Chapter 36
TINSLEY
G iving him up hadn’t been a choice. It was a duty. A moral obligation. An expression of love.
I’d saved his life.
Didn’t matter how many times I reminded myself of this. I was angry.
I walked amid the cold rooms of the mansion, enraged at the universe.
I sat through my daily homeschooling lessons, furious with a god I didn’t believe existed.
I spent every night alone, so infuriated with my mother I couldn’t talk to her.
Not that she noticed. We shared a residence but never saw each other.
In the weeks and months of missing Magnus, I couldn’t come to terms with how things ended.
I would never make peace with it. Losing him had changed me at a fundamental level.
Hurting him the way I had turned me into this shell of myself.
I would never recover. My existence was a sucking, gutting torment that just wouldn’t quit.
I couldn’t even begin to entertain the idea of being with Tucker Kensington. Not in a friendly way. Certainly not in a sexual way.
But if I refused him, Magnus would die.
If I escaped, if I walked out the door and ran, Magnus would die.
Not that I would get far. My babysitting bodyguard never left my side. My mother had assigned Galen—the middle-aged Black man who had driven me back to the school over Christmas break—to watch me day and night. He was so far up my ass that he’d moved into the bedroom across the hall from mine.
I had no privacy. No space to cry.
What a waste of a good bodyguard. I wasn’t going to run away, and I sure as fuck wouldn’t mess around with boys.
I burned for one man only.
I hadn’t seen him in three months.
Three fucking months.
Daisy sent texts every week. I never asked about Magnus, but sometimes, she mentioned him in passing.
She had no idea anything happened between him and me.
No one knew. When Justin cleaned out my dorm after Christmas break, he told all the spectators I didn’t like the school and decided not to return.
Magnus had a lot of time on his hands now. No more one-on-one lessons with me. No afternoon punishments. I hoped he was spending that time on himself, searching his heart and figuring out what he wanted.
More than anything, I hoped he wasn’t hurting.
I hoped he didn’t feel the suffering I felt over the past three months.
This was only the beginning. The beginning of the rest of my life without him.
I would never see him again.
Why couldn’t I just die? I didn’t want to take my own life.
But sometimes, when I lay in bed, alone and hurting down to the depths of my soul, I wished for a terminal disease or a fatal lightning strike or a venomous spider bite.
I wanted the choice to be taken from me. I just… I needed this pain to go away.
“You could graduate right now if you wanted.” Mindy, my private tutor, scrutinized me over the lenses of her glasses.
“You’re very smart, Tinsley. You’ve already mastered all the material.
” She rested her forearms on the table in my father’s study, tapping a pen against the surface.
“Every day, I come in here and bore you to tears.”
It wasn’t boredom.
I was profoundly, inconsolably sad. The kind of sad that couldn’t be medicated or counseled. There was no cure for heartbreak.
But she was right. I could take the tests now, earn my diploma, and be done with high school.
It would change nothing.
My future wasn’t waiting on my graduation. It was waiting on Tucker. He would graduate from St. John de Brebeuf in May, spend the summer traveling, spreading his seed to women far and wide and living his male privilege to the fullest.
My mother intended to announce our engagement at her annual winter ball. There would be no proposal. No courtship. Just the contract, which was already signed and waiting for Tucker to settle down and step into his role.
“If I took the final tests now,” I asked without enthusiasm or care, “what would I do for the next two months?”
“You can get a jump on your college studies. You can study topics that interest you.”
I could read the books Magnus had put on my e-reader and learn how to run an animal shelter that I would never have. There was no place for that in Bishop’s Landing. I would be expected to attend parties, look pretty, and smile like a princess for our royal subjects.
I felt sick.
“I’m finished for the day.” I closed my laptop and slumped back in the chair.
Familiar with my moods, Mindy packed up her belongings and left. The instant the door shut behind her, I wept. Quiet tears coursed down my cheeks. I couldn’t help it. My misery was constant.
Galen sat on the couch, his gaze on his phone, probably sick to death of watching me cry. He saw it every day and never said a word.
Perry had mentioned he was retired military. That fit his hardened exterior. But he had a softness in his brown eyes. Compassion. I felt it as he rose from the couch and handed me a tissue. He carried them in his pocket just for me.
“Eat.” He pointed at my untouched breakfast on the table.
How could I eat? How could I, knowing it wouldn’t fill the emptiness?
“I said eat,” he growled, losing patience.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I’ve watched you lose weight for three months. Weight that you don’t have to lose. If you drop another pound, you’ll disappear.”
“I want to disappear,” I whispered.
I want to die.
“You’ll eat if I have to force it down your throat.” He slammed a fist onto the table, rattling the dishes.
This was the tenth time in as many days that he’d stood over me, threatening me with food.
He didn’t know the source of my grief. To him, I was just a self-absorbed rich girl, wallowing in her mansion. My mother had probably tasked him with watching over my diet. I was supposed to look a certain way, maintain a perfect weight, and assume the ideal image of a trophy wife.
I’d agreed to do this. Crying and refusing wouldn’t change a damn thing.
Holding his gaze, I scooped up a handful of dry cereal from the bowl and crammed the pieces into my mouth. I chewed with loud, smacking, crunching sounds that shattered the strained silence. Crumbs fell down my shirt and stuck to my chin as I fisted more and shoved it into my already full mouth.
“You’re a mess.” His lips bounced with a smile as he returned to the couch.
I wanted to share his amusement and dug deep to find a morsel of happiness. But it wasn’t there. That emotion simply didn’t exist. Not today.
Not the week after.
Not the month that followed.
I continued my lessons with Mindy. In the evenings, I read the books Magnus had given me. On the weekends, I put on sparkly gowns, did my hair, and went downstairs to show my face at my mother’s hoity-toity parties. Sometimes, Tucker made the trip home to attend them.
At every opportunity, he tried to talk to me, corner me, and get me alone. Those were the moments when I appreciated Galen’s presence. He intervened every time Tucker tried to touch me.
Four months after I left Sion Academy, my mother hosted her biggest party yet. A charity ball. All the schmoozers and socialites of Bishop’s Landing were here—bankers, politicians, business moguls, and the like.
Perry led me through the ballroom with my hand tucked inside his elbow. I felt the floor through the soles of my heels. I heard the orchestra music flowing around me. But I wasn’t really here. I was a ghost. Nothing more.
The air felt like water, bogging down my steps and drowning me in a sea of indifference.
“I want to go back to my room.” I squeezed Perry’s arm.
“Stay an hour.” He stopped and rested a knuckle beneath my chin, his expression creased with understanding. “Mom needs to see you making an effort with Tucker. Then you can leave. Okay?”
“Okay.” I felt numb.
“Here he comes. I’ll be within earshot.”
He strolled away, but I wasn’t alone. Galen’s strong presence hovered behind my elbow, my constant shadow always within arm’s reach.
Tucker sauntered right into my space, wearing a tailored black tux and his usual cocky smile.
“Jesus, Tinsley.” He prowled around me, soaking in my white lacy gown and releasing a low whistle. “You look fucking amazing.”
The dress clung to my body from chest to ankles. My mother commissioned all my fancy clothes in shades of white as if she were trying to convince the world I was innocent and pure. Perhaps trying to convince herself. As if she didn’t have photos of me getting wall-banged by my teacher.
The memory rose with a vengeance, catching me off guard. The feel of Magnus’s expert hands, the scratch of his whiskers, the dark, seductive scent of his skin—he was embedded in my senses.
My lungs burned for oxygen. I needed fresh air. My feet were already moving before I was aware.
“Where are you going?” Tucker chased after me, oblivious.
Minutes later, I stood outside on the vacant veranda, gripping the railing and burning up, despite the cool April evening.
Galen was silent behind me, but I knew he was there.
Tucker leaned a hip against the banister, staring out at the beautifully manicured lawn and twinkling lights of the mansions dotting the hillside below.
“Nevada Hildebrand was expelled.” He met my eyes.
“Big surprise.” I usually avoided all conversations about Sion Academy with him, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Did she get caught with pills again?”
“No. She got caught with Father Magnus.”
A whooshing sound erupted in my ears. Bile surged to my throat, and my legs lost strength, buckling my knees. I swayed, wobbled, and Galen’s hand caught my arm, holding me upright.
“What’s wrong with you?” Tucker’s brows dipped into a V.
“I didn’t eat today.” I shrugged away from Galen’s grip, ignoring his disapproving glare. “Makes me lightheaded.”
“Let’s sit down.” Tucker motioned toward a nearby bench.
I didn’t want to sit anywhere with him, but my trembling legs took the choice away. I followed him to the seat.