Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
ISABELLE
Oh, holy headache.
My mouth must have been stuffed with cotton wool.
Every breath hurt, my throat was so sore.
“Iz?”
I was dreaming too. Sophie’s voice inside my head.
I remembered the church, and Father. He was so disappointed in me.
There was the priest, and the start of the vows, the drugs had got the better of me. Perhaps that was for the best.
“Come on, Iz, you’re okay.”
That was definitely Sophie, I threw my arm over my face, dulling the light stabbing through my closed lids, then fluttered them open to look at the underside of my wrist.
“Are you thirsty?”
“Yes.” My voice was a rasp.
I felt the surface beside me dip, confirming my suspicions that I was in bed.
That was not good.
A bottle was placed into my hand and I sipped, the cold liquid spilling down my chin and over my neck unpleasantly.
I made another attempt to lift my arm and open my eyes fully, but they were having none of it.
I cleared my throat. “What did I do?”
Sophie laid her hand gently on my arm. “Oh, Iz, you did nothing.”
Was that pity?
“What did he do?” If Sophie pitied me, more than before, then that was no improvement on my having fucked it all up.
“Izzy, nothing. Can you open your eyes?”
I rubbed my arm over my eyelids, the thickness of my lashes and dewy friction of my wedding makeup smearing across my face.
I fluttered my lashes, steadily opening my eyes. The room was dull, darkened outside or curtains hiding the light, it couldn’t be too late in the day. The gentle glow in the room was cast by a lamp, not a window nor a fireplace.
The heavy copper base was familiar, and not the one of my room in my parents’.
I didn’t know Teddy’s room, but odds were that Sophie wouldn’t be in Teddy’s bedroom with me.
“There she is.” Sophie was perched on the bed, buried in a heavy jumper and a pair of leggings. Both of them mine. “I was scared to death you wouldn’t wake up.”
Was she scolding me?
“Very sorry to have worried you.”
She beamed at my attitude.
I lifted the bedding, glancing underneath. My gown was gone, a t-shirt burying my frame.
I sniffed. Lavender and vanilla.
It couldn’t be.
“Soph, where are we?” I wasn’t stupid, I knew where my mind was telling me I was. But my mind was drug-addled, and this could still be a nightmare. Not because it wasn’t wonderful, but because it was tormenting.
“Arse-end of Kent,” she quipped.
“Alex?”
She nodded.
“Seb?”
She nodded again.
They had been there, I had glimpses of memories of them in the church, not that I trusted anything my brain told me, not yet.
“But Ben? He wasn’t there?”
“He’s here though,” Sophie confirmed it for me. I was back at the cottage.
“Really?” I gasped, my eyes daring to prickle with tears, ones that wouldn’t come because I was parched again.
I scrambled up the bed, groaning at my headache.
“Seb said you might need these.” Sophie held out two tablets.
“Where are they?” I swallowed the tablets quickly.
“Giving you space,” Sophie replied. “Downstairs, or outside, or wherever else their property goes.” She shrugged.
I frowned at them giving me space. “Sophie, what are you doing in Kent? Why are we in Kent? Does Liz know where you are?”
Sophie laughed. “Of course she does, she’d be here already if she wasn’t caught up with the kids. She’s thrilled and furious, in equal Liz measures.”
I felt a smile forming. Of course she was.
The lightest tap at the door had Sophie rising to open it. Whichever of them was out there spoke so quietly that I couldn’t make them out.
Sophie cocked a brow at me and I nodded. The fact they weren’t with me had my skin crawling.
“Hey, Sugar, sorry, Isabelle.” Ben edged his way past Sophie. His shoulders visibly eased when he could see me, but he looked unsure.
“Benji.” I borrowed Seb’s nickname for him – the quickest way I could think of to offer reassurance.
“May I?” He indicated to the bed.
I couldn’t stand his uncertainty. I threw the covers from my body and scrambled over the bed to intercept him, flinging myself off it to wrap my body around his.
He oomph-ed at the impact, then his body vibrated with a chuckle.
“Ben,” I gasped.
“Sugar.” His fingers tangled into my hair, locking in the nest of curls and pins that remained. He drew my head into his neck, wrapping his arms around me like a vice.
“And I’m out.” Sophie’s voice carried back in from the hallway.
“They left you here to come get me?” If he’d felt any part of my desperation since we’d been apart I had no doubts over how he would have struggled. The same way I would have were I not medicated.
“They were gone for all of eight hours, Sugar.” Ben clambered onto the bed, resting against the headboard with me plastered across his lap.
I breathed him in.
It hadn’t mattered how desperately I’d tried to commit him to memory; nothing came close to the real thing.
“You smell good,” I whispered into his skin. “Oh.” I wriggled in his hold. “I’ll smell awful, all perfumes and sprays and…”
“Aftershave,” Ben continued, his voice a little tight but his arms around me not relenting. “You smell of someone’s aftershave.”
I grumbled against him. It would be Teddy’s. “You can let me go, Ben, I’ll shower it off. Please don’t make yourself uncomfortable.”
“Stop, Izzy. I’m going to smother you with my smell so you’ll smell like mine.”
I choked at his possessiveness. The effect on me completely different to when Teddy had spoken the same words.
“I don’t care, Alex! Get out of my way!”
Ben groaned beneath me. “Seb’s not been feeling very patient.”
Seb swept into the room, Alex hot on his heels. “If she’s mad at us, then she can tell us so, and then she can punish us, and then we can make up, and then we can get on with our lives!” he blustered.
Alex scrubbed his stubble in exhaustion, shrugging.
“Why am I cross with you?” I craned my neck from where I still nestled into Ben.
“Because we married you to Alex,” Seb announced.
My mind flickered to raised voices in the church.
Did he declare I was his wife to the congregation of hundreds?
“Not sure it works like that?” I replied, waiting for the rest of the joke.
Ben teased me from where I held him, turning me in his lap and wrapping his arms back around me, locking me against him, my back to his front.
“There were some favours called in, and some light forgery,” Alex supplemented. “It’s a good thing your father doesn’t know your signature, but it did the job.”
I gawped at them. Seb shifted on his feet, unable to stay still.
“You told the world we are married?” I gasped.
“We couldn’t think of another way, Sugar.” Ben squeezed me as he spoke, nuzzling my neck. “We didn’t have time.”
Seb looked agonised at the distance between us and I was unable to torment him, inclining my head to the bed beside us.
He closed the distance between us in two strides, making no effort to break me free from Ben’s arms, he wrapped his arm over Ben’s shoulders, tucking us both into him.
“I’ll be needing more than that,” I prompted while Alex dropped to the window seat, avoiding the bed like the others. I shifted uncomfortably at his distance.
“We assumed all had gone to plan, until yesterday morning,” Alex began.
Ben and Seb held me, giving him time. “The news reported you’d been located and there had been an announcement and the wedding was on.
All the statements bundled into one. Someone had been found responsible, you were well, the wedding was to take place that day. ”
Alex’s mood soured further.
“Given the speed of the service we assumed nothing good had come of them finding you,” Seb whispered.
“Seb has a friend in town, a registrar. The only way we could think of to stop the wedding was to prove you were ineligible.” Alex shrugged.
“You forged a wedding certificate?” I asked.
“She wasn’t hugely comfortable with it, if that’s what you’re getting at, but we all know how convincing Seb can be,” Alex replied.
“She’ll be very disappointed to learn he’s not single,” Ben muttered to Seb’s frustration.
“I didn’t promise her anything!” he complained.
“We went from there to the church. I’m not sure how much you remember?” Alex was scowling now.
“Do you know what they gave you, Sugar?” Ben whispered.
I tried to shrug but was wrapped too tightly.
“Letro-something?” I couldn’t remember. “Supplements, and benzos. I don’t know what he gave me in the church.”
“Who, Izzy? Teddy?” Seb had taken my hand and began rubbing it gently.
“My…” I hesitated. “Edmund.” He didn’t deserve to be called father.
“Fertility drugs and sedatives,” Seb spoke to Alex. “It’ll take a few days, maybe weeks for the ovulation drugs, but they’ll work out of her system.”
Alex’s lip curled.
“What does this mean? What happened?”
“We had a few words in the church. Guests were sent to the reception for a knees-up, and we went back to your fath– Edmund’s house for a mighty dick-swinging contest,” Seb muttered. “Your sister’s a piece of shit, by the way.”
“She gets it from my mother,” I replied.
Ben didn’t even try to hide his laughter.
“And they just accepted it?” I continued.
“Not quite. But they did in the end.” Alex shrugged as if it were nothing.
“Don’t sugar-coat it for me, Alex.”
“The certificate stands. It may be a forgery but it’s technically legally sound. Fairchild demanded an annulment. Your mother and sister demanded you be institutionalised. I told them that my dick was bigger than theirs, politically and by family association.”
“Translation,” Seb whispered. “Alex is blue-blooded. His godfather is royalty and his cousin is a titled lord. They might have rejected anyone else, but not him.”
I cocked a brow at Alex who lifted one shoulder in reply. “I threatened to destroy them if they crossed me.”
“He promised to go back to London and tear them a new asshole.” Seb’s commentary continued.
“Do you think they’ll go against you? That people will see through it?” I asked, not yet sure how they were going to spin this, but people were untrustworthy. Especially these ones.
“There’s nothing to see through. I’m more than happy to step back into the fray to protect those I love.” Alex stiffened and the men caging me in froze.
“Pardon?”
Alex looked at me, a war raging in his eyes. He straightened.
“You heard me, Isabelle.”
How could he make a declaration like that sound like a challenge?
He waited for me to give him attitude back but I was busy hiding my Cheshire cat grin, the grogginess and the headache lightening with our chat and their proximity.
What they said about co-regulation and those you loved was true.
“There were plenty of hurt feelings, but they accepted it, and I’m expecting their PR proposals later this evening. They’ve agreed to wait for my sign-off on whatever they choose to announce.”
I laughed. Alex frowned. It wasn’t a joke.
“It’ll take a little while but your guardianship will pass to me, I imagine within the week?”
“You’ll be my new guardian?” I asked with the settling realisation.
“Well, they think I’m your husband.” Alex frowned at me. “It doesn’t mean anything?”
“Yeah,” I scoffed, grimacing at Alex’s flinch. “I mean, thank you.”
What was I saying?
“Thank you?” Alex repeated.
“Yes, thank you.” I steadied my voice.
My guardianship was going to change hands yesterday anyway; Alex was a better choice than Teddy. So why did it hurt so much?
“Oh dear, Killer.” Seb’s voice was lighter than it ought to have been. Alex looked like he’d been insulted and I was bristling at the transfer of my ownership.
“You think there’s something in being your guardian for me?” Alex murmured, tilting his head.
“No?” I answered. “I don’t know? I don’t think so?”
“Huh.” Alex stood, his body stiff, hands clenching. “Allow me to assuage your fears.”
He gripped the bed frame.
“He’s mad now, Killer,” Seb narrated.
“Sebastian,” Ben warned, holding me even tighter.
“You can either take my name or keep your family name. Once you are transferred into my care, you can do as you wish. You will have an account established for you, although I understand that you have an inheritance due, I recognise it’s a husband’s responsibility to support his wife and I will meet those obligations as best I can.
I want none of your cash, your assets, I hold no claim over anything you have, nor do I lay a claim to anything in your future. Not even you.”
I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t.
“You don’t want me?”
“As if that’s the bit you choose to focus on, Isabelle!” He inhaled sharply. “You’re free. You can go wherever you like. Our name will offer you some protection and I’ll uphold my responsibility to ensure you have whatever you need to live your life. However you choose to live it.”
“I can do what I want?” I whispered.
Seb’s grip on my hand tightened. I observed the way he glared at Alex.
“What he means, Killer, is that you can choose your future. But we would prefer it if you chose us?” Seb corrected. “Right, Alex?”
Alex glowered at Seb.
“Do you want us, Izzy?” Ben whispered in my ear.
I shuddered. Lost for words.
Alex was offering me my freedom, I could move, travel, work. I had money. I had a choice.
I felt the warmth of the arms around me, the slight shake in Seb’s grip of my hand. The unspoken hurt in Alex as he stared at me, looming over the bottom of the bed.
I collapsed deeper into Ben. “You want me?”
“For the love of God, Killer. What do we need to say to convince you? Alex hasn’t declared he loved anyone since… well, ever,” Seb griped.
“Me aside,” Ben added.
“Show off.” Seb jostled us. “So, what will it be, Killer?”