Well, I was a fucking Hale now, wasn’t I?
TWO
ANGER ROLLED OFF ROYCE IN THICK WAVES. “No. No way does Alice get off scot-fucking-free.”
“Of course not,” Macalister snapped. “I will handle it with an appropriate response, but it needs to be done with . . . discretion.”
“Discretion.” Royce repeated the word like it made him ill. “She tried to kill Marist.”
“Alice is many things, but she’s not stupid. I don’t believe that was her intent.”
“Oh, really?” Royce snarled. “What the fuck was she trying to do, then?”
The words dropped heavily from Macalister’s lips, and it was the closest to guilt I’d ever seen him come. “She wanted my attention.”
The air in the room went still. Truth was such a rare thing between the Hales, it stretched the moment taut to the point it was unbearable.
“I’m not that good of a liar,” I said.
My statement rankled him. “I have confidence in you.”
Macalister’s condescending tone gave me enough fire in my belly to burn through my exhaustion. “I’m supposed to tell people I’m stupid and made a dumb mistake—one bad enough to send me to the hospital. You expect me to sacrifice my reputation to save yours?”
Hostility skulked in his eyes. “The family’s reputation—”
“Please. We all know what this is really about.” I shifted uncomfortably on the bed, doing my best to sit up and not look weak. Had Alice realized the full extent of what she’d done? She’d handed me tremendous power over her husband, and I was about to wield it. “All that favor you’ve been building with Lambert won’t mean a thing if the truth comes out. You can kiss your seat on the Fed goodbye.”
Because no president would nominate someone attached to that kind of scandal. Macalister wouldn’t survive his confirmation hearing.
He looked at me now like he used to. I was insignificant, a speck of lint daring to mar his perfectly tailored suit. “You will do this for me, Marist.”
“Yes, I will,” I wasn’t sure if it was the drugs pumping in my system that made my heart race, or just the situation, “assuming we can reach an agreement.”
Surprise made Royce’s head snap my direction. I’d caught him off-guard, but he came up to speed instantly, and excitement flooded his eyes. He understood what I was about to do.
This was how I would escape Macalister’s obsession.
A few long strides brought the man to my bedside, which would now serve as our negotiating table, and ugly resignation smeared across his face. He didn’t want to bargain for anything and liked even less how much leverage I held over him, but he had no choice. There was no alternative.
“An agreement concerning what?” He sounded disinterested, but I saw through the pretense. He knew exactly what I was going to ask for . . .
And he dreaded it.
I licked my dry lips before pressing them together and set my hand on top of Royce’s. My diamond engagement ring gleamed in the early sunlight, and I blinked slowly before lifting my gaze back to my opponent. My voice was steady. “You’ll give me everything you promised me if I’d won that game and escaped the maze.”
Beneath my hand, Royce’s tensed a second time. Like me, he didn’t want to remember that night in the hedge maze where I’d gambled everything and lost. He’d told me his father didn’t play a game unless he was sure he was going to win, and I’d learned that lesson the hard way.
I should have known he was going to cheat. It was win at all costs, after all.
My eyebrows tugged together as I focused on the start of the game, where Macalister had laid out the rules. “You remember what you said?”
His expression turned sour. “Of course, I do.”
“Then repeat it, so the terms are clear.”
He let out a sigh of frustration, closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked like a spoiled brat, perpetually unsatisfied, even when he had nearly everything he wanted. “I will allow you to make your own choices.”
I expected him to continue, but . . . he didn’t.
Anger swelled inside me. “That wasn’t all of it.”
“Your car will be returned to you.” He paused so long, I opened my mouth to protest further, and it pushed him to continue. “If you wish, you can live elsewhere until the wedding.”
It was clear he wasn’t going to say the most important part, so I did it for him. “And you’re done trying to come between me and Royce. No more threats of taking away his board seat, no more games—chess or otherwise. Everything between us is settled and done. It’s over.”
It’s over, and you lost, I wanted to say but didn’t.
The muscle running along his jaw flexed as he ground his teeth together, restraining whatever he really wanted to say. The control he held over himself was razor thin, and I didn’t want to see it snap. Last time it had, I’d wound up flattened against a bookcase in the library, and I didn’t want to think about what would have happened if Alice hadn’t caught him in the act.