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TWELVE

LANDRY

I would not love him against his will.

Alright, fine, I would , only because I couldn’t help myself, and I’d been doing it too long to stop now, but I wouldn’t let it show. I wouldn’t keep trying to get him to love me back. That way lay madness.

Kenji didn’t want me. Not for anything but sex. And after three years, I finally accepted that.

So instead, I would guard my heart—build an impenetrable fucking fortress around it—and get on with the next chapter of my life.

Moreover, I would accept the fact that this next chapter would not involve Kenji Toma.

I’d always known, in a half-formed sort of way I hadn’t fully acknowledged to myself, that stepping into the public role of Viscount Hawling, heir presumptive to the Davencourt earldom, would mean stepping away from the possibility of anything romantic with Kenji. That was part of the reason I’d fought it for so long.

Now, though, I was relieved I could throw myself into something so demanding, so all-encompassing, it wouldn’t leave me a single moment to consider crawling back to Kenji and begging for scraps.

I cleaned up in my room after having what would no doubt be my last sexual interlude with the world’s coldest man, then headed down to Nan’s office, entering the room with as much command and confidence as I could.

“Alright, I’ve made some decisions.” I glanced around at the assembled crisis management team. “First of all, if I am going to begin representing the Davencourt family in public, my preferred name is Landry. Not only is it the name everyone in the world associates with this face, but it’s also the surname of the original Viscount Hawling, who was granted the viscountcy after he famously rescued a kidnapped peasant girl who turned out to be a daughter of Queen Anne, secreted out of Windsor dressed in rags. The name Landry has been in my family for over three hundred years, and I rather like being associated with someone who rescued the sole living child of a woman who’d lost seventeen others.”

That got everyone’s attention.

“Needless to say, we don’t need to explain all that,” I went on. “Simply release the news that while my name has not changed, I prefer my middle name, Landry, to Everett. Secondly, if the prime minister calls on me to serve in the House of Lords, I will accept with pleasure. We will announce my recent marriage to Kenji and use it to project stability onto my image to help smooth the transition from model to peer. However, if I’m elected to Parliament and begin serving, Kenji will not be part of it. My intention is to help him retain as much privacy as possible after this initial introduction into society.” I didn’t explain to them that there would come a time in the not-too-distant future when we would end the sham marriage and quietly go our separate ways. That was a problem for a different day. But I did want to set the expectation now that Kenji would not be a part of my long-term publicity plan.

Cards on the table, as Kenji said. Not all the cards, but most of them.

Despite what Cora believed, I had no expectation that I’d actually be chosen to fill my father’s spot, but the process of going through the by-election would at least tick the box on my familial expectation and perhaps bring my father a small amount of joy and comfort.

The heat of Cora’s surprised stare seared the side of my face. I ignored it along with Nan’s look of tender concern.

“So we need a plan to announce those things and address my duplicity. I think we keep it simple and explain that I wasn’t trying to trick anyone; I simply wanted a chance to succeed on my own merit. Now that my father is retiring, it’s time I set aside my childish ways—as they say—and accept the honor and responsibility of helping improve things for the country. I’ll be honest. I don’t believe I’ll be selected, but I’m happy to tell Mr. Baines and Baroness Colborne they can consider me for it.”

Several faces brightened with excitement and began strategizing. Nan stood and approached me. “We need to talk to your father.”

She was right, but the reminder deflated me a bit. “Yes. Is he available now?”

Nan, Cora, and I spent the next couple of hours in my father’s study discussing his retirement and future plans. Thankfully, he was in a clear frame of mind and able to discuss it in great detail, and Nan had the foresight to call in our head solicitor to witness and record the conversation with Dad’s permission. The solicitor consulted with Dad’s office to create the appropriate correspondence to send out after notifying the necessary people.

Nan had already floated the retirement idea to a few people to let them know it was in the works, and I’d done the same with the prime minister.

By the time we finished, my poor father was done for the day. Nan took him to his suite and ensured Reg sent up a meal.

“Where’s Kenji?” Cora asked, meeting me in the kitchen for a curry dinner.

I shrugged. “I asked Mrs. Ashcombe to notify him that dinner would be at six thirty in the kitchen. If he’s not here, that’s his business.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “That’s a fine way to treat your husband.”

I focused on splashing a generous serving of sauvignon blanc into a goblet. “Don’t start.”

“Landry,” she said in a softer voice. “I know you’re frustrated and things haven’t, ah… worked out as you hoped?—”

I snorted at this understatement .

“—but Kenji’s been through a lot, and he stepped up for you today. Maybe you should go easy on him.”

“Kenji doesn’t respond to ‘easy,’ I’m afraid. Soft emotions like kindness, empathy, and tender regard tend to make him angry. I’ve decided his love language is bitterness and froth. Add in low-key declarations of war, blatant disrespect, stark rejection, and a high-brow sniff of disdain, and you can almost get the man in bed. But nothing, and I mean nothing, will get him to agree to a dinner date. And he didn’t step up today out of any higher feelings for me, I assure you,” I added. “He’s just programmed to clean up my messes.”

I tilted the bottle at her in a want some? gesture.

She nodded. “Have you considered he might have legitimate fears holding him back?”

I shot her a flat look over the wineglass. “Have you considered he’s just not that into me?”

Her cheeks dimpled, reminding me of the days when she carried more baby fat in her face. “No. Because every time he’s around you, he touches you. Yes, he’s a bit… prickly… toward you, but he’s definitely always aware of where you are in a room. He won’t let himself look at you directly, but his eyes rarely leave you.”

The wine was cool against my tongue and throat as I swallowed. “He’s spent years babysitting me, Cora. Don’t confuse management with love. Besides, the plan is for me to live here and serve the people, remember? Kenji has no interest in being a… countess.” The very idea made wine shoot up my nose…

Which was why, when Kenji walked into the kitchen in search of dinner a beat later, I was choking and sputtering.

Cora’s face lit up. “Kenji! Come sit by me. Reg is making one of my favorite curries. Do you like curry?”

The two of them talked about Indian dishes as if there wasn’t a giant, undetonated bomb sitting in the middle of the table.

I stood and approached Reg. “Need any help?”

He didn’t take his eye off the naan bread he was grilling. “Not as much as you do,” he muttered before tilting his head back toward the table. “Go sort your own affairs. Dinner’s almost ready, and I’ve a date with a pint down the pub.”

“Take me with you?”

He snorted softly. “I take you with me and I’ll never find a woman to share my bed. No offense, but you’ve got to be the worst wingman ever.”

“I’m gay,” I reminded him.

He rolled his eyes and nudged me out of the way to cut the naan bread into halves on the clean wooden counter. “Even worse. You think that means the women are going to leave you alone? They’ll be asking hair advice and taking selfies with you for their Instagram.”

I patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks for the ego stroke. I’ll take it where I can find it.”

After scrolling through my phone, peeking out the back window to check the weather, and straightening the cord behind the kettle, I finally slunk back to the kitchen table and tried to act aloof.

Cora glanced over at me. “The tailor will be here in an hour to do Kenji’s fitting. Do you need him to do you as well, or do you have the clothes you need for Winthrop’s little PR campaign?”

She pulled her laptop over from where it had been pushed to the side on the table and began going over the events as Reg set the food down in front of us.

“I have the clothes I need,” I murmured, hoping I hadn’t gained any weight since last wearing my tuxedo.

“Just leave the dishes,” Reg said before heading toward the back door. “I’ll get them later. Ta.”

The kitchen seemed eerily quiet without him there.

Kenji studied the laptop screen. “I recognize most of the events from Landry’s calendar in previous years, but what’s the HoH Dinner?”

Cora frowned at him. “Hearts of Hawling? That’s the big annual fundraiser for our family’s foundation. It’s one of London’s most coveted charity events. Surely you’ve had to schedule around it in the past.”

Kenji darted a glance at me, then looked away quickly. “Not as such. I do recall Landry marking off a ‘spa weekend’ this time last year, though.”

The silence got much weirder as the bomb finally detonated and shrapnel hung still and jagged in the air, quivering in place as if waiting until everyone breathed again to strike.

I stood up and took my still-full dishes to the sink before depositing them and disappearing upstairs.

It wasn’t mature. It wasn’t professional. It wasn’t the ice-cold persona I’d hoped to project.

But it was ten times better than listening to myself make up a new pack of lies to defend the old.

When I made it to my room and closed the door behind me, I finally exhaled.

At one in the morning, I gave up trying to sleep and made my way up two flights of stairs to the home gym. My father had arranged for it to be installed the year I’d left Eton to study at home, even though we hadn’t ended up staying in the city long enough to use it much.

In the years since, I’d managed to make up for it by using the hell out of it. Every time I came through London on the way somewhere, I tacked on a few days to visit, using the gym to stay in top shape as my job had required.

There’d been times over the years I’d paid handsomely to upgrade the equipment or add to the tech, but in the end, it was an old, stuffy room that carried a familiar gym stink.

I started with a warm-up on the treadmill. My headphones were cranked up to damaging levels, and Beyoncé pumped through me, speeding up my stride as the song changed from “Beautiful Liar” to “Break My Soul.” When “Crazy in Love” started, I barked, “Fuck!” and nearly chucked my phone across the room.

Instead, I quickly changed to Eminem’s “Houdini” and moved from the treadmill to the chest press machine. The reflection in the mirror mocked me.

My hair was pulled back from my face and neck by a large elastic hairband, the mashed-up waves causing it to stick out like a lion’s mane. I couldn’t decide if it was fierce or pathetic, but at least my face was clear, and my skin glowed.

How many years had I done an instant inventory when faced with my reflection in the mirror? How was my hair? My skin? My weight? Were there circles under my eyes? What was my muscle situation? My veins? Did I need manscaping? A salon visit? Waxing ?

As of a week or two ago, I’d actually thought I was done with all of that.

And now here I was, being thrust back into the public eye. Being photographed. Judged. Criticized down to the length of my fingernails and eyelashes.

I blew out a breath and stood up, moving to the bench to do tricep curls.

Suddenly, I stilled. They would criticize Kenji like that, too.

My stomach twisted. Fuck . I didn’t want Kenji to go through that. What the hell had I been thinking when I’d enlisted him in…?

But I hadn’t enlisted him in anything. He’d been the one to say we were married. Because he hadn’t trusted me to navigate this situation on my own.

Well, fuck him. I’d been born to navigate the British press. And this wasn’t my first rodeo. Not by a long shot.

As I put myself through the paces in the gym and diligently avoided all the Taylor Swift songs in my playlist, I remembered something I’d read in Kenji’s Chaska Inira book.

“When the task feels impossible, remember: you carry the strength of every challenge you have already overcome.”

I’d been in sticky situations before with the media. And I’d learned early on that the key to lowering their expectations and boring them to tears was to act shallow and stupid.

In this particular case, if the world thought Everett Landry Davencourt, Viscount Hawley and heir apparent to the Earl of Davencourt, was a pretty face with nothing behind it, not only would they lose interest in him more quickly, but the powers that be in the British government would stop hoping for him to take his father’s place in Parliament.

I blew out a breath. There was no way I would let my father and my name down by acting stupid on purpose. Chances were I’d act stupid enough by accident.

When I finally made my way back downstairs to my bedroom, I thought I heard a whimper coming from Kenji’s guest room. I raced down the carpeted hall and pressed my ear against the door. As soon as I had confirmation I hadn’t been imagining things, I would open the door to make sure he was okay.

I listened for an embarrassingly long time.

And didn’t hear a sound.

I finally made my way to my own room, took a quick shower, and fell into bed.

But it was hours before sleep finally rescued me from my thoughts.