The Deception

by Nikki Sloane

  “Agreed,” said the man lingering by the window.

  At Macalister’s deep voice, my mother froze. He’d been off to the side, and she’d been distracted by the sight of me and Royce when she’d come into the room, so she’d failed to notice him. Like an outsider, he was the only one not gathered at my bedside.

  Panic swamped her face as she looked down and realized what she was wearing. After Vance had woken them up, my parents had obviously thrown on whatever clothes were fastest and then raced to Boston. For my mother, it had been yoga pants and an Etonsons University sweatshirt. No makeup. Her hair was down and flattened from a half-night’s sleep.

  She’d never been so unkempt in front of my father’s boss and the king of Cape Hill before, and he held even more power over us now.

  “Macalister.” She squeezed out a strained smile as she tucked her hair behind an ear. “I didn’t see you there.” Her gaze swept across the room, searching for who else she may have missed. “Is Alice here too?”

  “No.”

  When he didn’t elaborate, she exchanged a quick, puzzled look with my father. “Oh.” She struggled visibly with how to proceed. “Have you been here long?”

  She winced at her question, probably realizing the answer was obvious. He wore the same tuxedo she’d seen him in at the gala last night, so it was clear he hadn’t had time to change.

  Something was buried in his voice. Was that . . . pride? Macalister didn’t smile, but it gave me the same uneasy feeling I had when he did. “I was the one who found Marist after she’d collapsed.”

  “Oh,” was all my mother could say.

  Her gaze flitted back to me in the bed, and I watched her throat bob in a hard swallow. If she was nervous about Macalister seeing her in sweats, she was downright terrified he was seeing me in a shapeless hospital gown. I could only imagine what my face looked like. The only makeup I wore was whatever was left over from yesterday, and probably beneath my eyes instead of the eyelids above them.

  “Well, we’re glad you were there to help her,” she choked out.

  She was likely recalling the terrible moment my sister Emily had thrown up all over Macalister’s hand. He was basically the last person she would have chosen to see me like that.

  For once, Macalister Hale said exactly what he meant. “I’m glad I was there too.”

  I fought the urge to suck in a deep breath.

  The suite was like a high-end hotel, but it was still a hospital, complete with beeping machines and nursing staff that cycled through at all hours, making meaningful sleep impossible.

  When the doctor informed me I needed to stay overnight, I tried to talk Royce into heading home and getting a decent night of sleep, but he wouldn’t hear it. At some point when I’d been napping, he’d had clothes delivered, and then showered in the suite’s full bathroom and changed.

  Now, as the sunlight was fading outside, I rolled over in the bed and peered at him through the railing.

  He sat on the tan couch, one arm slung along the back of it, wearing a maroon sweater over dark jeans, and his gaze locked on to the phone he held in his lap. His dark eyebrows were pulled together as he was deep in concentration. Whatever he was reading, it had his full attention.

  I’d never been jealous of a phone until this moment.

  I wanted his intense stare pinned on me, the one that used to make me uncomfortable, but now I craved. My voice was raspy from exhaustion, and breathless from the sight of how handsome he was. “Hey.”

  Royce’s head lifted, and, when his gaze found mine, he pushed to his feet. “Hey, you’re awake. How’re you feeling?”

  “Still weird,” I said glumly. At least the lights had finally lost their halos and my head didn’t hurt as much. But between the fatigue and the medicine I’d been given to regulate my heart, I felt disconnected from my body. “Did my parents leave?”

  “They went to get something to eat and check in on your sister.”

  Because Emily was on bedrest, and probably not allowed to travel to Boston. I inhaled slowly. “And your father?”

  His shoulders lifted in an equally deep breath. “He went home to deal with . . . things there.”

  It was like he couldn’t bring himself to say her name, and I was grateful. “So, we’re alone.”

  “We are.”

  The light coming through the window warmed, and the air in the room thickened.

  “Come here,” I whispered.

  A faint smile teased his lips as he strode toward me, a gorgeous man who I hoped felt at least a fraction of the way I did about him.

  “I know I’m a mess right now,” I said, “but if you don’t kiss me, I’ll feel like I’m dying all over again.”

  “Fuck, Marist.” His hand dove beneath my head, gingerly scooping me up into his kiss that obliterated everything else. His mouth was hot, a branding iron against my lips, marking me as his. His other hand cupped my cheek, holding me in place while he laid siege.

  The Greek myth of Helen of Troy had been told a thousand different ways. In some versions, the most beautiful mortal in the world was stolen away from her loving husband, the king of Sparta, by an evil prince and dragged unwillingly to Troy. In others, she was seduced and ran away with her new lover.

  The only constant in the myth was that it led to the Trojan War. Two great empires went to battle over the love of one woman.

  Was that what this kiss was? Royce was king Menelaus, launching a thousand ships to rescue me from his opponent, the one who felt he was entitled to whatever he wanted, including me? Was Royce willing to sacrifice everything and go to war for me?

  I sighed against the soft, deliberate brush of his lips over mine, each pass deepening our connection.

  “Did you mean it?” I said breathlessly between kisses. “When you said you loved me?”

  His mouth slowed and separated from mine, and with each inch of space he put between us, the farther my heart sank. He kept my face cupped in his hands but pulled back enough so I could see every fleck of uncertainty in his eyes.

  We’d promised when we were alone, we wouldn’t lie to each other. We’d said we’d always get to be the people we truly were when it was just the two of us. But I could see the struggle inside him. He didn’t want to hurt me, but he also didn’t want to lie.

  As I waited for his answer, my breath came and went so quickly, I grew lightheaded.

  His words were quiet and measured. “I don’t know.”

  In theory, it was a better answer than a solid no, but somehow it felt worse. Like a sugar-coated no, only instead of tasting sweet, it was acidic.

  “It’s not a complicated question,” I said, blinking back the tears that leapt into my eyes. I didn’t want to push him, but I’d been through too much the last few days, not to mention hell last night, and couldn’t stop myself. I needed him, and I would recklessly go after what I wanted.

  Royce’s gaze drifted down to settle on my lips, and his thumb brushed softly over my cheekbone. “The way I feel about you is hard to put into words.”

  I swallowed thickly. “Try.”

  His eyes turned back to meet mine. “Everything I’ve ever really cared about has been taken from me.”

  He hesitated and fell silent. This wasn’t a ‘poor little rich boy’ act. He was talking about so much more than just possessions. He was talking about opportunities. Choices.

  And his mother.

  “So, after a time,” he finally continued, “I learned it was better not to get attached to anything. It’s easier then when he takes it away.” He leaned in, setting the top of his forehead against mine. “You made that fucking impossible. I wanted to be cold, an unfeeling stone.” His voice went low and thick. “But you, Medusa? You have the opposite effect on me.”

  He pressed his lips to mine, dropping a short, abrupt kiss on my mouth, too fast for me to react. Or maybe it was his words that made me slow.

  “I’m never going to get that ima
ge out of my head,” he said. “When he was on the stairs and had you in his arms, and I thought that was it. Like everything else, my father had succeeded in taking you away, and something in me—I don’t know—broke.”

  I clasped my hand around his wrist, giving us yet another place where we were connected, wanting to show him his fear wasn’t true. I’d never been or would be Macalister’s.

  “Before, I wanted to destroy him,” he admitted. “Not just him, but everything he has too. Take away his money, and his power, and his company—”

  I finished the thought for him. “Everything he cares about.”

  “Yes. And in that moment, where I thought you were his, it meant I’d have to go after you too, and I . . .” He searched for the right words. “I told you I wanted to take over my family’s company so badly, I wasn’t capable of caring about anything else. But, Marist, last night showed me I was fucking wrong.”

  I was short of breath, but he was too, like this confession was taking everything out of him. It was how I knew it was true. He lied with ease. Only the truth was difficult for him.

  “The way I feel about you wasn’t part of the plan. I’ve spent so long like this, not allowing myself to care, I wasn’t sure I was even capable anymore. Honestly, in the beginning, it didn’t matter who got hurt, just as long as it wasn’t me, and I got what I wanted.”

  He’d told me this the night of our first date. “Because it’s win at all costs.”

  “Yeah. I mean, it was.” His relentless stare held me tight. “Until you changed the game on me. All I’ve ever wanted was to run HBHC. Every decision I’ve made has been toward that outcome, all until you came along with your green hair and your mythology book, and that little gasp you made when I had you pushed against that bookcase. I heard that goddamn moan in my head for weeks after that night.”

  Heat rushed through me and clenched my body so tightly I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move.

  “I want HBHC,” he said, “but now I’m wondering if I want you even more.”

  He’d kept me walled off for so long, it felt like he’d just thrown open every floodgate, and it swept me away. “I think I need to lie down.”

  “You’re already lying down.” A smirk flashed on his lips before he turned serious again. “I think I can get to the place where I can say it back, when we’re alone and you tell me you love me, but I’m not there yet.” Determination flickered in his eyes. “I don’t want to say those words until I know they’re absolutely true.”

  I stared at him. “I know I’m on drugs, but are you too? I thought Royce Hale didn’t talk about his feelings.”

  His smile was pained. “He does after he thought his fiancée might die and he didn’t tell her any of the shit he should have.” When he released me and rested his hands on the bedrail, my skin mourned the loss of his touch. His hands were spread wide, making his shoulders high and tight, while his head stayed tipped down toward me. “If you don’t want to say it anymore until I do, I get it.”

  I ached for him and his banker’s heart. He thought of love like a transaction, like a currency. A thing that shouldn’t be given away without receiving something in return.

  I softened my voice. “I'm not going to withhold how I feel just because you aren’t ready to say it back. I love you, Royce. If it helps, I tried really hard not to.”

  He’d been so desperate to hear those words from me, and they landed with such an impact. The smile that broke on his lips caused a flutter in my chest.

  “It does help. Thanks,” he teased.

  I lifted an eyebrow. “You didn’t always make it easy either.”

  The glow in his eyes faded as he sobered. “No. I know I didn’t.”

  Among other things, he’d sold me to his father for one hundred thousand shares.

  Royce straightened and took in a deep breath. “I owe you an explanation, but it’s a much longer conversation than I think we should have tonight. Can we wait until both of us have gotten more than an hour’s worth of sleep?”

  My pulse jumped. “You’re going to tell me what you’re planning?”

  “Yes, Marist.” Conviction spread across his handsome face. “I’ll tell you everything.”

  It came out breathlessly excited. “Okay.”

  As he leaned back in to give me a final kiss, I hated Alice a little less. Sure, she’d poisoned me and left me for dead, but she’d also set off a chain of events that had given me almost everything I wanted.

  I was out from under Macalister’s grip. My choices were my own again, and he’d been forced to retreat.

  And Royce was finally letting me in, both on his feelings and his plan.

  All that was left now was to take his heart and make it mine. He wasn’t sure if he loved me? I was going to make that happen. As his lips captured mine, it sealed his fate.

  Look out, Royce. I’m coming for you.

  THREE

  It took two excruciatingly long days before I was released from the hospital, and I wondered if the doctors worked with an overabundance of caution due to the ring on my finger. No one wanted to be the one to send a future Hale home too early and incur the family’s wrath if something went wrong.

  But the toxins from the lily of the valley were finally gone from my system, my heartrate had returned to normal, and it seemed unlikely any complications were going to occur. I wasn’t excited about returning to the Hale house, but my desire to get out of the hospital suite and back to class was much stronger and overrode everything else.

  We didn’t talk about Alice, other than Royce’s comment that she’d been banished from the house. Macalister had ordered her to move into the stables, which had been converted into a guest house a few years back.

  He’d stayed true to our agreement. I hadn’t seen Royce’s father since we’d struck our deal. Perhaps Alice had gotten her wish, and she had all his attention now.

  Leaving the hospital was an ordeal. I’d been brought clothes to wear by a stylist, along with a whole hair and makeup team to conceal the dark circles under my eyes and my sallow skin. When they were done, I looked every bit the part I’d been playing for the last five months. Outwardly, the fake Instagram version of Marist Northcott was ready to take the stage and reemerge into society. No one would see the grayish lines leftover from the IV that had been taped to my skin because they’d been scrubbed away.

  Like the last three days never happened.

  But they had. I was closer than ever with Royce as a result.

  All the prep work to make me camera-ready had been overkill. Royce’s security team brought us down to the parking garage, loaded us into the back of a Land Rover, and we slipped out onto the streets of Boston before anyone noticed.

  When the story broke that billionaire Royce Hale’s fiancée was hospitalized, the media had flocked to Mass General, hoping to score a picture of the concerned groom as he came and went from my bedside. The rumors were rampant, with accidental overdose leading the pack.

  But the only media outlet that succeeded was Sophia Alby, and it was because we’d orchestrated the whole thing. We’d let her snap a close-up picture of our hands clasped on my bedside, the Wall Street Journal draped in his lap and the hospital bracelet dangling around my wrist. The image couldn’t have been more on-brand if we’d tried.

  A single Instagram post from her, complete with hashtags about true love and fairytale romance, and the public fell more in love with us. It also worked to calm their curiosity. Allergic reaction was the official party line, and my DMs flooded with well-wishes and support.

  Not that I knew any of them, or that they knew any version of me.

  I leaned back in my seat and watched the buildings blur by in the cold October rain while Royce finished his call. He’d gone into the office this morning to put out a fire and sit in on a “can’t-miss” meeting, but he was officially mine for the rest of the afternoon.

  Excitement bubbled inside me as we headed toward Cape Hi
ll. Macalister would be at the office for a few more hours, and even if Alice was on the property . . . she wasn’t allowed in the house. With Vance being in his first year of law school, he was a virtual ghost. I only saw evidence he’d been at the house, but never the man himself.

  It meant that, outside the staff, Royce and I would be the only people home.

  Would he tell me everything now? We’d rarely been alone at the hospital—never long enough to have the conversation he’d promised. It felt like he would. There was a tension between us. It wasn’t unpleasant—it was anticipation.

  In addition to the rain, it was a foggy afternoon, and as we drove up the circle drive toward the Hale mansion, the impressive house didn’t come into view until we’d pulled up to the front steps. Would I ever get used to living here?

  And . . . did I want to stay?

  I’d won back my freedom, which meant I could escape. There was zero risk of accidentally running into Alice or Macalister in a hall or the kitchen if I wasn’t living under their roof.

  But it meant I’d be farther away from both my school and my fiancé, and back with my parents, who’d probably try to squeeze me for money every chance they got. Not to mention, it’d only be temporary. My wedding date to Royce had been set at the beginning of June. I could move out, but I’d have to be back in six months.

  It barely seemed worth the effort.

  I promised myself I wasn’t going to make my decision tonight. Six months might feel like a lifetime if Macalister didn’t stick to his word and stay out of my relationship with his son.

  “You okay with the stairs?” Royce asked, hesitating with his hand on the car door as we prepared to duck out into the rain.

  Earlier, the long walk from my hospital room to the elevator bank had left me surprisingly winded. He was worried about me, but I gave him a sweet smile. “I’m fine, I promise. But thank you.”

  Last time I’d been chauffeured and arrived at this house in the rain, it’d been his graduation party, and I was struck by how much things had changed since then. He’d been the manipulative prince of Cape Hill and I’d been a nobody. Just the weird Northcott sister who’d reluctantly tagged along.