Chapter 2 #3
No longer content to sit by while Bastian took his temper out on Terry, Meredith straightened. Her head pounded, but she didn’t know how much was due to striking it on the door or Bastian’s anger on the phone. “For what?”
“His Highness wants recommendations for personal security, Meredith. If you’ll give me a few moments, I can help you with dinner.” His expression softened, and his smile turned amused. For the barest moment, she glimpsed mischief in his normally serious eyes and Meredith’s jaw dropped.
Terry was tweaking Sebastian quite squarely on the nose.
Oh dear God. She stood and set the ice down. “Terry…”
“It’s quite all right. I have the numbers here, Your Highness.
” Amusement continued to widen his mouth, and Meredith scrubbed a palm against her face.
Terry seemed to be enjoying the situation, but the plummeting sensation in her stomach worsened.
Ending things with Sebastian shouldn’t include hurting him.
She wanted a clean break, not a painful one.
“I’ll speak to him, Terry.” The words slipped out before she could stop them and he paused.
“A moment, Your Highness.” He depressed a button on the screen and she realized he’d muted the call. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“He’s firing you.”
“He’s entitled to do what he wants. It’s not about you, it’s about him asking me to perform tasks not outlined by my position. If you want to talk to him, I’ll hand you the phone, but I don’t want you to feel like you’re being forced to speak to him.”
Beyond the oddness of discussing her romantic contretemps with the man, it took it too far to put him in the midst of it. “I’m sorry,” she murmured to him. “You shouldn’t have to choose a side or be put in the middle.”
“I don’t mind,” he told her with a level, serious look. “You tell me what you want and I’ll make it happen.”
She wanted to have never felt like she and Bastian couldn’t work. She wanted for Bastian to have never been stabbed. Sometimes, she even wanted to have never met him. Unfortunately, time travel and magic were theories even mathematics couldn’t turn into reality.
Yet.
“I’ll talk to him.” She held out her hand.
He passed the phone to her and then touched gentle fingers to the lump on the side of her head. It was still tender. “Put the ice back on this. I’m going to go down and move my car to give you your privacy. Do you still want to have dinner?”
She hesitated. Her impulsive request wasn’t terrifically fair to him.
“It’s just food, Meredith.” He smiled, but the lightness in his tone did nothing to alleviate her guilt. “We can eat then I’ll make sure you’re secure before I head out.”
Grasping his gracious offer, she found the wherewithal to smile. “Thank you, Terry.”
“Of course, I’d do anything for you. Give him hell.” With those bolstering words, he descended the steps and she unmuted the phone.
“Bastian, don’t take your temper out on Terry…”
“I will do as I please with a man in my employ.” And wasn’t that a high-handed statement? “Why is he having dinner with you?”
“Can we not do this?” She pleaded with him.
“Meredith,” his voice gentled immediately, and he sighed. “Are you all right?”
She could lie, but she didn’t want to. Not anymore. “No, Bastian, I’m not all right. I haven’t been for a long time, and I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“Darling, you’re upset.”
“Yes, I’m upset. I’m unhappy and I’m tired of feeling like the dirty little secret kept in the closet. I just want it all over. I want—” Everything. You. But she swallowed the words and fought the tears in her eyes. “I need to not do this. Can you please understand?”
“I don’t understand.” He gritted his teeth, and the grinding echoed over the line. “Everything was fine and then you tell me you wish to end it. No warning, no complaints—merely over. I need to see you. I know we can work this out if you will simply talk to me.”
“Talking to you is the problem. We’ll end up in bed and we’ll make love and you’ll say everything the right way, but at the end of it?
I’ll come back here, you’ll go back to your life and nothing will have changed.
I don’t want to live my life on constant hold anymore.
I can’t do it. Everything wasn’t fine and it hasn’t been.
Let me go. Leave Terry alone. Go find some princess you can crown or some other mistress to make you happy.
I don’t have it in me anymore.” Tears slid down her face and she wanted to curse.
She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry, but it hurt so damn much.
“Meredith, I don’t want any other woman. I‘ll send the plane for you. Come, meet me. We’ll talk. I promise not to make love to you until you’ve said everything you think I need to hear.” Bless him for the irritated condescension in his voice because it worked to dry up her tears.
“I can’t tell you how really generous of you the promise sounds.
” She sniffed and swiped away her tears.
“But I told you no. I realize it must be difficult for you, Your Highness, to be told no. You’ll forgive me for being crass, but I have tried to explain.
You are refusing to understand. I will not be sent for.
I will not be brought to you. The living for your beck and call part of my life is over. ”
“Don’t. Hang. Up.” The order rang over the line and locked her fingers before she could depress the end call button. “Meredith, you can be angry at me. You can throw things at me, but I will not allow you to ignore me. Do you understand?”
“Allow me?” Pulling the phone away, she stared at the empty screen as if trying to read his face thousands of miles away.
If it were her phone, she might very well have thrown it across the room.
Putting it back to her ear, she blew out a breath and said, “I’m not one of your—” The click on the other end told her he wasn’t there anymore.
I’ll be damned. He’d hung up on her.