Married To A Duke

It is true...

One more week later…

Amelie

“Just because I think you’d ask this again and again, I’m telling you that your friend, Summer, is okay. And as happy as she could be. And safe. And for that very reason— her safety, she’s not here.”

Summer would only be happy if she was with Gabriel. And Gabriel would not leave her side to keep her safe.

“I could tell you only one thing, Amelie, it wouldn’t matter to him if you are Summer’s best friend or not. And even when sometimes he comes off amused and unthreatening, he wouldn’t hesitate to get back at you however he sees fits. He’s dangerous to his core. He is a wolf. And not just by his last name.”

It would matter to Gabriel, because he cared for Summer and he’d never hurt her by hurting me.

“Then isn’t he supposed to focus on his wife, they mate for life. Don’t they? And looking at him now, whenever I say Summer’s name I don’t see the love in his eyes. Why is that?”

Zurich hadn’t answered that question of mine. And when I had asked about his brother, Mac, that I knew trailed after Gabriel just like Jesse does now. He had said, “You know what, I was mistaken. You are more than a shy and beautiful woman I thought you to be. And now I understand why you three are friends.”

I sat upright on the bed. Oh my God. I narrowed my eyes in the dark. What if it’s true? It is true…Because this Gabriel couldn’t be the same man who had looked dangerous and devastated when he hadn’t found Summer in her house all those years ago. He couldn’t be the same Gabriel who had broken into a car that was already on fire to save the love of his life. The Gabriel my friend fell in love with would never cheat on his wife. The Gabriel my friend talked about would never leave her side.

Not to mention other small things. The absence of Mac and Lily. His autocratic bearing. The piano, I can’t imagine Gabriel playing one. And his shadow, Jesse, who always looked like he’d be more at home guarding a medieval castle than here in this bustling city.

I gasped in the dark as realisation dawned.

That fûcking lying, arsehole.

Raphael

My eyes opened slowly as the ceiling of my bedroom came into focus. It was the same recurring dream. I wish I could say it doesn’t hurt anymore but it does. It leaves me feeling hollow and with a fierce ache in my chest every time I dream of them. My parents. The family I had. The perfect, happy family with parents who loved each other and their sons, a twin brother and a little sister on the way.

I rubbed a hand down my face and decided to get out of the bed as sleep wouldn’t come now. Throwing the covers away, I slipped out of the bed and padded barefoot to the closet to grab a pair of faded jeans, it has lost all its starch and felt smooth and relaxing. It was the only thing that was faded and years old I have. Buttoning the jeans, I made way out of my room.

Years of him being my shadow had me aware of the moment Jesse detached himself from the wall and started trailing behind me and it was the only reason I wasn’t startled because I knew. “Get some sleep, Jesse.”

“I will, your grace.” He answered, and we both knew he won’t. God knows when does he sleep.

“Tell me, Jesse, what do you think will happen if you left my side for one day?” I asked.

“I don’t know, your grace. But I’ll be more than happy to stand between you and any danger that comes your way.” His answer was a matter of fact. “Not to come across as arrogant but what happened a week ago makes my worries more viable.”

A week ago as he pointed out, he caught a man trying to sneak into the house through the window that over looked the main street. And I had happened to be wandering the hall at the same time, once again woken from my dream, and I had caught the man from behind who reacted on impulse, his knife catching me on the arm. “But he wasn’t here for me, was he?” I questioned as I slipped inside the room, bare except the piano dominating it. It wasn’t mine, just a substitute, mine was in London at my estate. I’d say that was my first love if you will. It was the only materialistic thing that I’d kill for.

“Which brings me to my earlier statement regarding her, she’s not your responsibility, your grace.”

I sat down on the small bench in front of the piano and turned sideways to look at him. “She is in danger, Jesse, which now we know is deadly if the man who came to attack her or kidnap her was any indication.”

“It seems to me that you are forgetting, that you are a married man here, your grace.” He said his eyes staring back at me.

“So am I.” I murmured as I turned away from him. The fact that I was married in her eyes and that every time the spark between us comes to life, she runs for the hills was quite daunting. And it fills me with irritation, not to mention that since that time in her room when I had allowed her to bandage me which had once again led to us coming close, only to jump apart because of both our secrets. That had once again prompted her to hide from me. I had only gotten glimpses of her from here and there, in passing or when I looked up just in time to catch her peeking down at me from the window in her room.

I placed my fingers on the ivory keys ready to begin when Jesse’s next word stopped me. “She is pregnant.” My fingers dipped in their own accord, filling the room with a discorded sound.

I turned around and Jesse bowed his head, no doubt my eyes giving away my anger. “And?” I questioned. I already knew it, but it still rankled. The man responsible for her condition was already dead if Zurich’s sources were to believed but sometimes I wished he wasn’t so I could do the honors. It was obvious that the man had seduced her to get acknowledged by her father, giving him information about Gabriel that he had learned from her in the first place to have a place in her father’s business.

For a whole minute Jesse didn’t say anything but finally squaring his shoulders as if he was venturing to face a wild animal, he said, “If you don’t mind me putting it bluntly..” I scoffed, like it has ever stopped him before. “She had an affair which resulted in this pregnancy and she’s not married to that man, if rumors are right then that man is dead. And now she’s becoming shamefully familiar with a man that she believes is her best friend’s husband.”

“You do realise that we live in the twenty first century, Jesse. Don’t you?” I waved my hand as I said, “And it doesn’t matter as you can see she hasn’t spoken to me in the last two weeks.”

“Which grates on your nerves.” He pointed out.

I stared at him. Sometimes I wished he wasn’t my shadow as he was, because he knows too much for my liking. “What do you want, Jesse?” To my own ear my words sounded irritated.

“I don’t like it.” I arched a brow. “She’s distracting you.” True, that.

“You are overacting, Jesse. Soon my brother would be here and I’ll be back where I’m supposed to be with no one the wiser. This pretention is only for his sanity so he can spend the next few months with his pregnant wife, keeping her in front of his eyes twenty four seven without being afraid of someone hurting her and his unborn heir to get back to him, while the rest of the world who knows Gabriel Wolfe thinks that he got bored of his wife and doesn’t care about her anymore as I rule this city in his stead with his name.”

I turned away from him then and focused back on what I came here to do. To lost myself in the only thing that gives me a little bit of peace that I could get in this world. I started with the one that I had learned when I was seven. It was easy enough, the music a soothing one. Almost like a lullaby. Slowly my fingers got into position, flowing over the keys in a perfect cadence as I began to move up and up. The speed and tempo started to increase, turning more dark with each key I pressed.

I felt the prickle of awareness at my bare back and without turning around I knew she was there. I must have spend sometime lost in the music as I knew that she was standing there alone without Jesse guarding me. My heartbeat quickened as my fingers sped up, I could feel the strain in my muscles but it felt too good to stop. And then something happened that stopped my heart. My fingers halted breaking the rhythm but I didn’t stop as I felt her fingers lightly settling on my shoulders before her palms made contact and her hands settled fully on my body.

We stayed like that for a long time, even after I finished my piece and the silence stretched. The soothing kind. And the peace I had been feeling since I started playing was still there.

“It was beautiful.” She said, her words soft and husky.

I let my hand move up and covered hers where it lay on my shoulder. “Couldn’t sleep?” I asked.

A beat of silence and I imagined her thinking what she wanted to share, but then her hands slipped down my arms, making my muscles tense with her soft gliding touch. “I did sleep. But then something woke me up.”

“What?” I barely recognised my own voice.

“A sudden urge to get close to you.”I tilted my head back and looked at her. She wasn’t a raving beauty at first glance, no… she was more subdued. A rare gem that only sparkles in a certain way, in a certain light. Upside down, I looked at her, watched the smooth, delicate column of her throat as she looked down at me.

“And whose responsibility that would be?” I asked, though I was loathe to remind her of that but the last conversation in her room was still alive in my mind and not to mention her guilt. She swallowed as her hands came up, back to their initial place at my shoulders and then slid down to my front. My pectoral muscles flexed under her touch. “You are dangerously close to being tossed on the nearest surface, and I assure you I won’t be suffering any guilt for taking what you are readily giving me…”

“Won’t you?” She questioned, her eyes shaded with an odd emotion that I couldn’t understand. As much as her touch was hot, her eyes and face were carefully bank. On the verge of cold, one would think that she was angry. But before I could answer, she dipped down as at the same time her hand on my jaw tipped my head back to fit her lips on mine, effectively stopping me from saying a word.

Unlike the other time, her lips worked over mine. She kissed me like she knew what she was doing and I took great satisfaction in knowing that I taught her that, how to kiss. Whoever that fûck Adam was, the bastard hadn’t taught her much nor if I was right he had given much thought to what she needed.

As far as I knew Amelie was a woman who was not aware of her own sexuality, a tempting creature for a man like me, ready to be taught, to be pleasured and to please. And I was too selfish because I was happy that that Adam had been incapable of fulfilling her needs because I wanted to be the one to do all that and more. It didn’t matter to me that we were still strangers to each other. That she hadn’t shared anything about her, even the news if her pregnancy didn’t come from her. But then who was I to question, I hadn’t told her the truth that she should know, that would absolve her of her guilt. That would free her from the fight she fights with herself for desiring me. But now, her fight was absent and I didn’t want to bring that now… I wanted to kiss her back. So I did.

To Be Continued....