X: Command Me through Alexander's Eyes - Geneva Lee Page 0,59
building. There are no reporters in sight. As we merge into London morning traffic, he watches me in the rearview mirror. “It’s interesting that your first instinct is to apply royal resources to protect her, though, despite knowing they won’t be made available.”
“They should be. She’s being dissected by every tabloid in the country.” In the world, if I’m being honest.
“Yes, but that won’t stop with a security detail. If you want them to leave her alone, there is a simple solution.”
I lean forward, gripping the shoulders of the front seats. “Which is?”
“Break things off,” he says coolly.
“They’ll still follow her.”
“See another woman. Someone suited to the spotlight. Miss Lockwood seems eager for the opportunity.”
Now he’s just baiting me, but to what end? “I’d rather stick my cock in a light socket,” I say grimly, “but you know that.”
“Well, then you’re at an impasse.”
I retrace the conversation’s twists until I’m back at what started it. “Why shouldn’t she use the door?”
“They’re going to keep coming after her. The more she hides, the more aggressive they’ll become. You can’t lock her away in a tower and take her out to play with her.” He sighs as though all of this should be obvious. “If you want her protected, you have to protect her.”
“We’ll never leave the bedroom if I’m her bodyguard,” I say shortly. He’s got a point, but not a solution.
“Not you, exactly. But you have to decide what you can do to help her and keep her safe,” he advises.
I do have resources—money of my own, holdings, titles, bank accounts. I rarely bother with any of it. Everything at Buckingham is taken care of. There are secretaries to see to most other needs. “A security detail. I’ll need your help…unless you want the job.”
“I’m happy to step in as necessary, but someone has to keep you from your own worst enemy,” he says.
“Who’s that?”
“Yourself,” he says as though this is patently obvious. “I’ll look into it, and once that’s figured out, you need to prepare her.”
Is all romance so complicated? I feel as though I’m coordinating a military attack. “Prepare her for what?”
“For the day, she is royalty,” he says evenly.
I laugh, half-surprised, half-awed by his balls. “That sure of her, are you?”
Norris arches an eyebrow and asks the one question I refuse to ask myself. “Aren’t you?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Norris’s words stick with me as I stalk into Buckingham. Am I that sure of Clara? I know what taking her to my father’s party signaled. When I’d asked her, I’d been desperate to win her back. Now, I have to consider that I’ve sent a very clear message to her and my family.
A message I didn’t intend to send.
“This is why you don’t do relationships,” I mutter to myself as I force a grim smile at a passing housekeeper.
“Nice of you to join us,” Edward says dryly when I enter our shared quarters. We’d moved into the space when we came of age. At the time, our father had opposed the idea of us taking residences at Kensington or Clarence House. I suspect he wanted to keep an eye on us—or at least pretend to do so. In truth, he never bothers coming to our rooms. We don’t bother going to his. Most of our interactions are conducted in his private offices. Our family is a business. We sell tradition and ceremony and hundreds of years of bullshit.
I scratch my head as he sips a cup of coffee from a wingback in the sitting room. His gaze scans down me, taking in my wrinkled tuxedo, half-buttoned and untucked. Edward, on the other hand, is already dressed for the day in a pair of blue tweed trousers and a crisp Oxford rolled at the wrists. The Omega on his wrist informs me that it’s past ten.
“You left suddenly,” he says. It’s a prompt—his way of asking if I want to talk about it.
“There was no reason to stay.” Our father made his position clear. I made mine.
“It didn’t have anything to do with your date running off before the stroke of midnight?” He’s not going to let this go. For better or worse, my brother’s taken it upon himself to serve as my conscience since I returned to London.
“I expect our father is preparing his lecture,” I say harshly. “I don’t need yours.” I continue toward the hall to grab a shower and brace myself for whatever shit storm I’ve started this time.