Chapter 104
Piper
I run.
In a way.
He never said I was a prisoner.
But the moment I woke up and realised he wasn’t in the room, I left. I assumed he was out of the house, which meant I didn’t have to face him.
But what else am I supposed to do?
Isn’t it obvious?
We have nothing left to discuss.
Too much has happened between us.
I’ll never be rid of his father. Not if I want my own father to stay alive.
And I can’t do this again.
I can’t go back to sneaking around and pretending that somehow we’ll make it work in secret.
It’s too much.
And what’s the point?
For him, this has always been physical.
He can’t love me.
He can’t give me the one thing I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember.
And even if he could, his father would always stand between us.
I asked one of the maids to call me a taxi.
Instead, they sent a man to drive me.
A driver, perhaps.
He never said a word, he simply drove me to the airport.
Where Adelaide’s jet was waiting.
I had asked the driver for his phone to contact her. Somewhere between the hospital stay and the complete clusterfuck that is my life, mine disappeared.
She didn’t ask questions.
And for that I’m grateful.
I boarded the jet, and before long we touched down on Elaris Island.
A car from the academy waited for me, and within minutes I was back at St. Monarché.
I don’t run into any of the girls.
I know they’re all back. But I don’t want to see them yet.
I’m better.
Most of my injuries have healed, especially the ones on my face. With enough concealer, no one would notice a thing.
My ribs, however, still hurt like hell and probably will for weeks.
I’m glad that when I woke up in the hospital, Hunter was the only one in the room.
He didn’t tell the girls, nor my father.
I was more relieved about that than I should have been.
He did it because he didn’t know what existed between us.
He didn’t know if my father was the villain in all of this, if he’d forced me into the marriage, or if he cared about me at all.
Questions even I don’t have answers to.
It’s complicated.
I know I’ll have to see him eventually.
Talk to him.
But I’m not ready.
And perhaps I never will be.
Once I’m back in my dorm, I shut the door, take a long bath, change into my pyjamas, and spend the next few hours in front of the television watching ice skating competitions.
My heart hurts.
I don’t know whether I’ll recover in time to prepare properly for the Olympics.
Then I remember who made it possible in the first place, and a familiar dread takes hold.
I don’t even know whether I want the Olympics anymore.
But I can’t let him take that from me too.
I don’t know where he is. I haven’t seen him since that day.
He never visited me in hospital. Not that I expected him to.
Part of me was terrified he’d show up at Hunter’s house and drag me back with him.
Or that Hunter would hand me over.
That he’d decide none of this was worth the trouble and send me right back to the man who hurt me.
I don’t actually think Hunter would do that. At least, I don’t want to believe he would. But after everything that’s happened, I’m too hurt and confused to be certain of anything.
A knock at my door startles me.
I sit up.
A second knock follows.
“Piper, I swear to God, if you don’t open this door in the next second, I’ll take it off its hinges.”
My heart stumbles.
Hunter.
How is he here already?
I look at the clock. He must have left for Elaris shortly after I did.
Against my better judgement, I open the door.
He stands there looking exactly as he always does. Impeccably put together.
But furious.
Lethal, even.
I swallow as his eyes remain fixed on me for a long moment.
Then he closes the distance between us and takes my face in his hands.
The door swings shut behind him.
His forehead touches mine. For a second, neither of us speaks. I close my eyes, aware of his nearness, of the familiar scent that still feels too much like home.
“Why the fuck did you leave?” he growls.
“Hunter...” I begin, but the words die before they ever reach my lips.
I don’t even know what to say.
“Piper, we need to talk.” His voice turns rough. “No more hiding, no more secrets. Just the truth.”
I nod.
Because he’s right.
He deserves to know what was really going on.
Slowly, he lets me go, and I immediately put a step between us.
Distance I desperately need.
Because his proximity completely scrambles my thoughts.
I sit on the sofa where I’d spent the last few hours before his arrival.
Hunter takes the seat beside me.
And the way he watches me makes me feel exposed and vulnerable.
As if he can see every thought I want to keep buried.
“What do you want to know?” I ask.
A ridiculous question really.
The man I’ve spent months with discovered I was married to his father.
Of course he has questions.
Countless ones.
The problem is that I don’t know where to begin.
Because the moment I do, all of it becomes real.
I’m not ready.
Then again, life rarely waits until you’re ready for anything.
“Start from the beginning.” His voice remains calm. “Were you already married the night we met? Did you do it on purpose?”
I flinch.
I suppose he has every right to ask.
Slowly, I shake my head.
“I knew about the marriage.”
His jaw tightens, but he says nothing.
“I knew I was going to be married. I agreed to it.” My voice falters. “And I knew it was your father. But I didn’t sleep with you to get back at him or anything like that. I hadn’t even met him at that point.”
Heat creeps up my neck.
“You caught my attention in a way no one ever had before. One thing led to another, and I was so devastated by the thought of signing my life away that I wanted one last taste of freedom. I wanted to give myself to someone I chose. Someone I wanted.”
I hold his eyes.
“And that person happened to be you.”
Shame twists in my stomach.
“I know how bad that sounds. I felt guilty from the beginning. I tried to stop. I just couldn’t.”
I take a shaky breath.
“And if I’m being completely honest, part of the reason I let it happen was because I never expected to see you again. I wasn’t supposed to see you for at least a year, not while I was at the academy.”
My fingers tighten together.
“I always knew I’d eventually meet you again after your father made the marriage public. I just convinced myself that by then I’d be nothing more than a distant memory. Just another one night stand on your list.”
I’m rambling at this point, and heat floods my cheeks.
“Continue,” he says when I take too long.
“The next day, I left. I knew I shouldn’t have done what I did. I knew...” I trail off.
“My father was waiting for me in London. The deal was already in motion. Part of me wanted to run, to disappear. But I couldn’t.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
“When I arrived, your father asked to speak to me alone. That’s when he explained the arrangement. The rules I was expected to follow.”
“The documents were already prepared. I signed them without really understanding what I was signing.”
The confession leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
“And you know the rest. I was allowed to return to the academy because the marriage wasn’t supposed to become public until after my year here ended. But I was still married.”
A sad smile touches my lips.
“Then you came along and ruined everything.”
His expression doesn’t change.
“You couldn’t understand why I kept pushing you away. I was married, Hunter and I wasn’t allowed to talk about it. My father manipulated me into agreeing to it. Yours threatened me through my father. It came from every direction.”
I close my eyes briefly.
“And the worst part is that I didn’t want to let you go. Even when I kept telling you to stay away from me, I was doing the exact opposite. Every time I pushed you away, part of me hoped you wouldn’t listen. I know how selfish that was.”
“I knew I’d lose you the moment the truth came out. But for a little while, I had you.”
The sadness in my chest grows heavier.
“Did he ever...” The question dies there. His jaw locks so tightly that a vein rises at his temple.
“No.” I shake my head. “Never. He was never interested in me that way. As a woman, I mean. It was... strange, really.”
My voice trails off.
Hunter nods.
“Apparently, he was gay.”
The statement catches me off guard.
“Oh.”
“As far as I understand, that was another reason he insisted on the marriage.”
I frown.
“Why not just come out?”
“Because it isn’t that simple. Not for a man his age, especially not one in his position. People can be surprisingly narrow minded when it suits them. Stupid, but that’s the reality of it.”
When he puts it that way, it does make sense.
“I don’t think he married me just to hide his sexuality,” I say quietly.
“No,” he confirms. “He and your father were tied together by a mess of their own making. Neither trusted the other not to turn on him, so they decided a marriage alliance was the safest option.”
His jaw tightens.
“And Frederick found a way to benefit from it on both fronts.”
I frown. “Then why keep it secret in the beginning?”
“Because it would have raised too many questions. One day he’s an unmarried politician. The next, he suddenly has a wife young enough to be his daughter. People would have started digging. The plan was to do it gradually. Appear alongside your father first. Then introduce you into the picture.”
That makes sense.
“Julian?” he asks suddenly.
For a second, I’m caught off guard by the change in subject.
“Julian is my father’s right hand man. Personal assistant, bodyguard even. Honestly, I’m not sure where one role ends and the next begins.”
“He made sure my father’s image remained spotless. That’s why he kept coming here. To make sure I didn’t make things worse. To stop whatever was happening between us.”
I swallow.
“He always kept an eye on me. I suppose he simply did a better job of it than I realised.”
My eyes meet Hunter’s.
“And you weren’t exactly subtle. You stomped through my life like a caveman. People were bound to notice eventually.”
“Really, he’s a good man. In his own way,” I add.
“He did it for his own benefit and your father’s,” Hunter snaps.
“True.”
I lower my eyes.
But a small, naive part of me wants to believe he did it for me too.
That perhaps he was trying to protect me from the consequences of what would happen if my husband found out about us.
“Did he ever touch you? The bruises?”
I shake my head.
“No. That was all Frederick.”
Hunter goes still.
The look in his eyes turns cold, and a knot forms in my stomach.
“He’s dead.”
The words are delivered without emotion.
“Wh.. what?”
“Frederick.” His jaw tightens. “He’s dead. I killed him.”
For a second, I can only stare at him.
Relief is the first thing I feel.
I’m finally free.
But then a more frightening thought takes its place.
Hunter.
“What about you?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. “What happens to you?”
“Nothing. I made sure of it.”
I search his face, but find nothing there.
“Piper, your father and Frederick were involved in something worse than either of us realised.”
“What do you mean?”
His expression hardens.
“They committed a war crime. One that cost thousands of innocent people their lives.”
I gasp.
“I made sure his death would be ruled a suicide.
He wrote the note himself. Apparently, the guilt finally got to him. He could no longer live with the blood on his hands.”
His voice remains disturbingly calm.
“He also signed the divorce papers. And you’ll sign them too. You’ll be officially divorced.”
The corner of his mouth twitches.
“Mine.”
I shake my head. “That means my father...”
“Yes.”
Hunter doesn’t soften the answer.
“He’ll answer for what he did. As he should have from the beginning instead of manipulating you into paying for his mistakes.”
“He didn’t—”
The words die in my throat as the memory of that day comes flooding back.