Page 91 of American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy 1)
I give her a strange look, and she gives me a toothy smile—the one she learned from watching the Duchess of Cambridge tour the Commonwealth in heels with a baby on her hip.
“Ash wants me to change rooms,” I say, a little peevishly, and start tossing things into my suitcase.
She shifts on the bed. “Did he, uh, did he say why?”
“Something about security and Melwas, but the reason doesn’t matter because it’s rude to just order people around like their feelings don’t matter.” I seal my mouth closed, realizing I’m perilously close to yelling or crying, and then the whole mess about Embry and Ash will spill out, the whole sordid fucking triangle.
“Oh, just the security then? That’s not a big deal.”
She still sounds strange, and part of me thinks I should ask her what’s wrong, that I should sit down on the bed and put my arms around her shoulders and coax her into opening up. It wouldn’t take long because Abi always wants to open up. All she needs is the faintest invitation inside your attention and then she’s wailing in your lap, like some sort of emotional vampire.
But I’m my own emotional vampire right now, and I have to go drain Ash’s blood before I burn everything down. I zip my suitcase closed. “I’ll see you in the morning, Abi.”
“Right,” she says faintly. “In the morning.”
Luc holds the door for me as I give her a little wave and wheel the suitcase back out into the hallway, and then he takes it from me without asking, lifting it as effortlessly as I’d lift a bag of bread. “This way,” he says, and we walk down the hallway to the elevator to take it one floor up to Ash’s room.
After walking past legions of Secret Service agents, Luc swipes the hotel keycard to access the presidential suite, and then we’re inside, Luc trundling off with my suitcase and me walking straight for the large armchair where Ash is sitting. I’m still in my gown, and it flutters and glints in the low golden light of the room as I stride towards him.
I’m ready to draw blood, but then I see how tired he looks. His jacket is off and thrown carelessly over the bed, his bow tie unknotted. He’s balancing a tumbler of scotch on his knee, and something about the color in his cheeks tells me that it isn’t his first. And the weariness in his face is so profound, so deeply etched, that I can’t bear to add to it, which irritates me. How dare he be tired when I need him to be strong? When I need him calm enough to weather the storm I want to scream into existence?
He looks up at me, green eyes nearly liquid with exhaustion. “You’re angry about something,” he comments.
I don’t ask how he guessed, because even if it weren’t written all over my face, he’d still know. “Yes.”
“We have a few things to talk about then.” He takes a sip of his scotch and then waves over toward the bar. “You want something to drink?”
“Actually, I think I do.”
As Luc leaves and we’re left alone, I make myself a small glass of single malt, walk over to the chair across from him and sit down. I don’t choose to sit at his feet, a choice he notices but doesn’t remark on.
A choice that hurts me more than it hurts him, I think.
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But still, stubborn and cranky, I stay perched on the chair, refusing to give him anything until he gives me some answers.
“I think you should go first,” he says, twirling the glass on his knee. Even slumped back in his chair, he looks powerful. Even exhausted he looks in charge. It’s both marvelous and terribly unfair.
“Fine,” I say. “Okay.”
And then realize I have no segue into the things we need to talk about, no warm-up. I just have to dive in. I take a deep breath and look Ash square in the face.
“Embry told me he loves me tonight.”
“I believe I told you he loves you tonight as well, only you didn’t believe me.”
“I told him I love him too.”
Ash takes this like a blow he knew was coming but still wasn’t entirely prepared for. A look of hurt—real, awful hurt—crosses his face, and he lifts his glass to his lips and drains the entire thing in a few practiced swallows. When he’s finished, he sets the glass on the table next to him and looks at me with eyes the color of pain. “So you did,” he says softly. “And then what did he say?”
“Not much of anything, because right after I told him that, I told him that I saw you two kissing on Christmas Eve.”
The blood drains from Ash’s face. This he hadn’t expected, he hadn’t seen coming. “Oh my God, Greer,” he says in a horrified voice, “why didn’t you say anything?”
I nearly explode. I shoot straight to my feet, towering over him in my stupidly tall heels. “Why didn’t I say anything? Why didn’t I say anything about my fiancé cheating on me? Why didn’t I say anything about the only men I’ve ever been with, the two men I love, being in a secret relationship for ten fucking years?”
I don’t know what I expected Ash to do, but it wasn’t to grab my hips and yank me down onto his lap. His arm is an iron bar around my back, his hand implacable and heedless of my carefully styled up-do as he fists my hair to make sure I’m looking at his face.
