.”

Meaning anyone who already owned shares in the company would be allowed to buy new shares at half price. It was meant to dilute HBHC’s ownership and prevent the takeover, and it even came with its own term. “A poison pill.”

“Yes.”

“So, they’ve decided to fight.”

This time, his cold smile did materialize, and excitement lit his eyes. “Yes.” He tilted his head. “But you already knew that.”

I tossed a hand out, giving up the charade. “You’re right. Royce tells me everything.”

The excitement in him died. “No, Marist. I don’t believe he has.”

Alarm went through me like a spike, but I tried to recover quickly. This was another attempt to come between us, and his manipulation wasn’t going to work this time. “We don’t keep secrets from each other.”

The trap he’d laid for me was so deep, I had time to feel the fall and watch the doors closed around me.

“Ah,” Macalister said. “You’ve told him about the morning of Alice’s apology, then. How did he take it?”

My voice was a ghost, not wanting to confront the memory. “That’s . . . different.”

He asked it simply, like it didn’t carry enormous weight. “Why?”

“Because it’d hurt him.” I swallowed a breath. “And because I’m ashamed.”

There was a fleeting emotion that flickered through his expression, but it was gone too fast to put a label on it. Concern? Remorse?

“No,” he said. “You’ll give that to me, Marist. I was the one who forced that upon you, so it’s my shame now, you understand me?”

His hands came down off the counters, and he took a cautious step toward me, like he was worried I might dart away if he got too close. A fawn in the woods, not aware of the wolf’s approach.

“You may have learned I’m a decisive man.” He sounded firm and powerful. “Once a decision has been made, it’s final.” As he drew in his next breath, his voice faltered. “But I have questioned myself every day since that morning, worrying the damage I did to us will be too much to overcome.”

“There is no us,” I said.

“Which is why I’ve stayed away all these months.”

So, he had been avoiding me. “Except when you showed up as a guest professor in my class.”

He blinked slowly. “I’ll admit I wanted to see you. I decided that was the safest way. What could I possibly do to you in a room full of people?”

“Embarrass me?”

He lifted a sharp eyebrow. “You did that to yourself. You behaved like a child, so I treated you as such.”

He had a point, but I didn’t want to concede to it. I shifted on my feet and put my hands on my hips, assuming a confident posture. “What I meant is, Royce and I love each other. We don’t lie to—”

“Has he said that?”

“That he loves me?” I narrowed my gaze. “Better. He shows me.”

Macalister wasn’t fooled, and he used the opportunity to take another step my direction. “He hasn’t, then. How exactly does he show he loves you?”

“I don’t have to explain it to you.”

“With his fancy gifts?”

“No,” I snapped.

It was a demand. “Then indulge me.”

He asked for it. “For starters, we fuck all the time.”

His expression shuttered. “Everyone in this house is aware. It’s yet another reason I’ve made myself scarce.” He sighed almost dramatically and leaned in like he wanted to impart his wisdom. “I know you’re young and inexperienced, but surely you’re intelligent enough to know that sex does not equate love. I imagine for Royce, sex is meaningless.”

I wanted to laugh. “It’s not.”

“For you, I’m sure it isn’t. But he will tire of it and eventually lose interest.”

My ears burned hot. “He won’t, and I know it.”

His blue eyes sharpened on me. “Oh?”

“If sex was meaningless to him, he would have slept with other people the year before we got engaged.”

He had the same reaction when I moved a chess piece he wasn’t expecting. “What?”

“I waited for him, Macalister. And for a year, he waited for me.”

It was like he couldn’t reconcile the idea in his head. “He told you this?”

“Yes.” My lips turned up in a smug smile.

There was a level of dread in his voice that made my blood run cold. It sounded as if he was outraged for me. “And you . . . you believed him?”

Macalister was a splinter trapped in my skin, working deeper and more painfully each time I tried to get him out. He infected my mind and planted seeds of distrust.

When I didn’t dignify his question with a response, he stepped back, maybe worried my delusions would rub off on him.

“Don’t be a fool,” he lectured. “Lying is the only thing my son truly excels at.”

I didn’t sound as convinced as I would have liked. “We don’t lie to each other.”

He shot me an incredulous look. “No? You already confessed to me that you do.” It felt like he’d struck me in the center of my chest, and my heart slowed. “How easy do you think it is for him to do the same?”

That was the thought Macalister left me with as he exited the kitchen, abandoning me in the darkness.