A Royal Entanglement: The Young Royals Book 2 (36 page)

“Maybe the life of a society wife doesn’t appeal to her,” Dayne said.

He was right about that.
 
I couldn’t imagine Alex spending her days ‘doing lunch’ and chairing charities.
 
She would need to be productive, to be doing something for herself.
 
Maybe that’s all this was, a way for her to get out and do something practical.
 
It would be the only thing in her control once she married Bradley and Alex needed that semblance of control over her life.
 
It’s what made her so good at her job.

“Should we call first and make an appointment?” Dayne asked.

I shook my head, “No, I want to surprise her.”

“More like you don’t want to give her a chance to run,” he said and I just grinned.

I felt good.
 
Alex was close and all going well by tonight she would be on my plane and heading back to Merveille.

“Let’s go,” I said, impatient to be done with this place and to find Alex.

We made our way down to the foyer of the hotel and into the waiting car.
 
Dayne read me work reports as we drove and I dictated a few emails to him that he tapped out on his tablet, but my mind wasn’t focussed.
 
All I could think about was seeing Alex again.
 
It had only been a couple of days, but it felt like months and I missed her terribly.
 
I had never felt this way about a woman before, this all consuming need to be near her, to be breathing the same air as her.
 
It was thrilling and terrifying in equal amounts.

The car pulled into a long driveway that was lined by overgrown gardens.
 
I could imagine that the property was once beautiful, but it had been left unmanaged for so long that it was wild and untamed.
 
I got out of the car slowly and looked up at the run-down structure.
 
The lack of maintenance had taken its toll on the once magnificent home and it was such a shame to see.
 
Why they hadn’t sold it off years ago was a mystery to me, it would’ve been kinder to the poor house.

I took the steps two at a time and banged on the door.
 
I heard footsteps echoing down the hall and then the door opened and Alex’s father stood before me.
 
His eyes widened and he tried to close the door, but I stuck my foot across the threshold to stop it.

“I’d like to see Alex,” I said.

“She’s, ah,” he looked away, over his shoulder and shifted uncomfortably before looking back at me, “She’s, not, ah, here,” he said and tried to close the door again.

“Who’s at the door Eddie?” I could hear Kiki’s voice before I saw her.

She took one look at me and her face hardened and she stomped towards me.

“Alex doesn’t want to see you,” she said.

“How do you know?” I asked, “You haven’t even told her I’m here.”

“I know what my daughter wants and it’s not you,” she spat.
 
“I want you off my property.”

“Not until I speak to Alex,” I said, my anger rising.
 
I knew that this woman was stealing Alex away from me with her machinations and I would not put up with it any longer.

“She doesn’t want to see you,” she said again through gritted teeth.

“I know what you are forcing her to do,” I said, my eyes hard and my voice rough, “I know why she is marrying Bradley and if you think for one minute that I’m going to let you get away with it, then you’re dead wrong.”

“You know nothing,” she said, “Alex chose this path, no one is forcing her to do anything.
 
Now get off my property before I call the cops.”

“You really have such little regard for your own daughter,” I said with a shake of my head.
 
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

She turned and stomped away.
 
“I’m calling the police,” she yelled back over her shoulder.

“She’s really not here,” Eddie said quietly before closing the door in my face.

I stomped back down the stairs and swore under my breath.
 
I stood on the driveway and rubbed my face, squeezing the bridge of my nose to stave off the headache I could feel forming behind my eyes.
 
My good mood had disappeared and I felt suddenly defeated.
 
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I couldn’t live without Alex, but it would be damned hard to do.
 
Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, but I needed to speak to her first, before I went crazy.

It seemed like Alex had always been in my life, except it had only been seven months.
 
I hadn’t really started living until I met her and with each day I spent with her, my life became richer and more fleshed out.
 
Before Alex, life was monochrome, with Alex it was technicolour and I couldn’t bear to even contemplate going back to what it was before.
 
She made each day so much better, she made
me
so much better.

“Lord Bingham?”

I turned at the tentative call of my name.
 
One of Alex sisters stood on the top step and looked down at me.

She walked down the stairs towards me, carefully, like she was afraid I would pounce on her.
 
She was skittish and looked afraid, which was not how I remembered her from the last time I saw her.

“I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“Lily,” she said, “My name’s Lily.”

“Lily,” I repeated, “You can call me Freddie.
 
Do you know where Alex is?”

She shook her head and looked back over her shoulder towards the front door, but it remained steadfastly shut.
 
She darted her eyes back to me.

“You know why she’s doing this, don’t you?” she asked.

I nodded, “Yeah, I do and I want to help.”

She was silent for a moment as she looked me over.
 
“Do you love her?”

“I do,” I said, “And I think she loves me.”

She nodded slowly, “She does,” she said, “But she’s worried about us, about what will happen to us.”

“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked cautiously.

“I was there when she told Bradley the terms of the contract.”

“Contract?”

“The marriage contract,” she said, “It’s for five years and Alex gets ten million dollars and a million dollars for each child.”

I swallowed, children?
 
I couldn’t even think about her and Bradley having children.
 
“What happens after five years?”

“Divorce and she gets the kids.”
 
She darted another look back at the house.
 
“Mom gets five million, but that’s the last time Alex is going to give her anything.
 
If she tries to get more or does anything to try to blackmail them, like she did in Merveille, Alex will evict us.”

“Is the five million part of Alex’s settlement?”

She shook her head, “No.
 
It was the agreement that mom had with Bradley before.”

“So Alex gets ten million dollars,” I said, running a hand through my hair and huffing out a breath.

“She’s not doing it for the money,” Lily said, “Well not for the ten mil, anyway.
 
She’s doing it for us, for mom and dad and Tina and me.
 
She’s going to try to get me a job at the place where she used to work.”

“You want a job?”

She nodded, “I’ve never thought about it before, not until Alex came back.
 
She’s been so sad, that’s how I know that she still loves you.
 
She wouldn’t be here and doing this if we weren’t nearly bankrupt.
 
Alex has always taken care of us and, well, I don’t think it’s fair.
 
So I’m going to get a job and earn my own money so that she doesn’t have to keep looking after me.”
 
She paused and looked at me for a moment.
 
“No one looks after Alex.
 
Would you?”

I smiled and nodded, “I really want to look after her,” I said, “She works so hard making sure everybody else is okay, I think it’s only fair that someone is there for her too.”

She bit the corner of her lip thoughtfully.
 
“The wedding is tomorrow, at the courthouse.
 
Eleven o’clock.
 
Please stop her from going through with it.”

Then she turned and fled back int the house.

I took a moment to gather my thoughts before I slid into the back seat of the car and closed the door.

“That sounded like an interesting conversation,” Dayne said to me.

“Ten million dollars is a lot of money,’ I said.

“You don’t really think Alex is doing this for the money do you?”

I shook my head, “No, I think the only reason she asked for the money was to make sure it hurt Bradley for forcing her to do this.
 
But kids?
 
Geez, that’s taking it to the next level.”

“I think I remember there being a clause in the will of his grandfather’s about having a child within the first year.”

I swore under my breath, “Yeah, you’re right.”

“So what now?”

“We turn up at the courthouse tomorrow and we stop a wedding,” I said.

I met David outside the offices of Harvey, Kliet and Vale, Bradley’s attorneys and together we entered the building.
 
I was nervous, but determined and David kept shooting me worried looks as we stepped onto the elevator.

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” he asked, not for the first time.

“I’m sure,” I said, confidently.

Of course I’d wanted this to turn out differently, that was a given, but this was the hand I’d been dealt and I was determined to make the best of a bad situation.
 
I would marry Bradley and it would set me up for the rest of my life.
 
After the five years were up, I might think about moving back to Merveille, not to work for Alyssa, but just to live in the country that I had come to love.

We were shown into a conference room and we took our seats opposite Bradley and his attorney.
 
Bradley eyed me calculatingly, but I refused to let him get under my skin.

“We received your contract,” Bradley’s lawyer began, “And we’d like to make a few amendments.”