Page 43 of Pawns of Fate
“It isn’t a bad idea.” Marquess Sharp looked at Rose with respect.
“I’m completely opposed,” Nicholas said. “Rose was perfectly capable of going by herself. Why can’t Ava do the same?”
“Nicholas,” Rose tried to reassure her husband.
“You don’t have to sacrifice yourself,” he whispered.
“I want to take care of the Sharp family, too,” she whispered back, hoping he would understand.
“Then it’s settled,” Marquess Sharp said with as muchauthority as he had left. “Rose and Ava will go with you in exchange for Pescinnia. Please give us a little time to pack things for Ava. Eat lunch with us.”
“So be it,” Depaerth replied. The two men shook hands. The decision was final.
Nicholas pulled Rose into his office immediately after the meeting. He was fuming.
He pinned her to the wall with his hips and placed a hand on either side of her head, caging her in. Lowering his head to hers, he let their foreheads touch.
“Why?” he said, voice trembling. “If you’d just stayed quiet, you wouldn’t have had to go.”
Rose was taken aback by his question. After all, no one cared for the Sharps more than Nicholas.
“I want to do my part for the family. I thought you would see that.”
“It’s not enough of a reason.”
“You don’t get to decide that for me.”
Dejectedly, he replied, “Clearly, I don’t get to decide anything to do with you.” He backed away from her and went to sit in a chair.
Rose wanted to sit in his lap, kiss him, and let him know it would all be okay, but she was apprehensive. What if he pushed her away? If he did that now, with how many emotions were coursing through her… She froze. Too many thoughts, too many feelings were swirling in her mind, and she couldn’t decide what to do.
“I’m sorry I forced you into this marriage,” Nicholas saidwith pain in his voice.
The words hit Rose like a wall. Her swirling thoughts focused into a line.
Nicholas thought she didn’t want the marriage. Maybe that was because he didn’t want the marriage.
Hot tears pressed against the back of her eyes.
Rose opened her mouth to reply but thought better of it. If he didn’t want this marriage, perhaps giving him space was the best thing. She turned on her heel and walked out the door.
Chapter 14
ROSE
Lunch passed in a blur. Ava and York couldn’t stop hugging and stealing kisses as if it were their last few minutes on earth and they weren’t standing in a courtyard full of other people.
Nicholas stayed in his office.
Rose did her best to conceal her disappointment, but her hunched shoulders and puffy, red eyes gave her away.
Camillus’s observation was right. She didn’t look like a woman in love. She looked like a woman in pain.
Nicholas didn’t reappear when theservants loaded the women’s baggage into a horse-drawn wagon. Lyla, however, appeared, dressed in a unique maid’s uniform that covered her from head to toe and seated on a horse behind one of the Ojoh warriors. Apparently, they still didn’t mind if their captives had a ‘maid.’
Marquess Sharp approached Rose and hugged her.
“Don’t worry about Nicholas. He’ll come around when all of this is over.”
