“This is an outrage!” he cried, mouth agape and face contorted, as though he could hardly believe that I’d make such a threat. He turned on his heel and wobbled toward the elevator with his considerable girth, shouting the whole way. “You’ll pay for such insolence!”
Once his sagging, scowling face had disappeared behind the elevator doors, I turned my attention toward my assistant, doing my best to curb my already considerable frustration. I took a deep, slow breath through my nose before I slowly let it out through my mouth, trying my best to even out my tone before I opened my mouth again.
“What happened?” I asked, my words crisp, though considerably less sharp than they had been with Lord Adderby. Tina didn’t deserve my ire, as I was sure she got more of the brunt of that walrus’s screaming than I had.
“It appears that his lordship made untoward passes at Ms. Fairchild on their… ‘date’ last night,” Tina said, a frown affixed to her face. “When his lordship didn’t relent, Ms. Fairchild struck him across the cheek with her open hand, picked up her belongings, and left.”
“I see,” I said, once again attempting to keep my frustrations in check. “Make sure that Ms. Fairchild is sent flowers as an apology from us, and a letter apologizing specifically for facilitating her unfortunate encounter. I’ve had enough of cleaning up that old bastard’s messes for the past year.”
“Yes, marm,” Tina said, nodding as she tapped on her tablet.
“Thank you,” I sighed, brushing a strand of hair away from my face. Tina was undoubtedly the only person on the planet I could trust to keep her composure in the face of men like Lord Adderby, and the only person I trusted to handle the minute details of what amounted to my entire life’s work. She was a godsend, and more often than not it was me who had to force her to go on vacations every few months.
“You have one more thing lined up this morning,” she said, swiping her finger across the screen in her hand. “Though I’m not sure if you’d like to put it off until later this afternoon.”
“It can’t be as bad as what we just endured with his lordship. What is it?” I asked, motioning for Tina to follow after me as I headed into my office proper.
“You mother would like you to call her,” Tina said, and I noted the pained grimace on her face.
“I was wrong,” I laughed as I sat down at my desk. “That is so much worse.”
“Shall I tell her that you’re engaged until later this afternoon?”
“No,” I sighed, resting my head in my hands. “I’ll call her now. No point in putting off the inevitable, is there?”
“No, marm,” Tina affirmed.
“Would you do me a kindness, though, Tina?”
“Of course,” she said.
“I would kill for a cup of coffee.”
Tina nodded wordlessly, moving out of the room, her clacking heels echoing out into the hallway beyond, leaving me alone with only myself and the looming prospect of having to talk to my mother to keep me company.
Lady Wolfe, otherwise known as my mother, was not always my favorite woman in the world. That was not to say she was a bad person… though perhaps she could have been described as a bit power hungry. My mother was one of those people who craved authority and recognition, though not always at the expense of others. She was motivated, determined, and at times, a little pushy. I didn’t blame her for the way she was—my mother was an impressive woman and one that I’m sure that many others girls could look up and aspire to be like. Just not me.
I reached toward the phone with a sigh, putting the receiver to my ear as I dialed her number. While both my mother and I were of a similar cut, sans the moderate lack of empathy on my part, I had a hard time holding a conversation with her that didn’t infuriate me. Everything from my sense of style to my choice in clothes was exactly the opposite of what she’d ever have chosen for me, something she never failed to comment on whenever we had the chance to speak, much to my chagrin.
The phone began to ring. Once, twice, three times before I heard the clatter of someone on the other line.
“Good morning, Gwendolyn,” my mother said in her usually cool tone. “How are you, dear?”
“Just fine, Mother,” I answered, leaning back into the comfort of my high-backed office chair. “And yourself? Tina had mentioned you wanted to speak.”
“I always wish to speak to my daughter, dear, when the time permits.”
I closed my eyes and fought to keep my tone even. While my mother might wish to speak to me, that was never the same thing as actually doing so. The time, as she said, never seemed to permit. I’d grown up dealing with this sort of behavior for years, and had always come to expect never actually being the kind of priority I’d always wanted to be in my parents’ lives. I wasn’t my father’s blood relation, and therefore was not in line to inherit any of his estate or a title—not that I was sorely missing it, to be honest.
“And what is it you’d like to discuss with me today?” I asked after a brief silence.
“Well, Gwendolyn, I have some news that I may need you to be sitting in order to hear.” Already I didn’t like the way that this was going, much less the way my mother seemed almost giddy as she spoke. My mother was not the kind of person to ever express anything so base as to be giddy over anything.
“I’m sitting down… go on,” I said, unable to shake the sense of dread that was pooling in my stomach.
She drew it out anyway, as though she’d rehearsed this moment for prime effect, pause and all. “I’m pregnant.”
ROYAL PRICK
Chapter 2
After Afghanistan, I thought I’d seen it all—the myriad of horrors the universe held, all the pain and suffering that could possibly be inflicted in this world. I’d experienced more than my fair share of shock and awe, seen the misery painted on the faces of my brothers-in-arms. I’d never been allowed on the front lines, of course—I was heir to a rather substantial duchy, after all—but one didn’t have to be eye-to-eye with terror to get caught in its illimitable hold.
But when my father told me his new wife was pregnant—and with a son, no less—that made all the darkness I’d seen in war seem like a children’s TV show, by comparison.
It wasn’t even the thought of my dad actually fucking someone that sucked the blood from my face, or the idea that his crusty sperm still had some vitality left in them. Those were repulsive enough ideas, but not the ones that made my stomach threaten to splatter at my feet.
It was knowing how this would change the course of the rest of my life that made me want to gag—a knowledge that no one but me, and my father, had.