Chapter 320. An Office Romance I

Chapter 320: 320. An Office Romance I

Maisie

I tasted the salt of tears on his lips. Mine, his? I couldn’t tell.

His hands tangled into my hair, and then over my face, as if he were trying to memorize the shape of my cheeks, my nose, my jaw. He kissed me harder than he ever had, taking my breath and foregoing his.

It was deep and agonizing, every brush of his lips, every touch of his fingertips admitting more words to me than he had since I walked into his home.

I sobbed into his mouth, grabbing his shirt tighter as I hurled him impossibly close, needing him more desperately than I needed to breathe.

"Please," I whimpered against his lips, and he swallowed the plea with his tongue sliding into my mouth, seeking to taste me.

There was hunger in the slide of his tongue against mine, the clumsy clinking of our teeth, but more than the hunger, there was so much pain, so much longing, so much uncertainty, and grief.

Like this was the last time.

He was kissing me goodbye.

I tore myself off him, tripping on my heels to get away from him. "I c-can’t--I can’t--" I couldn’t breathe. I needed to get out.

I hit the door, my hands scrambling for the knob until I yanked it open and bolted into the hall.

The door had barely clicked shut behind me when the sound of something heavy slamming into the wall erupted from inside, followed by an enraged roar.

But I didn’t look back. I was afraid that it I did, i’d never summon up the courage to leave.

I didn’t see the halls as I ran, didn’t remember the ride down through the elevator. My hand curled into my chest, clawing at it as I lied to myself.

I wasn’t choking. I wasn’t dying.

But it sure felt like it.

My lungs burned as I ran, bursting through the lobby doors and into the rain. The cold downpour hit me, but my skin was too numb to feel it.

It was only then, standing shivering on the slick pavement, that I realized my right hand was clenched so tight my knuckles throbbed. There was a necklace dangling from the end of my palm.

I pried my fingers open and began to sob in earnest.

It was identical to what Tessa had around her neck earlier. No. Not identical. Where hers had been a smooth black, this was s green so dark, it was close to onyx, like the deepest, darkest part of the ocean had wept to produce it.

I glanced up at the crunch of feet against gravel and an umbrella blocked out the rain mingling with my tears.

One look in Soren’s violet eyes and I knew Mercer never gave Tessa that necklace. It was a cheap, lousy imitation of what I had in my palm. This was the real thing, and he’d slipped it into my palm at some point while kissing me.

What was it? A gift? Something to remember him by? Fuck that.

An angry cry expelled from my throat and I hurled th damn thing out into the rain with all of my strength.

However, the second it left my hand, panic seized my chest.

I went after it, knees hitting the concrete as my nails catched the rough surface in search for it until my fingers closed over the cold stone again.

I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t think of a way out. I couldn’t think about anything but the resignation in his voice. And in those seconds, I hated Mercer, wishing he would fight as hard as they fought to get married to me.

And then I sobbed a lot harder because I knew the circumstances were different, and if I had been offered the same choices to keep them safe, I would take it without hesitation.

I had taken the same path.

In the end, we were all pawns and this was just a game for Her Majesty. It was rigged. Everything is was rigged and I was so tired of fighting the system.

I knelt there in the rain and sobbed until my stomach hurt.

I didn’t know how long I stayed there. Didn’t care if people were staring at me, or if I looked broken. I was so damned tired. I just wanted it all to end.

But I was frightened that if the end ever did come mercifully, I would have lost it all.

***

My head rested against the window of Soren’s car. The heater was on full blast and his black suit jacket was settled around me, warming me up as he drove down the streets to Ashbourne.

The rain had halted thirty some minutes ago. Not that I had noticed. My head was hurting. My nose was clogged. My eyes were puffy. Everything looked dull and gray.

"Hungry?" Soren asked, breaking the stifling silence.

I shook my head, swiftly flicking the stray tear running down my cheek. "No, thanks."

Soren shifted in his seat. He thrummed the wheel. Adjusted the heater. Turned off the radio. Glanced over at me. Shifted again.

He’d never been great at handling ’crying women’. He’d held me while I cried by the pavement, blabbering into his chest to do something, anything to help, to get Mercer out, and he’d stroked my hair and promised he would.

And while I believed him he would do everything he could, I didn’t believe he could find a way out. Short of killing his aunt and Tessa.

He was thinking it. I was thinking it. Everyone was thinking it.

But it would be stupid. The former was currently impossible, and the latter would land him under an executioner’s block without a just cause.

If we were going to get Mercer out of this, it would have to be through trickery, or a different bargain. And the only thing the Queen wanted more than this marriage she’d been pushing years for was my head.

So, I guessed even that was off the table.

I began fiddling with my skirt, falling even deeper into depression.

"You’ve got the job at the library by four," Soren said without taking his eyes off the road. "But there’s a lot of time before then. Want to come to work with me?"

I gave up my pointed stare at the road and glanced over at him. His clothes were still damp from the rain, but the man was throwing off enough heat to heat up a kiln, I knew they’d been crispy dry before we arrived. At wherever.

"You’re asking me to ditch school?" My voice was snotty and scratchy was all the crying.

He’d always been an uptight ass about my going to school. A stickler for rules and order and ’this is how it goes, Maisie. My way or no way’, so it was shocking coming from him.

Soren shrugged and I ignored how good the black dress shirt looked, rolling off his muscled arms. "I could really use your help, keeping myself in check. It’s a test of my patience every day at every meeting, and having your beautiful face to look at, as opposed to Councilman Derek’s ugly beard would put me in a much better mood today."

Soren worked really hard at keeping Ashbourne afloat. Crowned or not, he still had duties to the people. A lot of which involved hearings, finances, infrastructure and other stuff that made the stacks of files in his study so high, they were nearly toppling over.

He never spoke much about it, but I knew things only ran smoothly because him. And I could bet all of my husbands’ fortune that the only reason the Queen let Soren keep working on the Council was because he was so good at being Crown Prince, she never had to worry about lesser matters than ordering and plotting murders.

Or weddings.

"Sure," I said half-heartedly, going back to being depressed.

In truth, I didn’t even have it in me to go back to school. I wanted to find a lake and drown at the bottom of it.

And maybe he sensed that as I started to pluck off invisible lint off his jacket, because he reached across the car, tucking my hair behind my ear and cupping my neck.

His foot never left the accelerator, his other hand never left the wheel, but his full attention was on me and not the road as his thumb flicked under my chin, turning my face to him.

His fingertips made my skin tingle. "We’ll find a way out," he promised me. "Samhain is three months away. A lot could happen in three months."

My eyes warmed. "He’s not going to change his mind," I whispered.

"We don’t need him to," Soren crooned, and his mouth curved into a devious smile. "We have a variety of options, love, ranging from kidnapping to murder. We’ll get him back one way or the other, I’m sure."

I eyed him warily. I knew he was just trying to make me feel better, even if we were knee-deep in a cesspool of utter shit, but you never could tell when Soren was joking or not.