“Mother will murder you,” Jeffrey says.
“A thousand cuts with her smallest scalpel,” Nick agrees, “so it will hurt more.”
“Mother isn’t going to murder me.” I roll my eyes.
“Oh, yes, she will.” Nick sets the nearly empty bowl of cherries on the table beside him and sits up, staring me down across Jeffrey’s prone body still lounged between us. “If you’re mean to Elizabeth, Mother will kill you. You know how she feels about manners, and it isn’t good manners to be an asshole to the woman you’ve promised to marry.”
“I didn’t promise anything. I was nine years old,” I remind them, rushing on before Nick can launch into another lecture, “and I’m not going to be ‘mean’ to Elizabeth. I already feel bad about the snakes in her bed thing when we were kids. I’m not planning to do anything else to add to my karmic debt with the woman.”
Jeffrey studies me with narrowed eyes. “What exactly are you planning?”
“I’m just going to help her see how incompatible we’d be in the long term, that’s all.” I point double gun fingers at Nick and Jeffrey and pull the triggers. “And that’s where you two come in.”
Nick frowns. “Come in with what?”
I shrug. “Nothing much. I just need you to keep Mother’s attention elsewhere when Elizabeth and I are alone. And if you happen to see me behaving strangely in my fiancée’s presence, act like my weirdness is business as usual.”
Jeffrey arches a brow. “You think you’ll scare her away that easily? You forget how much is riding on this for her, Drew. Her family is practically destitute. If she doesn’t marry you, they could lose everything.”
It’s a big speech from Jeffrey, but I’m ready for him.
“Exactly,” I say with a smile. “Which is why I plan to pay the tax on their land for the next fifty years as a ‘Sorry it didn’t work out, Elizabeth, no hard feelings’ present.” I brush my palms off and hold up my hands, fingers spread wide. “That way, everyone gets a happy ending. Elizabeth brings home the bacon for her family, I repay our grandfather’s debt to their grandfather, and no one is trapped in a loveless marriage. Win, win, win.”
“Her grandfather saved our grandfather’s life,” Nick reminds me as if I’ve ever had a chance to forget. “If King Fergus hadn’t jumped into the ocean to keep Grandfather from drowning, none of us would have been born. We literally owe him our lives. I don’t think fifty years of prepaid taxes is the kind of repayment Grandfather had in mind.”
“Then I’ll pay for a hundred years and give Elizabeth a generous disengagement severance package,” I say, refusing to back down. “Because I am grateful for the gift of life, too grateful to spend the rest of it with a woman I don’t love. Who I will never love, no matter how hard I try, and who I will leave lonely in our bed while I go out of my mind with sexual frustration.”
Jeffrey grunts in what sounds like surprise, but I try not to take it personally. I have a well-earned reputation as a womanizer, but as soon as I say “I do,” all of that is going to change.
“No, I don’t plan to cheat on my wife,” I insist. “When I say my wedding vows, they’re going to mean something. I would prefer to be promising myself to my perfect match, not locking myself into a life of celibacy and strained politeness with a stranger, but…” I clench my jaw and square my shoulders. “That depends on whether I can convince Elizabeth that we’re a disaster waiting to happen. Before it’s too late.”
Nick and Jeffrey both fall silent for a moment before Nick murmurs, “That actually makes a lot of sense.”
“I didn’t realize you felt this way,” Jeffrey says.
“What way?”
His gaze shifts to the left, but I know what he’s thinking.
“No, I’m not going to be like Dad,” I say softly.
Bitterly.
I refuse to be anything like our father, a raging narcissist who made a fool of our mother again and again before abandoning his family to follow one of his much-younger lovers into the mountains of Nepal. I enjoy being single—hell yes, I do— but in the past, when I’ve promised a woman an exclusive relationship, I’ve kept that promise. I intend to do the same with the woman I marry.
“All right,” Jeffrey says with a nod. “I’m in.”
“You’re in! Perfect.” I sit up straighter, shifting my gaze Nick’s way. “And you, baby brother?”
“As long as you promise not to hurt her feelings,” Nick says, still not sounding completely sold.
“Of course I’m not going to hurt her feelings,” I assure him. “But even if I do have to hurt them a tiny bit, think about how much better that is than the alternative. Elizabeth would be miserable as my wife. Better to make her a little sad now than to trap her in a wretched existence. Right?”
Nick’s lips pucker as they shift to one side. “I guess. I just hate seeing her cry. I still remember that night with the snakes.”
“You were four years old,” I say.
“So? I still remember,” he says, his puppy dog eyes shiny with feeling. “She was shaking so hard her sisters had to carry her down the stairs to their parents’ room.”
“And their parents sent them right back up,” Jeffrey adds, nodding at Nick before turning his attention back to me. “They haven’t had the life we’ve had, Drew. It’s not just the money. They’ve had it hard in other ways.”
Jaw tight, I nod. “I know. But this really is for the best. Elizabeth deserves the chance to find happiness on her own terms. Kicking me to the curb will be good for her. Empowering. Who knows what mountains she’ll climb once she’s decided to take her destiny into her own hands.”
“And what if she doesn’t?” Nick asks. “What if she decides to go through with it anyway? No matter how awful you are?”
I shake my head. “That isn’t going to happen.”
“And if it does?” Jeffrey presses.
“It won’t,” I say, steel in my voice. “Failure isn’t in my vocabulary, you know that. Not when it comes to the things that matter. And right now, nothing matters more than this.”
Nothing.
I’ll have Elizabeth out of my hair long before the wedding, and then I can focus on the things that really matter—ruling my country, protecting my people, and ensuring a legacy Grandfather would be proud of, even without a bride by my side.
This is basically already in the bag. The gun is loaded, and the prey will soon be in my sights.
All that’s left is to pull the trigger.
Chapter Four
Sabrina
Failure is not an option.
Failure is not an option.
Failure is NOT an option.
No matter how much you want to set off a bomb in the middle of Elizabeth’s relationship with Andrew and watch the interpersonal fallout rain down from the sky, you can’t ruin this for her.
Do you hear me, Self?
You will be on your best Elizabeth-like behavior no matter what.