Page 111 of In Knots

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After a while, I feel the nudge of Claude’s warm nose against my cheek, and then he licks me. I roll onto my side and drag him to me, ruffling the soft fur around his head.

“I missed you too, Claudie. I’m sorry I left you. But you have to understand, I think I’m falling for these alphas.” I flop back onto the bed and Claude climbs onto my chest and snuggles down. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I tell him. He stares at me as if he understands. “I can’t get them into trouble. I couldn’t live with myself. But how can I live without them? How can I live with a man like Simon Stanford?”

Claude has no answers for me. Soon, he’s asleep, snoring quietly and leaving me with my emotions in knots.

After a while, I lift Claude onto the bed. I don’t have my phone and when I search the room, I can’t find my laptop or my iPad. I guess they were taken. In fact, the more I look at my room, the more I realise everything is a little out of place. As if it’s been searched, everything moved and rearranged, and then put back. Except not quite right. The books stand in the wrong order, the clothes hanging in the wardrobe drape in an odd way and the mess that usually sits across my desk has been tidied. I suppose they must have gone through my stuff when they were looking for me, trawled my laptop and my iPad for clues, not that they’d have found any. Without them though, I’m stuck. I have no way to communicate with the outside world. I could try running again like I did before, but I know this time I won’t even make it through the front door.

I sink to the floor and Claude follows me, jumping down from the bed and brushing against my arm until I reward him with a stroke.

“I can’t even tell them,” I say. “I can’t even tell them goodbye or explain what happened. They’ll think I just deserted them. They’ll think that Cam was right in the first place, that I never really cared about them, that I was using them. But I wasn’t Claude. I really wasn’t.”

Time passes, and I don’t move from my spot on the floor. Eventually, Claude tires of me, slinking out of the open window. I watch him go with an overwhelming sense of jealousy.

Am I giving up? I could go downstairs and argue it out with my parents again. I know them though. They won’t change their minds. The length my father has gone to track me down and drag me back, shows just how determined he is on this matter.

More time passes. The housekeeper knocks on my door and enters with a tray of food. She barely looks at me as she places the tray down on my desk and turns and leaves. Has she been given instructions not to talk to me?

“Where is Jonathan?” I ask her. She won’t help me, but Jonathan might. I haven’t always been upfront with him, but he wouldn’t approve of this. Then again, a month ago, I could never have imagined my parents would force this on me either.

“He’s left,” the housekeeper says, her nervous eyes darting to the doorway.

“Left? Gone where?”

She wrings her hands together, clearly unsure how much she should tell me. “They fired him.”

“Fired him? Jonathan? Why?”

She shrugs and scampers from the room before I can ask her anymore. But I already know the answer. Of course, I do. They blame him for all this mess. He was meant to be keeping watch over me after all.

The food is some vegetable soup, a crusty roll resting alongside. The smell makes my stomach turn. I have no appetite. This whole situation makes me sick.

I leave the food untouched.

More time passes. Then my mother arrives. It’s afternoon now. I can tell by the mellowing light and the flocks of swifts soaring across the sky in formation.

Behind my mother, is a small lady, her grey hair bobbed and dark-rimmed glasses framing her brown eyes. In her arms, she carries several zip-up bags. My mother beckons to my bed and the woman strides inside my room and lays down the bags, beginning to unzip the first one.

My mother scowls at me.

“Stand up, Alexa. Madame Laurent has brought you some wedding dresses to try on. She has kindly agreed to work overnight to fit this for you.”

I peer up at my mother, making no effort to move. “Alexa!” My mother hisses, bending down to whisper near my ear, “You heard what your father said. Stand up and go and wash your face. I don’t want mascara on these dresses.”

I keep staring up at her. I’m sure my misery must be written all over my face as clear as day.

“I don’t want to try on a dress,” I say loud enough for Madame Laurent to hear. “I don’t want to get married.”

My mother turns to the seamstress, laughing falsely. “Pre-wedding jitters, that’s all. It’s been very quick. Everyone gets these nerves.” My mother’s gaze flits between me and the seamstress. “Madame Laurent, perhaps you could step outside for one minute while Alexa undresses down to her underwear.”

“Of course, Ma’am,” the seamstress says, bowing her head and leaving the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

Immediately, my mother rounds on me, her hands tight fists on her hips. “Do you understand what happens to men in prison? Do you understand what your father could arrange? I always thought you were a smart girl, but now I’m beginning to doubt that. You don’t have any options here, Alexa. Start cooperating and make this easier for all of us.”

“How could you do this to me?” I ask her, but she simply rolls her eyes.

“What? Protect you from the worst decision you could ever possibly make. Alexa, please see sense.” She sighs. “I’m sure when you try one of these dresses on you will feel so much better. A wedding is such a magical experience for a young woman. Try on the dress. Please.” And for the first time, I see something wavering in my mother’s eyes, and I realise perhaps this isn’t her doing. My father is her alpha after all. What he says goes. She has little say in the matter really.

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