Page 27 of Axel

If Nash finds out. If Loch finds out. If my mother ever finds out. This secret is so damning it will kill my family.

And why, more than anyone, do I suddenly care if Ruby ever finds out? Why is it her judgment I fear the most?

“Come on.” I guide Alena to the sofa. “Let’s sit down.”

We sit with our knees brushing, but desire escapes me. It’s not that Alena isn’t a stunning young woman; she is.

But she was never mine; she’s Loch’s.

And the more I’m honest with myself, my cold heart belongs to someone else. It has for a year, and she’s sitting right outside my office door.

“No offense,” Alena wrings her hands, “but please don’t come to our engagement party tonight. Okay?”

My smile is soft. “No offense taken, and I’m happy for you. Your fiancé is a lucky man.”

“But it’s so hard lying to him, and my dad will be there, too.” She stresses. “I’m used to hiding it from my dad. It’s easy. It’s my body and my business. Fathers don’t have a right to say?—”

“But I’m his best friend, Alena, and if he ever finds out, hewillhave something to say about it. He’ll want to kill me, and I won’t blame him. I won’t stop him.”

She laughs. “My dad won’tkillyou.”

She doesn’t know her father like I do. Nash has already murdered for love, for Vale—Alena’s best friend—and I helped him.

Yes, this is an ocean of secrets and lies, and I’m drowning.

“What about your fiancé?” I try another tactic. “I can be avery threatening man, and I know he’ll be angry if he finds out about us.”

She laughs again, and it’s bittersweet. At the mention of Loch, Alena’s brown eyes sparkle, innocent and in love. But he’s my baby brother. She has no idea how he’ll feel betrayed by us.

“But it’s not like he was a virgin, either,” she says. “He knows what he’s doing in bed and?—”

“Does he think you were?”

My tone is gentle. I’m not rough with Alena. Never. But I need to know how bad this is as her glance darts to the floor.

“Alena,” my tone drops, “did you lie to Loch? Does he think he was your first? Because, to men?—”

“No, he’s not like that.” She confronts my stare. “Lochrespectswomen. It’s what I love most about him. I haven’t met his mom yet, but she raised him right because he doesn’t objectify me. He loves me. He didn’t ask about my past because he only cares about our future. Besides,” she shrugs, “I told him the truth, that I’ve never been in love.” She winces. “No offense.”

Softly, I laugh. “Alena, I’m okay. You can’t ever offend me. You don’t love me that way, and I don’t love you that way.Weknow that. But no one else will see it that way. That’s why no one can ever know.”

“But Michael,” I wince when she uses my fake name, “I worry about our secret andyou. You’ve been an ass since your wife left you.”

I bristle.

“I know you don’t like talking about her,” she says, “but Katya was beautiful. Your wedding was like a fairytale, and I don’t know what happened, but you’ve been an asshole since she left. Even to me.”

I drag in a deep breath because Alena’s just skimming the surface of my pain.

If I thought Alena kissing me was a shock, Katya coming on to me was a bomb.

If someone had to write a perfect woman on paper for me, it would supposedly be Katya. Russian. Blonde. Breathtaking. Cultured. Demure and subservient. We met in an art museum, where she hung on my every word about the eighteenth-century paintings.

The only time she wasn’t passive was in bed. I thought it was love, all the times she wanted to fuck me. We were so busy having sex, I didn’t have time to realize … it wasn’t love.

But I felt so guilty after Alena, so worried I’d lose Nash, that I’d lose all of my brothers and our bond, that I made Katya my first queen. I hoped the bonds we built as kings and queens with our tradition would give us the strength to survive all the secrets and lies.

I still hope that.

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