Chapter 9 #2
Alexander walked back into Amanda’s at o-seven hundred. It had been a long, restless night. Evan had given him an earful, going on about Alexander letting his anxiety—that was Evan’s word—get the better of him.
But the truth was Alexander had been furious that Amanda had left and taken his children.
Not that she wasn’t capable or, for that matter, entitled, to do what she wanted, when she wanted, but—and it was a but of monstrous proportions—he’d just found them again for Christ’s sake, did she really have to leave?
Deep down, he knew the answer—they’d kept her in the dark. And now, although she knew there was something between them, a big something, at that, presently it felt worse.
When he decided to stop torturing himself and get out of bed, he checked in with Stephen, who told him lights had been out in Amanda’s house on the later side, as in way later, which meant no one was about yet, not even Helen with the baby.
A quick workout later, Alex and the boys made their way over just as Amanda was coming down the stairs with the baby.
“Morning,” he said. She gave a perfunctory hi in return. This new awkwardness between them was difficult even under the circumstances. “Callie going to school?”
She smiled then. “Well, since it’s Saturday,” she said, “probably not.”
He swore under his breath; this was perhaps the first time in his life he’d actually lost track of the days. And considering his life the past year, which included two different centuries, that was saying a lot. “Amanda, I don’t know what to do. How to—”
“Can we just go have coffee and breakfast? Like most other mornings?”
“Yeah, that sounds like a great start,” he said, feeling his shoulders relax. He followed her into the kitchen, where Rosa was getting breakfast together, and poured coffee. The boys, including Stephen and Gregor, had taken up residence in the sitting area adjacent to the kitchen.
When he turned to hand her a mug, Amanda was just staring blankly. He softly called her name, but she didn’t respond. He tried again, reaching out to grasp her arm. “Hey, where’d you go?”
She blinked, looking as if she’d just come out of a stupor. “Where did I go?” she repeated. “Where did you go, Alex?”
And so they’d continue. And not in private, either, apparently. “I didn’t go anywhere, Amanda.” He shook his head. “For the longest time I couldn’t go anywhere.”
“I don’t understand, Alex.”
“Until you remember, you won’t be able to.”
She shook her head, and Alexander saw a look in her eye that he knew well. She wasn’t going to let this go.
“Uh-uh, no, not good enough. I still don’t know really what happened. You said I let go, which means you didn’t intend to leave me, right? Bu—”
His head snapped back as if he’d been slapped, unsure he’d heard her correctly, he pulled her in closer. “Excuse me?” he said. Bloody hell, he liked her closer. She smelled so good, and her gorgeous blue eyes sparkled from the sun blasting through the kitchen windows, even as they narrowed at him.
“I said, I don’t think you meant to lea—”
“I heard you,” he ground out. It sounded just as bad the second time.
“I would have never left you, Amanda.” Didn’t she know, couldn’t she feel what was between them?
He felt the sting of tears, but now was not the time.
“I never would have left you and Callie alone if it could have been helped,” he said evenly, forcing his voice to steady.
“I don’t know what that means, Alex!” she exclaimed, clearly exasperated. “If what could have been helped?”
The way she looked at him, he just wanted to tell her everything.
But what could he actually say? “Gee, Amanda, you and Callie fell hundreds of feet from the side of a cliff and traveled through time and well, um, then me and the guys also time traveled here to be with you.” Evan would love that.
He sighed, hating that she couldn’t yet know everything.
“It means at the time it was impossible for me or my men to get to you. And by the time we could, you were under the protection of JDL.”
Her brows drew together as she considered God only knew what else, but then she nodded, satisfied at least for now. “Did you know I was pregnant?” she asked, her voice smaller than before.
He breathed a sigh of relief. This one he could handle. “I’m not sure even you knew then. We were moving.” Fleeing, actually. “The entire household was upside down that night, Amanda. It had been for days.”
“Wait.” She shook her head. “What household?”
“Abersoch.” Come on, you’ve got this, he thought, hoping something, anything he might say would trigger her memory.
She wrapped her hand around his forearm, nodding slowly. “Do you think going back there would help?”
“It might,” he told her. What if going to Great Britain was the key?
What if seeing the estate again brought her memory back?
But Alexander never wanted to set foot on British soil again.
It was a different place now than it had been then, he knew that, but it was the principle of the matter. “Nevertheless, we’re not going back.”
“I don’t mean right now,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I mean, obviously not like this second, bu—”
“We won’t be returning to Britain, Amanda,” he said firmly, feeling surer of that than anything else right now.
“I meant at some point in the near future.”
When his wife became stuck on something, very little could change her mind. “We won’t return to Britain, Amanda,” he repeated slowly, evenly.
“Ever?”
“Ever.” He could never go back to a place that had once put a price on his head for simply believing in the right to freedom, no matter how much time had passed since then.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Whatever happened, Alex, I know it must have been bad. I believe you. I’ve been having mixed feelings about Abersoch, too, though I haven’t known why.
I used to love it there. Maybe this is part of it.
But what if Callie wants to go to Oxford one day?
Or Cambridge? Or LSE? It’s part of her heritage, Alex—it’s not unreasonable she’d want to explore it. ”
“She won’t,” he said, though he hadn’t thought of that.
“You can’t know tha—”
“Bloody hell, Amanda, ten months ago we were hellbent on leaving Britain. For good.”
“I know that,” she said, “but why? You keep telling me we’re not going back, but what happened, Alex?” She clutched his shirt. “I used to love it there—what was so awful that I have such strange feelings about it now?”
He could only meet her stare, unsure of what to say.
“Help me, please,” she pleaded.
“It’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it.”
“Jesus, Amanda.” The gravity of his actions hit him then.
For the first time he realized that everything, all of it, was his fault.
He’d been the one to rebel, to join the other side.
Why couldn’t he have been happy with the status quo?
They could have lived their lives and been okay.
Though, of course, he may have died anyway once the war broke out. He wiped his eyes.
“Just tell me already,” she pleaded.
He thought of how best to put it. “There was a price on my head.”
“What?” She stepped back. “You mean…” She came back in and whispered, “Like a hit? A contract?” She looked around as if there still might be danger. Her guess was close enough, so he nodded. “Who?” she asked.
It was easy to stick to the truth here. “The Crown.”
She gasped, Zander stirring as she clutched him tighter. “Your own government! What—did you steal state secrets? Were you a rogue spy or—” She started gasping for air.
“Amanda!” He led her to the table, sat her down, and knelt in front of her. “Breathe, sweetheart.” He placed a hand over her chest. “Shh…shh…” he whispered, cupping her head with his other hand. “That’s it, breathe.” She shuddered and clutched his hand.
“That’s been happening to me a lot lately,” she said between shaky breaths. “These flashes of memory, they just…take over. Just now, I remembered a document. It was in a leather-bound ledger of some sort. Like some kind of legal accounting.”
“Do you remember what was on it?” Alexander asked, every one of his senses alert.
She shook her head, but something told him she was holding back.
“Amanda, I wasn’t—I wasn’t executed.” Though he shuddered now at the thought. “I’m alive and well. As are you and our children.”
“Can you take him?” she asked, nodding toward Zander as she started to stand. He took the baby from her quickly, then watched like an idiot as she thumped her forehead with her hands.
“Stop.”
Callie padded into the kitchen then, latching on to Amanda’s leg, and joined right into the conversation like she’d been there all along. “Papa, are you going to leave a lot again?”
He nodded. “I have a new business and responsibilities, angel.”
“Are you still an admiral in the navy?”
Amanda’s eyes darted right to his. “No, angel.”
“Are you still a spy?” she asked, twirling her hair and examining it intently as she did so.
He kept his eyes on Amanda as he answered this question too. “No, Callie.”
“Did those bad men take me and Mama ’cause they found out?”
“Wait, what bad men?” Amanda jumped in, wrapping an arm around Callie.
“The men who took us from the house, Mama,” Callie told her, then went back to twirling. “You killed them, right, Papa?” Callie asked absently.
“The bad men are gone, angel. I killed them,” he said evenly, praying his daughter wouldn’t say anything more. Not now.
“Papa?”
“Callie?”
“I have to tell you something.”
“I’m listening.”
“When…that night…” She looked down, worrying her little hands together again and again. “I was hiding under your desk.”
“I know you were, I helped you get there.” He gently moved her chin up to look into her eyes. “It’s not your fault, angel.”
“Do you remember what you told Mama when she came in?”