No Ordinary Gentleman

I decide she’s definitely a bitch. She’s a bitch because she’s behaving like one—a superior one.

“Holland,” Isla utters tersely, bringing me back to the phone in my hand.

“Leonie—Leonie’s here.” My heart drops as the words hit the air.

“What? No, that’s not possible.”

“Alexander said to tell you.” Who could make this shit up? “And for you not to come home.”

“How? I mean. Jesus Christ.”

“Alexander doesn’t want you and the boys here.”

“Who else is with you, Holly?” she asks impatiently. “Who is with Alexander right now?”

“Griffin. And her.”

“Right. Okay. Do you think you could make your way to the gun room?”

“What?” From my stomach, my heart drops to my boots. “Why? I don’t even know where that is?” It wasn’t on the itinerary when Chrissy showed me around, strangely enough.

“Okay. Right. Well, that’s not going to work. Never mind. I’ll call Van. Just . . . stay with him, please. Holly, let me know he’s okay.”

“I will,” I promise, even though I don’t quite know what I’m promising.

I hang up as Alexander bellows, “You knew! And you didn’t think to mention it to me?”

“I didn’t know,” Griffin shouts back. “I told you, I thought it was a hoax. I thought she was dead, the same as you did!”

“Did you really?” Raaally, comes the word. “Even after I sent you those little reminders of our time together?”

“You didn’t think any of this warranted mention?” Alexander bites out. “That my dead wife had sought you out by some other medium than a fucking séance?”

Wife. I swallow over the pain in that, crossing my arms over my stomach as though it would somehow protect me. Ward off the words.

Alexander still has a wife.

How can he have a place for me in his life?

Yet I’m still drawn into the room.

“It was a man on the phone. I thought it was some chancer, some fuck, trying to blackmail me.”

As I enter the room, only Leonie looks my way. Like a cat eyeing a canary over a bowl of cream. Maybe even two bowls of that decadence.

“It’s true,” she says, her voice a cut-glass drawl. “The chancer was me, though it’s not like I made the calls myself. I didn’t even watch the recordings.” She gives a tiny shrug. “Actually, that’s a lie. I enjoyed a wander down memory lane, as I’m sure you did too, Griffin.”

“You’re mental,” he retorts. “Off your fucking rocker.”

“What recordings?” Alexander whips around, his tone nothing short of frightening.

“I told you, he was trying to extort money from me, but I didn’t for one minute think—”

“Of course, the bad man didn’t tell you. Silly Griffin.” She glances indulgently his way. “That was the point. You were supposed to run to your brother for help,” she says, making a running motion with two fingers of her right hand.

“No one sorts out my problems but me,” he retorts, his words hard.

“What recordings?” Alexander demands again, louder this time.

“Of you and me,” she says, turning back to him. “Of me and him,” she says, glancing his brother’s way. Things are suddenly beginning to make sense. Apart from her not being dead. Her attention moves to me as I stand at the far side of the room. “Of the three of us together,” she adds meaningfully.

I inhale a sharp gasp as the whisper of his words come back to me.

There are things in our past that I’m sure we’d prefer not to share.

What a fool I am, worrying about my own petty secrets, conscious of them impacting his life, conscious of his abhorrence of media attention. When all along the real story was that there would be no marriage because he already had a wife. My mind flips through scenarios and situations, my stomach, head, and heart at war.

They slept together? They fucked? All three of them?

That is wrong—so wrong.

Is she the reason he said those weeks ago that he’d never settle down? The reason Isla said Hugh would be his heir? Maybe he’s known all along she wasn’t dead, and he’s been waiting for this.

No. That’s not true. I saw his face. But that he didn’t know doesn’t make it any easier to bear.

What do you call a widower who isn’t a widower anymore?

A man who’s in need of a divorce and the kind of scandal that could stick to us both for years. These thoughts swirl and grow and pound in my head, the ache in my chest becoming so tight I suddenly find I’m struggling to breathe.

“Holland.” I blink up into Alexander’s worried expression, his eyes. “Sit down.” He leads me to a window seat the long way around the room, as though he fears her reaction or some form of contamination. Or maybe he just doesn’t want either of us to be near her. “Put your head down,” he encourages, the bite gone from his words. The five points of his fingers feel like sweet relief against my back. “Yes, just like that. Deep breaths. That’s it. Slow and steady. I can explain, I promise you. Everything is going to be okay.”