by Diana Ames
“Tell me that’s not true, Anton,” Mellissandra said with a gasp. “You tell me right now that that woman doesn’t know—” She cut herself off, aware of the uninformed ears in the room.
“Captain Hicks,” Damian interrupted, “discuss our options with your team. We’ll concede to your greater experience and knowledge in this matter, but I want to be immediately informed of any and all decisions.”
The seasoned captain knew when he was being dismissed, and he seemed more than happy to get out of the tension-filled apartment. Motioning for his lieutenant to follow him, they left quickly and quietly, closing the door behind them.
When he heard the click of the door, Damian spun on Anton. “What the fuck have you done?” he asked furiously.
“You are the one who brought her here,” Anton shot back at him. “You gave her access to everyone. She had everything she needed before I spent more than five minutes with her.”
“What do you mean, Anton?” Mellissandra asked, her voice trembling.
“She had DNA tests run on the babies, Mel. Apparently, someone in medical is still loyal to Gilly. Alondra got samples from just being here in the damn castle,” he said impatiently. “But you don’t have to worry about her leaking the information to the press. She’s not thrilled with what I’ve done, but she sees Gilly for what she is now.”
“And just how do you know this?” Damian demanded.
“You spent every waking moment with her for weeks, Damian. How do you not know anything about her? Did you just spend all that time trying to be charming and hoping she’d fall for it?” Anton asked scornfully.
“Since you’re so much better than me, what have you learned?” Damian mocked him.
Anton just shook his head.
“Oh, what? Do you have some kind of loyalty to her? You just ripped her to shreds right in front of all of us, and now, you won’t tell us why you think she’ll just keep all of this to herself.”
Anton watched in silent fury as Damian began pacing the room. He hated himself for hurting Alondra and wanted to kick Damian’s ass for throwing it in his face. But even as the anger engulfed him, Anton knew he had to maintain control. The situation was tense and filled with anxiety, but for the moment, everyone was safe.
“You fucked her, didn’t you?” Damian stopped pacing and screamed at his brother. “You managed to get her into bed, and you think that’s enough to keep her quiet! You idiot!”
“That is none of your damn business,” Anton said in a deadly whisper. “What happened or didn’t happen between Alondra and me has nothing to do with her silence. She’s not going to write the article because she knows the truth about Gilly. She’s now aware of the damage a story like this would do.”
“How could you?” Mellissandra said with a breathy sob. “How could you betray me like this? First, she tries to steal my husband. Now, she’s got you on her side. What’s next? Is she going to try to steal my children as well? Maybe take Wally and Ryan from me?”
“Mel…” Anton reached a hand out to her. “Honey, I haven’t betrayed you,” he said softly. “She found out all on her own. Her only having half the story at that point was doing us more harm than good.”
“You made love with her!” Mellissandra screamed.
Blinking rapidly, Anton just stared at her. He didn’t know how to respond. He wasn’t sure why she was upset. He looked to Damian for help, but the other man was staring at his wife with his mouth agape.
“Mel,” Wally said, going to her and wrapping her arms around Mellissandra. “Baby girl, you’re married to Damian. Why do you feel like Anton betrayed you if he had sex with Alondra?” Her voice was soft and soothing.
Mellissandra collapsed into Wally’s arms. “He loves me,” Mellissandra wailed. “When Damian is being an ass, I always know I can go to Anton, and he’ll be there for me and be on my side. If he finds someone to love and be with, then he won’t love me anymore.”
“That’s a little unfair, isn’t it?” Wally asked kindly. “Can you really expect Anton to be alone forever just so you can keep him as yours? He has a right to love someone and be loved in return.”
“He doesn’t love her!” Mellissandra shouted, her head shooting up and her eyes blazing. “He loves me!”
Anton watched the interaction between Mellissandra and Wally. For the first time, he realized just how unhealthy the triangle relationship they’d been carrying on for the last year really was—not just to him, but to Mellissandra and Damian as well. While he did love Mellissandra, it was more of a brotherly love than a romantic one.
Everything Dr. Servo had repeated over and over suddenly made sense to him. He had intense feelings for Mellissandra, but they were never had sexual. He had been her confidant, her shoulder to cry on, but he’d never been her love or her lover. Never once in her rant had she said she loved him. She’d just said that he loved her, and she’d used that love against him, against Damian. When Mel came to him in tears, she used him to make herself feel better. Anton knew that he resented Damian for making her hurt and now he wondered if Damian resented that his wife was sharing her feelings with another man.
Anton sighed. He was going to have to handle this carefully. No matter how unhealthy their relationship might be, he still cared for her deeply. Anton knew her actions stemmed from the unorthodox beginning to her marriage and the insecurities it caused.
“Mellissandra,” Anton said, pulling her away from Wally, “you’re right. I do love you. Nothing in the world is ever going to change that. But I love you like a sister. I’ll always be here for you when you need to talk or bitch or cry. I don’t have to be in love with you to be your friend.”
“Do you love her?” she whispered.
“I care for her,” he replied.
“More than me?”
“Differently than you,” Anton said softly. Then, he pulled her into an embrace.
“What if you had to choose between us? What if I told you that I would leave the castle for good if you kept her around?” she asked him in a harsh tone.
“I’m nowhere close to keeping her around,” he answered. “But I hope that if I someday find a woman I want to marry, someone who would put up with all my problems…” He paused as it dawned on him that Alondra had accepted every part of him and drawn him to her to ease his troubled mind. He shook himself. “I hope that if I ever find that woman, you wouldn’t ask me to make that choice.”
Mellissandra pulled out of his arms and looked at him thoughtfully. He looked back and tried to focus on her face, her hair, and her tears. It had never been difficult before, but right now, all he could think about was the spiky black-haired woman he’d just cut to the quick once again and how much he wanted to go find her to beg for her forgiveness.
***
Alondra sat with her back to the locked door, her knees pulled up to her chest. When she’d made her grand exit, she hadn’t stopped to think about how she was going to get into the apartment. She had never been anywhere in the castle without an escort before, and even though she had use of the apartment, she’d never been given a key.
Sitting there with nothing to do but think had her mind running in a hundred different directions. Every thought kept leading her back to the same conclusion though. She no longer had any doubt that she had fallen in love with the abominable Prince Anton.
She knew he felt something for her as well, but she doubted it was love. Lust? Definitely. Like? Maybe. Love? Unlikely. If they’d had more time alone, perhaps it could have evolved and grown, but the moment Mellissandra had thrown herself into his arms, Alondra had known she didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. She’d been able to disregard his angry insults when they fought after making love because she’d understood that he was afraid. But when he’d shouted at her that she had no one who cared about her, she couldn’t ignore the facts any longer.
“Well, well, well…if it isn’t my dear, sweet little sister,” a voice said.
Alondra looked up and gasped. Sh
e didn’t have time to say or do anything before the blow came to her head. One second, she was despairing over a love she was never going to win, and the next, everything was dark.
CHAPTER 29
Damian was brooding. He wanted nothing more than to take Sandra back to their apartment and ask her just what the hell all of that had really been about. Instead, they were sitting in Anton’s living room, waiting for word from Captain Hicks. Sandra wouldn’t even look at him, and she hadn’t said a word after her earlier outburst. He couldn’t fathom why she had suddenly been so possessive of Anton, but the endless questions were driving him crazy.
Damian was also extremely curious about the situation between his brother and Alondra. There was no doubt that the woman was beautiful, but she wasn’t the sort of woman who’d ever attracted Anton in the past. Had Anton seduced her just to gain her trust and manipulate her? Or was something more there?
Damian’s need to be in control of every situation was causing a nagging pain in his head. He needed to get some answers soon, or he was going to explode and say things he would regret later.
One look at Anton told him no answers would be forthcoming from that direction. Anton was pacing in front of the fireplace. The look on his face told Damian that Anton was already waging an internal battle and wouldn’t respond to an interrogation.
That left his wife. Damian looked closely at Mellissandra and could see that she was quietly sobbing in Wally’s arms. Ordinarily, the sight of her so distressed would have him scrambling to fix whatever had caused her tears even if it meant humbling himself, but right now, her distress was over another man.
Damian stalked over to her and crouched down to look into her eyes. “We need to talk,” he said in a low growl. “It’s up to you if you want to do this in front of an audience or if you’d like to take it to another room.”
Mellissandra raised her head and flinched at the angry glint in his eyes. “I can’t, not right now,” she whispered brokenly.
“Yes,” he said. “Right now.” He rose to his full height and extended a hand to her. “We are having this discussion, Mellissandra, and we are doing it now.”
***
She flinched again at his use of her full name. The only times he’d call her Mellissandra were when he wanted her to know that he was not going to budge, and it would usually be when he was angry. She looked to Wally for help, but Wally wouldn’t meet her eyes. A glance in Ryan’s direction showed him fascinated by some random artwork on the wall in front of him. With a heavy sigh, Mellissandra put her hand in Damian’s and allowed him to lead her into Anton’s bedroom.
As soon as they entered the room, it became evident what had happened in here. The musky odor of sex lingered in the air, and the bed was a train wreck of sheets, pillows, and blankets. Mellissandra bit her lip to keep from crying again as she turned to leave the room quickly, but Damian grabbed her by the arm and forced her to look at him.
“Why don’t you want to be in here? Why is it so hard to look at the bed where Anton just had sex? Is it because he wasn’t having sex with you?” Damian asked in a hard voice. “Is there something going on that I’m not aware of?”
Mellissandra just shook her head at him as the tears slid down her cheeks.
“Answer me, damn you!” Damian yelled, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her slightly. “Are you in love with my brother?”
“No,” she sobbed shakily. “I only love you.”
“Then, why is this a problem?” he shouted. “Make me understand what is going on inside your head right now,” he said, lowering his voice. “I don’t like what I’m thinking, and I’m trying hard not to jump to crazy conclusions. You have to admit, if the roles were reversed, you’d be thinking the same thing.”
With that statement, Mellissandra snapped. Tears were still raining down her face, but they were tears of outrage and anger now. Color streamed into her pale face as though she had been splashed with red paint, and fire danced in her eyes.
“If the roles were reversed?” she said sarcastically. “You mean, like the role where you ignore your wife and children completely to spend every waking moment with that woman? Or the role where you climb into bed with me, but you’re so far away that you could drive a car between us?”
She was breathing heavily, her chest heaving and nostrils flaring.
“For weeks, I watched you fawn over her and flirt and laugh while I sat by and played the good little wife. I kept telling myself that you weren’t doing anything inappropriate with her. I argued with my friends and physically attacked Ryan, all in defense of your actions.
“Then, the night before I am scheduled to be gone for months, you can’t even bother to come home. When you showed up in the garage, I was so glad to see you that I didn’t even question where you had been or what you had been doing. I didn’t need to question it because I already knew. You’d spent the night with her. You might have been leaving with me, but you couldn’t be away from her without—” She broke off and took a deep breath to steady herself.
“Sandra, you’ve—”
“Shut up!” she snapped. “You wanted to have this discussion. Well, by God, you’re going to listen to what I have to say!” She moved away from him and tried again to calm down.
“While you were out playing babysitter to a woman who should have been tossed out of the country on her ass, I was trying to hold myself together. I threw myself into working with Anton to get an education program off the ground, and we made terrific headway—not that you noticed or cared. You weren’t there to listen to my ideas or praise my achievements or comfort me for my failures. It was Anton. Whenever I was upset and distraught because you couldn’t be bothered to kiss me good morning or even be at home when I crawled into bed, Anton found a way to distract me. I would not have survived the past month without him.
“He was the only one who didn’t tell me I should leave your sorry ass for what you were doing. He was the only one who didn’t judge me.” She took a shaky breath as a sob built in her throat. “He was my only friend. Now, the woman who stole my husband has stolen him as well.”
“So, you’re not in love with him? You’re not jealous because he slept with another woman?” Damian asked incredulously.
“I know you’re not stupid, Damian, but if I must say it, then here it is,” she said scornfully. “I am not in love with Anton. If it were any other woman, a good woman, I would be jumping up and down for joy. I want Anton to have happiness, but I don’t want to lose him.”
“You’re not going to lose him to Alondra,” Damian said, pulling her close. “You haven’t lost me to Alondra. I will admit that I screwed up every step of the way in this situation. And yes, the night before we left, I did sleep in Alondra’s apartment. I slept off a drunken binge because Anton had made me realize just how much I was damaging our marriage. I have not had sex with her,” he said softly. “I will never, ever betray you or our marriage that way.”
“She’s a devil, Damian,” Mellissandra said against his chest. “She’s going to take everything and everyone away from me.”
“She’s not a bad person, Sandra,” he said. “But this isn’t really about her, is it? This is about you and me. This is about how I’ve screwed up, how I’ve broken your trust. It’s about how you’re insecure in our relationship and how those insecurities have made you doubt yourself in every aspect of your life.”
“Why haven’t you made love to me?” she asked suddenly, pulling away and looking up at him. “Ever since she came here, you’ve barely touched me. Why?”
“You’re not the only one who has felt the chasm between us,” Damian told her. “I honestly thought you didn’t want me to touch you. I would come to bed later and later every night because it was so damn hard to lie beside you and not reach out and pull you into my arms. I would be gone from the apartment before you awoke, and I wouldn’t kiss you because I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop if I started. And I never want to force or coerce you into making love with
me.”
“I was wrong,” she deadpanned. “You are stupid.”
She felt him chuckle soundlessly against her, and she smiled. Her smile faded rapidly though as she posed her next question to him. “Damian, are we ever going to stop hurting each other?”
He pondered her question for a few minutes.
Then, in all seriousness, he replied, “I think that two people who love each other as ferociously as we do are always vulnerable to pain from each other. We’re both strong-willed and independent. I’m used to always being in control and answering to no one. You’re used to standing on your own two feet and doing what you have to do to survive.”
“Are we incompatible then?” she asked, fear creeping into her voice.
“No, my love,” he said. “I couldn’t survive without you. We’re just going to have to work on our communication skills. If I get too highhanded and forget to consult you about something, you’ll need to yell and scream at me. If I catch you running to Anton with your problems or worries, I’m going to drag you back to me and make you open up.”
“It’s not going to be an easy road, is it?” she asked.
“Nope,” he confirmed. “But it’s going to be a hell of a lot of fun.”
***
Alondra’s head felt like it was about to explode as she pried her eyes open. Once again, she was in a blindingly white room, and as she took a mental inventory of her body, she fought the panic when she discovered she couldn’t move at all.
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Gilly said, walking over to the bed. “Sorry about that knock on the head, sister dear, but I couldn’t risk you screaming and alerting any security that might have been lurking around.”
“You’re a murderer,” Alondra spit out.
“Just a few people who didn’t mean anything anyway,” Gilly told her, smiling. “They were just people trying to keep me from my love and my son.”
Alondra’s eyes widened at her statement.
