Chapter 11
She just leaves me standing there, again. My wife simply takes off without even giving me a glance or listening to what I have to say.
Caught off guard, I watch her walk away, disappearing with my sister, who shoots me a deadly look.
Fuck, my head is pounding, and I have the hangover of the millennium after being completely wasted last night. I just want to crawl back into bed, but that’s clearly not going to happen.
“Nicolas, a word.” My father’s cold voice reaches my ear, and I turn my head to look at him, bored.
“What’s so urgent?” I ask, uninterested, when he suddenly slams a newspaper on my chest and holds his phone under my nose.
Fuck. That means trouble.
I was totally smashed yesterday and didn’t really register much, but a newspaper and a phone never mean anything good.
Okay, the phone first.
Even from a quick glance, my pulse shoots up. And when I see the photo, the comments below, and play the video, I feel sick.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Sarah and me, me and Sarah. And we are being called the new power couple.
Swallowing hard, I open the newspaper and close my eyes, defeated. The pressure in my skull increases to the intensity of a jackhammer.
Fuuuck!
Lady Amelia dumped. Prince Nicolas spotted with new old flame
, is the big headline above. Of course, it’s the Harlington Post, and I don’t even need to read on to know what story they’ve spun from the pictures of Sarah and me.
“Shit,” I mutter, shocked, and on the inside, I want to punch myself.
“Yes, ‘shit’ fits well, son. I want you to clear this up, fast. Apparently, I was wrong about my choice of wife, if these rumors and pieces of information are to be believed. We can no longer afford negative press, especially not with this marriage. Amelia doesn’t seem to be who we expected.
So, sort it out, or I will,” my father tells me coldly, rips the phone and paper from my hands, and walks away.
Fuck.
“You know I don’t believe a single word that’s been said about Amelia, Nici, but your father doesn’t feel the same.
You gave him the ammunition with those pictures.
Fix this quickly, because with that stunt, you made her, your wife, an easy target.
They are going to tear her apart. You have always had a big, sensitive heart, but it also makes you act impulsively and do stupid things.
” My mother steps in front of me, gently places her hand on my cheek while looking at me lovingly but reproachfully, and I have to swallow.
My heart tightens, and at the same time, my anger at myself grows.
Stupid. That was so stupid.
“I was stupid. It was never supposed to go down like this, and it’s not what it looks like,” I mumble weakly, and my mother smiles sympathetically.
“That, my son, you should not tell me. You have to tell your enchanting little wife, who is already having to endure more than her heart can bear. Set things right. Otherwise, Amelia, I fear, will get hurt far worse than we can imagine.”
She kisses my cheek and then leaves me standing too.
Shit.
I landed myself in deep trouble.
When Damien dropped that bombshell yesterday, something snapped in my mind. I was furious and wounded, but above all, my pride was hurt, and I acted impulsively. Impulsively and absolutely wrong.
I made Amelia bleed for my own failure and put a target on her forehead.
The comments under the picture and video are nasty. Really, really nasty. And judging by Amelia’s reaction, I assume she has seen both the comments and the video. And that after I promised her the night before that no one would hurt her anymore.
“Shit, I’m such a damn asshole,” I curse myself and tear at my hair. Just thinking about what could happen to her now, just thinking about how hurt she already is and what she has had to endure weighs on my chest like a ton of bricks.
Fuck, I have to get to her.
But it takes another ten minutes before I can finally leave this damn room, because the notary apparently feels like rambling today.
As soon as I’m outside, my phone rings, and I pull it out of my pocket.
“Nic, get your ass to the park exit quickly. Lizzy and Amelia are in trouble, and security is losing control,” Cedric shouts into my ear, and my heart skips a beat, only to immediately resume pounding hard and fast.
After I hang up, the alarm goes off in the castle. My stomach knots up, and icy cold fear crawls through my veins.
As fast as I can, I run through the castle with the phone pressed to my ear and order more men to the park exit.
Shit, I’m about to lose it.
Eric runs towards me swearing, and by now, I know the situation is serious.
“We need more men. They’re overrunning them, and security with them is not in control anymore. The police are notified, but Nic, it looks bad,” he tells me as he runs past, and I hurry on.
If even one of them touches Amelia or my sister, I don’t know what I will do.
When the back gate finally comes into view, I see the full extent of the situation.
Fuck.
At the exit, there is a crowd, a mix of paparazzi and crazed lunatics who are angry and raging with only one target in mind—my wife.
The security guards are trying with all their might to hold back the mob, but are clearly overwhelmed. Amelia has pushed Lizzy behind her while Cedric is doing everything to protect Amelia. But the crazy mob has them trapped.
“Whore.”
“Bitch.”
“You don’t deserve him.”
“Lady Amelia, what do you say to the accusations made against you?”
“Fuck off and leave the castle to clear the way for Sarah.”
“Money-hungry bitch.”
The screams from the crowd lash at me like whip cracks, and the boiling in my veins becomes a raging torrent of fiery anger.
The line of guards breaks as some of those radical assholes force their way through the barrier. A real fight breaks out, and I see red.
Cedric pushes himself in front of Amelia, but when one of the guys tries to hit him and Cedric dodges, Amelia falls.
Fuck.
My vision narrows, and I lose it.
“IF EVEN ONE OF YOU FUCKERS TOUCHES MY WIFE, I SWEAR YOU WILL REGRET IT!”
My voice thunders through the crowd, and I see blue flashing lights at the end of the avenue leading to this exit, but I don’t care.
Lizzy has been pushed so far away she is no longer visible, but Cedric is on his way to her when he hears me.
Fuck, if even one of them hurt her or Goldilocks, I will kill them all.
I fight my way through to Amelia, who is crouched down with her hands over her head trying to protect herself somehow. She doesn’t move, frozen, which fuels my rage even more.
I shove two women who are still between us and yelling at her roughly aside and kneel down to lift my wife up.
When I slide my arms under her knees, she flinches, scared, and lifts her head, and shit, the look she gives me almost makes me puke.
Empty. It’s so empty, and that scares me more than if she had looked at me panicked and terrified.
“Nicolas?” she croaks softly, and I hold her tightly.
“Got you, Goldilocks,” I murmur into her hair and kiss the crown of her head as I slowly rise.
The police have arrived by now, and the rest of the crowd has realized it’s me.
Looking around, I breathe a sigh of relief when I spot Cedric holding my sister tightly.
Ignoring the calls and people, I quickly head back into the castle with Amelia safely held to my chest, and into our apartment. Her body is shaking badly, and I know she is in shock.
“We’re almost there. Nothing will happen to you, I promise.” I keep talking because I want to calm her, but she only lets out a bitter laugh.
“You promised that once before and didn’t keep it,” she answers quietly, and her voice sounds strangely emotionless, which makes my insides twist in knots.
Guilty. I’m guilty, and I can’t sugarcoat it because she’s right.
I push the door to our apartment open and wave Eric away, who was on his way to us. I give my father, who is with him, a warning look.
Not now.
Once inside, I lock the door, because no one is getting in or out tonight.
Carefully, I set Amelia down in our bedroom, where I have never spent a night. She immediately turns her back to me and curls up, and my chest tightens.
But when I see her body begin to shake, I don’t hesitate. I lie down behind her, and pull her into my arms. My heart skips a beat when, instead of moving away, she turns to me, buries her head in my chest, and starts to cry.
My heart breaks at that moment for my beautiful little wife who I abandoned so horribly because my ego was bigger than my reason at that moment.
I wrap one arm around her and pull her closer, stroking her curls soothingly with the other hand. I’m just lying there, letting her cry even though every sob cuts deep into my heart.
Because I’m to blame.
Because I don’t want this for her.
“Why?” she asks so quietly, and the sadness in her voice presses on my chest heavily.
“I… Damien told me. About him and my brother. And… and that you knew. I… shit. My ego was hurt, I felt betrayed, and well…”
I push her a little away to look at her. The sight makes my chest ache again. Her eyes are swollen and red from crying, and she looks at me so hurt and hopeless I have to swallow hard, wanting to press her close again.
“Nothing happened between me and Sarah. I was way too drunk and had no interest in her at all,” I continue quietly, sinking into her blue eyes.
Shit, she will be the death of me.
“I… you can do whatever you want, Nicolas… we… we are not together.”
The air around us feeling more pressured? as she looks at me, her gaze flicking briefly to my lips and back.
Fuck.
Drawn like a magnet, I lean down. Closer and closer.
“Is that so, Goldilocks? As far as I know, we have been married for an hour,” I hum directly at her lips, run my hand over her neck to the beating pulse at her throat, and gently stroke it with my thumb.
“So, I don’t think I can do whatever I want and with whomever I want, hmm?
” My lips brush hers briefly and lightly, but it sends a thousand little electric shocks through my body.
Amelia closes her eyes briefly and draws a shaky breath before opening them again. And holy shit, the raw desire burning in her eyes takes my breath away.
“We will both regret this,” she whispers, then time stands still because Amelia closes the tiny gap between our lips and kisses me.
And my brain shuts off.