Page 28 of A Queen and HER Bad Boy (Spies and Royals #4)

The Earl’s family held shares in drilling and offshore energy, but those investments were just as worthless as Bris’s Tyndarian Holdings that he’d inherited through marriage.

Ships that ventured too close to Aeaea Island disappeared without a trace.

So no, Alexopoulos wasn’t rich—at least not legitimately.

If it wasn’t money funding his influence, what currency did he deal in instead?

Blackmail? Corruption? If Achilles could figure that out, he could hang the worm out to dry.

It was easier to plot elaborate revenge than to think of Bris’s stricken face when Deedee had goaded her about him abandoning her for Charisse. The way her shoulders had sagged with defeat even as she’d tried to maintain her royal composure—it haunted him.

Was she really as fragile as she’d claimed tonight?

More fragile than I want her to be.

All while she defiantly claimed she was no damsel in distress.

His wife was so small, delicate bones hiding a stout heart, and that monster had left his brutal fingerprints on her soft skin.

His hands burned with the need to teach that smug aristocrat a lesson in respecting women, but his arms ached mostly for her—to hold her, comfort her, protect her from a world determined to break her spirit.

“Don’t touch me.”

And that was supposed to be his cardinal rule, yet he couldn’t keep his traitorous hands off her.

The memory of her white silk robe shifting and whispering under his desperate fingers, how she had trembled against him—it made him shake his head at himself.

His burning gaze landed on the blue swimming trunks with their cheerful orange and yellow sunburst pattern, folded neatly over the arm of an antique chair.

Ah, Peder must have anticipated his nocturnal swimming sessions and prepared accordingly after today’s public disaster. Not surprising—the whole world knew the reasons behind his sleepless nights, thanks to Deedee’s invasive camera.

He picked up his phone with shaking hands and reread the text from their unwanted social media chronicler: “Sorry, Sugarpop! There’s only so much I can do to protect your wife. Next time, it’s your job!” Then she’d attached the link to her viral video like a digital dagger to the heart.

He winced as familiar guilt crashed over him in suffocating waves. With a growl of fury directed at himself, he hurled his phone across the room, the expensive device hitting the marble wall with a satisfying crack that spider-webbed across the screen.

He rolled his eyes at his own childish tantrum while grabbing the swim trunks on his way toward the door.

His hand froze on the ornate handle as realization struck.

What was he doing? Abandoning his wife again like the coward he was?

Who was he trying to escape anyway? He was a caged bear, plagued by resentment, crushing self-doubt, and paranoid suspicions.

There was no escaping himself, no matter how many laps he swam.

He was handling this all wrong! What kind of idiotic strategy was it to distance himself from Bris?

All he’d accomplished was making her lose faith in him, building walls between them, encouraging her to lie about her injuries.

Retreating because he wanted to protect her from himself wasn’t working—it was destroying their already fragile relationship.

What would work instead?

Charisse’s words echoed in his memory: “Your father was assassinated. No question about it. He stumbled onto something explosive, and they killed him before he could expose it. Are you going to let them steal your life too?”

He’d thought that his father’s mysterious death was the key to freeing them both from this gilded prison.

His second attempt to corner Charisse alone had failed spectacularly—she’d refused to leave her father’s watchful side, spending the evening gazing at him with mournful regret written across her beautiful features.

Every gesture, every glance showed him she already wished she hadn’t revealed anything, so convinced was she that digging deeper into this political hornet’s nest would get him killed.

Would it get him killed?

Maybe… but if he didn’t take this risk, they’d never escape this suffocating palace.

He cared about Bris—not in the way a devoted husband should, but like a fierce tiger guarding the princess, ready to tear apart anyone who dared harm her.

He’d find a way to free her from this nightmare, even if it cost him everything.

He retrieved his damaged phone from where it lay among scattered glass fragments, grimacing at the cracked screen as he carefully dialed Charisse’s number, holding the device at a distance from his face. She answered on the second ring, her voice thick with sleep: “Achilles?”

“I want out…”

“No.” Horror colored her voice, making her sound suddenly wide awake. “Not this way; it’s too dangerous.”

“We’re a little past that after you dangled all that tantalizing bait in front of me. Tell me what I need to know.”

“I can’t… I’m still not certain about the details… I’ll look into it further for you, but Achilles? Please be careful.”

He didn’t care about his own safety—only Bris mattered now.

This investigation was his only hope of dragging her away from the Earl’s predatory advances, her father’s manipulations, and the High Consortium pulling their strings, whether she appreciated his interference or not.

He’d dismantle this shadowy organization’s foundation brick by brick to discover what truly controlled their country.

“We have to be completely discreet. Bris can’t know what we’re planning.

” He forced out a growled laugh, trying to sound casual despite the gravity of their conversation.

“I stole the last piece of pizza tonight and she wouldn’t even fight me for it. ”

Silence stretched across the connection, heavy with unspoken implications. “I had hoped that we could… make this work between us again,” Charisse said softly.

Did her cooperation depend on his answer?

He swallowed hard and forced himself to speak the brutal truth: “I doubt she’ll have me after this.

” He wasn’t prepared for the crushing wave of despair that followed his words—the thought of losing Bris’s fire, her spirit, her reluctant affection felt like losing the sun itself.

The possibility left him feeling hollow and dead inside.

“I’ll be free to do whatever I want after she throws me out to the curb. ”

Her voice turned soft and purring like a contented kitten. “I’ll be waiting to catch you when you fall,” she promised. “I will always be there for you, no matter what happens.”

“Thanks, Charisse.” He ended the call and stared at the fractured screen.

Was he making the right choice? Getting himself killed for this investigation would be a worthy sacrifice if it meant never seeing another video of Bris being brutalized by that aristocratic monster.

If Achilles’s death could buy her freedom, he’d pay that price gladly.