Every night, I lost the game of chess.
Last night, Macalister accused me of trying to lose too quickly. Subconsciously, perhaps I had. While I spent every free minute practicing on my phone, anxiety crept in as soon as I walked into the library and found his icy stare waiting for me.
I wanted it over as soon as possible.
On Friday, the stock market dipped and put Royce in a foul mood. After our silent car ride together this morning, he’d skulked into his office and shut the door without a word. He didn’t come out for lunch. At three o’clock, he emerged, and the somber expression he wore made suspicion coil in my belly.
“I’m heading out early.” His eyes met mine briefly then shifted away. “I’m not feeling well.”
HBHC stock was still falling since this morning, and it seemed like a really bad idea for anyone named Hale to leave early, but I didn’t say that to him. Instead, I stood and gathered my things. “I’ll go with you.”
I’d hoped for pushback. If he were up to something, he wouldn’t want me tagging along. But he gave a slight nod and waited dutifully for me to finish. He wasn’t sneaking off to some clandestine meeting.
Maybe it wasn’t a lie that he was unwell.
As we sat on the leather seats and the town car whisked us away from Boston, Royce ignored the phone he had clasped in a hand and resting on his knee. He chose to stare blankly out the window.
Gone was the confident, cocky man I’d worked with all week. He didn’t act or even look like himself. A troubled Royce made me worried, and even though I didn’t want to care about him, it was impossible not to. Concern stole into my voice. “Are you okay?”
“Today was a bad day.”
That was all he said the entire fifty-three-minute ride back to the house.
He vanished into his room, and as I did the same, unease grew ten-fold inside me.
Royce owned a massive amount of stock in his family’s company. The drop today had likely cost him a million or more, so it was understandable to be upset, but . . . it was temporary. I’d bet my great-grandmother’s necklace that one of Macalister’s first lessons to his sons had been that the markets fluctuate. You couldn’t be reactive. It might take a few weeks for HBHC’s price to bounce back, but it would.
The stock market was a marathon, not a sprint.
My fingers paused on the book I’d pulled from my nightstand.
Perhaps that was causing Royce’s dramatic mood shift—not the loss in money, but the loss of time. Maybe the drop in the market had thrown a wrench into his plans.
If that was true and his master plan was disrupted, why didn’t I feel better? I clenched my teeth and simmered with self-irritation.
I snatched up my latest book on Greek mythology—this one a collection of essays—made my way to the back of the house, and down the stone steps toward the hedge maze. I’d always been drawn to it, and I’d found reading to be much easier when I put distance between me and Royce.
He was a distracting puzzle of a man I couldn’t figure out.
The puzzle of evergreen trees was easier. It hadn’t rained since the night I’d gotten lost, and, refusing to be conquered, I’d used the last three days to learn every passage in the maze. I could quickly find my way to the center now and on to the exit on the other side. I’d learned all its secrets, but not its magic. It still lingered amongst the leaves and statues.
As I’d done yesterday, I sat beneath the tiered fountain, moving over on the circular bench every ten minutes or so to stay in the shadow its cascading tower cast on me. The afternoon sun was as merciless as the July humidity.
The final essay in the book was about Hera. She’d been beautiful, and Zeus wanted her, and when she wouldn’t submit to his advances, he tricked her. Knowing she loved all creatures, he changed into a cuckoo bird stranded out in the cold. Once she rescued him and took him inside her warm room, he changed back into his true form and raped her.
The shame of it would have been too much, and she was forced to marry Zeus to keep it a secret.
Queen of the gods, she was also the goddess of birth and marriage, which was ironic. Zeus was the worst husband. Every time she had her back turned, he’d run off to take another mortal lover, even though she stayed constant and faithful.
But her jealousy grew until she was only beautiful on the outside. Her wrath twisted her into an ugly goddess, full of vengeance and fire.
She’d never been my favorite in mythology, but I felt for her.