Chapter Nine
ASTRID KNEW, BETTER than anyone, that time had a mercurial, unstoppable quality to it.
It couldn’t go backwards and it couldn’t be sped up.
Nor could it be stopped. No matter how much she wanted everything to freeze, so that they could be locked in this night for longer than a few hours, the second hand marched onwards and so too did the need for her to return to the palace.
In the morning, it would be Christmas Eve and her schedule would be full, as it was every year.
She would have barely a moment to herself, much less a chance to see Javier.
But knowing what he’d been through, how cold and lonely his childhood, how alone he was, she felt a connection to him that defied the physical.
A connection that she knew she should run a mile from, because connection was akin to something far more difficult to manage—to genuine emotional reliance.
And she couldn’t rely on him. Or anyone.
The safe future she’d latched onto, as a way to avoid ever having to grieve like she had as a girl, was a talisman. But it wasn’t in jeopardy. It couldn’t be.
For when Javier spoke of Norvenheim, it was with true distaste. Not only was he not staying in the country longer than necessary, he also wouldn’t have any interest in being more a part of her world, even if she wanted him to. This was a secret, short-term thing.
Except, when she thought of him leaving, an ice began to spread through her veins with which she was, sadly, familiar.
It was the reliably cold spread of loneliness and she’d known it before.
When Javier was around, for a brief moment, she felt the opposite of ice.
She felt warm. She felt good. She felt…dangerously close to complete.
It was as though someone, or something, were whispering at her to forget what she knew.
To forget her duties, and the careful care she took with her heart, and just let this play out.
But Astrid never would. Her whole future was at stake and she knew too much of pain to willingly experience it again.
She took another sip of her champagne, he’d refilled it after they’d finished with the tree, and settled back on the sofa.
Her eyes rested contentedly on the tree, marvelling at the beauty of what they’d done.
It wasn’t just the tree, though. It was how he’d opened up to her as they’d decorated it.
The way he’d trusted her with a part of himself she suspected he didn’t share often.
It had been the most special gift she’d ever received, even though she knew she couldn’t return it.
To open up was to risk sharing too much of herself.
It was to risk exposing her heart and a man like Javier would know just how to slip into those cracks, taking up a space she guarded fiercely for those she’d lost.
He came to sit on the other end of the sofa, then reached for her feet and dragged them into his lap, one hand resting over her ankles in a gesture that was so casually intimate it brought a lump to her throat.
She blinked quickly, cursing her emotions.
Usually, they were so reliably easy to control, but with Javier, there was a weakness inside of her that she didn’t entirely like.
‘Will you see them for Christmas?’ she asked, almost conversationally, though she felt him tense slightly.
He’d been so sparing, as he’d spoken of his childhood, yet he’d effortlessly painted a picture of neglect.
She’d heard everything he hadn’t said. She’d understood.
What he’d described had been the polar opposite of her own family life and yet, after the accident, she’d been raised more or less by bureaucrats, by the Regency Council who governed on her behalf until she was of age.
Decisions were made in her name rather than in her best interests.
Who she was as a title was more important than who she was as a person.
In this way, she understood the neglect he’d suffered, the way his emotional needs hadn’t been cared for at all.
‘Yes.’
His response surprised her. It must have shown on her features, for when he turned to look at her, he said, darkly, ‘It’s the purpose of my visit. It’s why I came back.’
‘To see them for Christmas?’ she repeated, not quite following.
His eyes held hers for a long time, his jaw moving with the strength of whatever he was contemplating. ‘My father had always been very clear. He wanted me to inherit his business.’
The statement was unexpected, but she sat still, waiting for him to continue. His fingers moved idly over her exposed ankles, drawing small, unintentional circles.
‘He left money to Otto, but I was the one he trusted to take over his life’s work. His empire, so to speak.’
Astrid knew Soren Diamandi had been incredibly successful. He had owned one of the biggest textile companies in Europe and their stores were a global name.
‘And?’ She sipped her drink, simply for something to do with her hands. Impatience was buzzing beneath her skin.
‘My stepmother made it so that I inherited nothing.’
‘What?’
‘The will wasn’t specific enough. That was my father’s fault. He had a blind spot where Carlotta was concerned. Or perhaps he was guilt ridden, because of his affair and my existence,’ he proposed.
She shook her head, immediately dismissing that idea and silently damned the people who’d ever made Javier feel as though he owed the world an apology just for having been conceived.
‘Even the money he had earmarked for me quite clearly, she had re-provisioned, so that I wouldn’t see a cent until I was twenty-five. He died when I was just seventeen.’
She let out an angry breath.
‘She didn’t just want me gone. She wanted me destitute. She wanted to know I would suffer.’
Astrid felt the colour draining from her face.
She thought of Carlotta and Otto. She tried to marry this version of them to the people she knew and failed.
Then again, how well did she know them? She was well aware of people’s duplicity where she was concerned.
Most people she met exuded a falsity, because they wanted to please or impress her.
‘She sent me to a boarding school in Spain. I stayed there all year. She didn’t send for me in the holidays. I had no money to do anything else.’
Astrid closed her eyes, hating to think of that.
‘It was a difficult time, but then it was also the making of me. I graduated with top marks and took a summer internship at a tech firm. By the end of those few short months, I’d taken an idea, turned it into an app and was making money hand over fist. From there, I focused on investing and building.
On creating an empire that would rival my father’s.
That would rival the fortune and work I’d been denied. ’
Admiration shifted through Astrid. She’d known he was wealthy and successful in his own right, but naturally, she’d always presumed the Diamandi name had something to do with that. Discovering that he’d built everything on his own was incredibly impressive.
‘Carlotta meanwhile set about restructuring the business. She took the whole thing public. She said it was for growth but it was really about keeping me out of it and taking what she knew I wanted most in the world.’
Indignation spread through her.
‘I wasn’t even twenty-two before I set my sights on reclaiming it for myself.’
Astrid wrenched her gaze back to his face and shivered at the look there.
Not just a look of determination, but of ruthless rage.
His eyes glittered with it, reminding her once more of a Viking king.
All strength and fire, indomitable and fearsome.
Not that she was afraid, but she could see that he was driven by emotions that were larger than almost anything she’d ever known.
Emotions she herself would run a thousand miles from.
‘I could accept a lot, Astrid, but not that. He wanted me to have it. He spoke of it often. I knew it. They knew it.’ Javier’s nostrils flared and his eyes were looking at her with a burning intensity.
Almost as if he were pleading with her to understand.
‘And so I began a creeping acquisition, buying up shares, when I could. A few here and there, always through a shell company. Nothing that would arouse suspicion and nothing that would require me to declare myself. I’ve been in negotiations for the last six months to take control of another ten per cent stake, which will turn me into the single majority shareholder.
The company will be mine to run, to do what I want with it. ’
‘Isn’t Otto the CEO?’
His nostrils flared once more. ‘Your point?’
She pulled a face at that. No one spoke to her in that tone and particularly not Javier. He ground his jaw, held a hand up in apology. But it wasn’t necessary. Even in his anger, she found him addictive and justifiable. She felt everything he did, deep in her core.
‘Won’t he try to stop you?’
‘He can’t. I signed the paperwork last week. There’s no going back.’
‘So you came here to tell them?’
He just stared at her, his determined look all the confirmation she needed.
‘You’re here for revenge,’ she murmured, shifting a little in her seat, as she factored that into what she knew of this man and layered it over the top of their relationship. ‘You’re here to hurt them because they hurt you.’
‘It’s my birthright.’
A shiver ran the length of her spine. She didn’t disagree with him, yet she’d heard that phrase so often in her life, often directed at her to explain her duties and obligations. ‘You hate them,’ she said, softly.
‘I will enjoy taking this from them. Making it mine.’
A shiver ran the full length of her spine then.
I will make you mine…