Disappointment unfurled inside him. He didn’t like this Clara—agreeable, bland, quiet. Yet he had been the one to shut her down in the car. He had taken her off all of her assignments, initiated the hiring process for a new executive assistant and planned their honeymoon without asking for her opinion.
An apology rose to his lips. The words lodged in his throat. He couldn’t remember the last time he had apologized. It might very well have been years. He made decisions with enough forethought and planning that he was almost always right.
He knew he needed to say something. But how many times had he heard his mother apologize to his father? How many times had he heard Daxon take advantage of that apology, use it to twist Marianne to his will and absolve himself of his own actions? Apologies hadn’t resolved conflict. They’d been weaponized, used to control.
The door to the helicopter swung open. The pilot snapped to attention. Before Alaric could make the leap of faith and apologize for his heavy-handed behavior, Clara stood and walked down the stairs to the helipad, her bright blue peacoat wrapped tightly around her.
He slammed the lid on his laptop more forcefully than he had intended. Their marriage might be one of necessity, but that didn’t mean it had to be like the one he would have had with Celestine. The sooner he remembered that and stopped keeping Clara at arm’s length despite pressuring her into marrying him, the sooner they could return to something close to the camaraderie they had achieved in the office. Yes, he needed to maintain awareness, not get drawn too deeply into the emotional aspects of marriage. But he and Clara had succeeded as a team for seven years, including the last year of heightened awareness and tension. They could have that again.
He could start tonight. He had planned on dining alone in the upstairs bedroom he’d had transformed into an office when he’d purchased the house from the royal treasury ten years ago. There was plenty of work to be done, but perhaps he could invite her to work with him, have her review some of the upcoming events that had been planned with the Swiss ambassador and his wife—
His phone rang, cutting off his thoughts. He pulled his cell phone out of his coat pocket and frowned.
“Yes?”
“When were you going to tell me you got married?”
Despite the deep-seated loathing he had for his sire, the weak rasp of Daxon’s voice still unnerved him.
“There was no need to inform you at this time.”
Daxon’s cursing was cut off by a horrific-sounding cough.
“Damn it, Alaric, I’m still king of this country. You are my son and heir.”
“Officially, yes. Neither of those roles entitles you to know anything about my personal life.”
Something shattered in the background. The weaker Daxon got as the cancer advanced through his body, the more prone he’d become to hurling the nearest object at hand into a wall.
“It does when you follow breaking one of the biggest deals I made for our country by marrying your secretary! Osborne is furious with me!”
“The deal where you bound your son to a girl he’d never met to pay off your debts? Yes, I can see where you might want to ensure the exact details of that stayed quiet.”
Up ahead on the snow-covered path, Clara paused, her head slightly cocked to one side. Was she listening to the faint twittering of white-winged larks in the trees nearby? Or could she hear his sordid conversation with his bastard of a father?
“I’m in Switzerland at the moment. We can discuss this later, although there’s not much else to be discussed.”
Silence descended, an unusual sound when Daxon was around. Then it was broken by a harsh, guttural laughter that made Alaric’s skin crawl.
“Briony told me, you know. That you married your secretary.”
His fingers tightened around his phone. Briony had become aware all too quickly of Daxon’s cruel, selfish nature. Surely she hadn’t told him everything. Alaric wouldn’t put it past his father to sell the details of Clara’s pregnancy to a tabloid to make a fast dollar, especially with his reduced financial circumstances.
“And?”
“I find it rich that my perfect son ended his engagement to one of the wealthiest, most beautiful women in the world to marry a pale, shrewish widow.”
Protectiveness reared its head.
“You will not speak of my wife in such a manner. Ever.”
“I’m sure you had your reasons. What they are, I’ll never understand.”
“Nor do you need to. Good night, Your Highness.”
“One last thing. I can’t help but wonder that my son married a woman from his own office so quickly after ending his engagement of nine years.”
The smugness seeping from the phone was enough to make him want to throw the device into the lake.