Page 12

Chapter 12

Piers

I could sit on the bed in a towel until I’m dry, but I pull a change of clothes on over my sodden body the moment I leave the bathroom. Now I’m cold, wet, and forced to come down from the highest high of my life.

Except that I can still taste Fantasia on my tongue. Her gasps and moans are echoing through my head like the sweetest kind of song. I still feel her fingers in my hair, her nails scraping over my scalp and sending shocks down my spine.

Even though we both came, even though we were both panting and trembling at the end, what just happened feels like a preview. My body has become a map of places that she’s touched, and there are too many places unmarked by her fingertips.

I force myself to open my phone and redial my last called number. Despite how badly our last talk went, and despite the fact that I said I would keep my distance and five minutes ago ravished his sister in the shower, I need to have this conversation with Achilles. Things have changed since he told me to stay away. Fantasia has been attacked, the Ashwoods have been compromised, and now we’re on the run. I can’t imagine he’ll be pissed at me for saving his little sister’s life.

So long as I don’t mention that I just had my tongue inside her.

The phone rings several times before Achilles picks up, and when he does he already sounds irritated. Lovely.

“ I hope you’re calling to tell me you’re getting on a plane right now .”

“Am I late for a meeting I didn’t know about?” I quip, trying to ignore the way my hackles rise at his tone. “Because I don’t remember agreeing to come back to London the last time we talked.”

“ Piers -”

“ I called you , so let me talk before you start lecturing me.” I don’t even have to see Achilles’s face to feel the chill of his silence, but I don’t let it distract me. “Those guys you hired to guard Fantasia tried to kill her a few hours ago. They were working for your cousin Harold. Seen him lately?”

“ What the fuck- where is Fantasia now? Is she all right? ”

“She’s with me,” I say, intentionally ignoring his first question. “She was hurt, but not critically.”

“How was she hurt? ”

“Cut by a knife in her side. I stitched it.”

“ Jesus- ”

I hear him suck in a breath and all the ways it shakes as it comes out. It’s enough to make me forget my frustration with him. His little sister is hurt and he’s the kind of guy who’ll tie himself in knots trying to find a way to blame himself. But this isn’t on him. Not unless he could read Armstrong and Barnes’s minds and ignored their murderous plans anyway.

Which reminds me.

“I asked if you’ve seen Harry lately.”

Achilles takes another breath, not any steadier than the first. “ Not since the last family meeting a week ago. The one where he… where he urged me to give Fantasia a harsher sentence. ”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“ His brother was just transferred to Cambridge Hospital. I believe he followed him there with our great aunt Mary. ”

“Well you’d better drag his ass back and see if he’s sent anyone else after us.”

“ Where are Barnes and Armstrong now? ”

“Dead.”

“ Dead- Did you at least question them? ”

“Was a little too busy saving Fantasia’s life,” I say snidely.

Another aggressive inhale. “ As grateful as I am that you were there for her, I need you to consider that accusing one of my closest and most influential cousins of committing a mutiny against me has consequences-”

I can’t fucking believe this. “You’re worried about politics right now?”

“ I’m sorry to inform you of this, but politics is ninety percent of what men in our position need to think about ,” Achilles growls. “ That’s why my little sister is halfway across the planet in the first place. If there are men that claim they’re loyal to me who are actively betraying me, I need to know as much as possible- ”

“They’re your men!” I burst out. “It’s not my job to keep them in line, it’s yours. So do that, or the next time your people threaten me or mine, it’ll mean war against Wesley Hall.”

There’s a moment of stunned silence. I’m breathing hard, too hard, like my lungs are bellows stoking a fire in my gut. I can’t believe what I’ve just said, but I’m also not about to walk it back. Achilles is the careful one, but he’s too careful. He waits too long to make moves, and if he’s thinking of doing that here, I’m telling him right now it won’t lead to anything good.

“ Just so we’re clear ,” Achilles says tightly, “ did you just fucking threaten me? ”

“No,” I say tightly. “I promised you. If any Ashwoods hurt Fantasia or me, I’ll consider that an act of war against the Warwick family. By you.”

“ Fantasia is not, and has never been, your concern. You insinuated yourself into this mess, and now you’re leveraging my own sister as a reason to drag your infant empire into a war with me?! ”

He’s wrong. Fantasia has always been my concern.

She’s always been everything to me.

“You abandoned her the second you agreed to send her away,” I snarl. “Don’t try to reclaim her now. She’s mine . If someone attacks her, they’re attacking my wife .”

“ What?! ”

“What?!”

I whip around at the echo. Fantasia is standing outside the bathroom, wrapped in a towel with another wrapped around her shoulders. My chest clenches at the sight of her.

At the look of horror on her face.

“ Piers- What the fuck are you talking about -”

I hang up the phone, my eyes trapped on Fantasia. It immediately rings again.

If Achilles weren’t thousands of miles away, I’d punch him in the face.

“What the hell were you two talking about?” Fantasia demands, folding her arms over her chest. The this time goes unsaid.

My mind is spinning. I’ve done a lot of rash things in my life, but declaring that I’m married without even proposing to the woman in question is potentially the worst one. I hadn’t meant to say it. At the same time, they feel like the most true words I’ve ever spoken.

And I’m not taking them back.

“I had to inform your brother about the rats under his nose,” I tell Fantasia, with a bit more acid in my tone than I mean.

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” she hisses. “What you said- what you called me-”

“My wife?” I repeat, because I don’t like that she’s avoiding the word. “Whatever happens next, whether we return to England-” That earns me an even blacker glare. “-Or we lay low here for a while, you’ll be safer if you’re associated with me.”

“Or you’ll be in greater danger if you’re associated with me ,” she argues. “I keep telling you there is no we . When are you going to listen-”

“Not tonight,” I cut her off. “Maybe tomorrow, but probably not then either, because I’m not leaving you on your own.”

“What do you think is going to happen?” Fantasia presses. “That I’ll wake up in the morning and agree to go back to London with you and- and marry you?!” Her eyes widen, then narrow with defiance as she holds my gaze. Waits for my answer.

And I don’t keep her waiting. “That’s right. That’s exactly what I think will happen. It’s what should’ve happened years ago.”

She blinks, stopped short at that. Her mouth opens and closes, her sculpted cheekbones blossoming red. But her anger disappears for only a moment before coming back in a flood. “Whatever either of us thought was going to happen when we were younger- it didn’t. That’s the entire problem, Piers! You think, after I tried to kill you-”

“You didn’t try very hard.”

She turns her back on me, one hand clutching at her long damp hair. “You’re infuriating,” she hisses. “You’re delusional .”

Hard to argue with either of those things.

“I’m also tired,” I tell her simply. “I didn’t sleep on the plane. I haven’t slept since. And you’ve been strangled and sliced open. Whatever we want to happen or think will happen, what needs to happen is that we get some sleep.”

Fantasia glares at me, but even she can’t argue with that.

She sighs, her shoulders dropping slightly in resignation. She walks over to the bed and opens her duffel bag, pulling out a silk robe. After changing out of sight in the bathroom- nevermind that I’ve already seen her naked- she emerges at last ready for sleep.

I watch her realize, far too slowly, that there’s only one bed.

And that it’s very, very small.

To her credit, or maybe just owing to how tired she is, Fantasia doesn’t complain. She doesn’t try to order me to sleep on the floor. Instead, she pulls off the silk robe quickly, her cheeks flushing slightly, before gingerly climbing onto the mattress, wincing as her side bends and twists, and folds herself under the covers.

Trying and failing to think gentlemanly thoughts, I turn out the light and climb in after her.