****
"Staffan." Rathe was warily surprised at seeing his friend's name flash on the screen of his phone.
They exchanged pleasantries, the rock star no doubt in his hotel suite with his bride while Rathe sat alone inside one of his more nondescript-looking cars, a black Chevy that would not draw any kind of attention and hint at the presence of a duke inside it.
"Did you call me for a specific reason?" He was impatient, wanting to concentrate on Mary.
Staffan raised a brow at his friend's curt tone.
The silent response got to him and Rathe flushed. It was not like him to be without courtesy. "I'm sorry. I just have a lot of things on my mind." He kept his brooding gaze on Mary, who was now crossing the field to take a shortcut to the building where her first class was. According to the copy of her class schedule – something he paid the registrar to print for him – her first class was Literature, which meant she would be under …
Professor Byron.
And speaking of the devil, the ugly bugger appeared in his line of vision, wearing his customary tweed jacket. Rathe stiffened when he saw the man hurrying after Mary upon seeing her.
Bloody hell.
"---listening to me?"
Rathe said between clenched teeth, "I have to go. I need to---"
"---go after Mary Ashton like a stalker?"
He stilled.
The silence at the other end of the line was difficult to gauge and Staffan, after taking a look at Saffi, who was still thankfully asleep in their bed, left the bedroom and went to the veranda. It was a good distance away from Saffi, enough to ensure that she would not overhear what he and Rathe would talk about.
"You better have a reason for what you're doing, Rathe," he said grimly when he was out of earshot. "You didn't really think I would just let a friend of Saffi alone without protection?"
No. Unconsciously, he had known that it was unlikely that Staffan, who was paranoid about his privacy and excessively protective over Saffi, would just let anyone near his wife without going through the person's background thoroughly. If he approved of that person, and Rathe knew that was a given where Mary was concerned, Staffan would go to extraordinary lengths to keep the people Saffi cared for safe as well.
Rathe had known all of this from the start or at least he had considered it possible, but like so many things that had to do with Saffi, he had deliberately avoided the facts that he did not like and focused on what was convenient for him to accept.
"She's under my protection now," he said in a hard tone.
"I know you're doing the best you can to protect her from her stepfather, but that's not really what I'm asking."
Rathe said coldly, "Then what you're asking is none of your bloody business."
"She is my wife's friend---"
"And now she's my mistress."
One, two, three seconds passed before Staffan cursed him in Swedish.
He didn't flinch, didn't say a bloody thing to explain or defend himself.
"What the hell, Rathe? She's Saffi's friend, goddammit!"
He still did not say a thing.
"Don't pull that ducal shit on me, Rathe. It's not going to fucking work. Why? Why her, dammit?"
Rathe bit out, "I don't know."
Whatever he wanted to say died after that, Staffan never expecting to hear such an admission from his proud friend.
"I can't explain it. It was as if I only had to see her once and that was it. I wanted her."
"Do you understand what you're saying?" Staffan asked quietly. "You speak as if---"
He laughed harshly. "I know what you're about to say and it's not that."
"That you love her?"
Rathe did not hesitate. "No. I don't bloody love her." Knowing his friend would not want to hear the rest he had to say, Rathe still continued anyway, not wanting any lies between them. "I only want to own her."
He expected Staffan to be furious, but all his friend said was, "Bullshit."
Staffan knew how Rathe's childhood had been and he knew that what happened to his friend in the past was now the driving force behind every stupid decision he made when it came to Mary. "Rathe, I've been your friend for years. I know what happened. And I'm fucking telling you the truth, man – there is no reason why you can't be with Mary."
His fists clenched. "You may know what I've been through but you weren't the one who suffered."
"Your parents suffered, too, dammit, but they didn't give up! So why are you going to give up on her?"
"Because it's not fucking normal!" he snapped. "I'm sixteen fucking years older than Mary – old enough to be her goddamn father and that is NOT fucking normal the same way it's not fucking normal for my father to marry my mother."
"But they did. And they were in love."
"And they put all of us through hell," Rathe ended coldly. "So forgive me if I do not want to repeat the same thing. She will be well cared for while under my protection---"
"I don't care if you can buy her the fucking moon, Rathe. She's a nice girl and she's not the type to give a shit about money and you know that. Just fucking tell me – is she happy with you?"
He did not answer.
"If you think you won't ever stop being stubbornly blind about what you feel for her, then just let her go. Don't keep her by your side if you know you're going to hurt her more in the end."
Chapter Ten
Professor Byron was in the middle of his lecture when Mary felt someone taking a seat next to her at the back row. This startled her since as far as she knew, all the students of her class were accounted for.
"Mary."
She froze, unable to believe that she was hearing what she was hearing.
When she kept ignoring him, Rathe took her notebook and pen from her hands and scrawled a message on it.
Knowing she shouldn't but unable to resist, she looked down, her eyes prickling with tears when she saw what he had written.
I was an arsehole. I'm sorry.
When she did not speak, he pushed the pen towards her, hoping she would say something – anything – to let him know that he hadn't been too much of an arsehole that there was no way for him to get her back.
She shook her head faintly, not looking at him, keeping her gaze on Professor Byron.
A few students had finally noticed him, and they all recognized him as the man who had gatecrashed their poetry reading night. The whispers began and she shifted in her seat nervously. "Please go away," she told him without looking at Rathe.
"Then tell me we'll talk."
She said bitterly, "I live in your house. You could have talked to me anytime you wanted this week." Her voice choked. "But you didn't."
The pain that she wasn't speaking of but couldn't prevent from coloring her tone stung Rathe, and he couldn't stop himself from reaching out to her. "I'm sorry," he gritted out. "It was not you – it was---"
She looked at him with incredulous hurt on her face. "A cliché, Rathe?"
He swore. "It's not---"
"Just leave," she said wearily. "We'll talk after. Please."
After a while, she felt him standing and leaving. The tears fell. God, he made her feel so confused! One moment he was being sweet and gentle, the next moment he was being abrupt and hurtful. Was that what a mistress was about? To be a man's emotional punching bag?
The class ended soon enough but her eyes were thankfully dry by then. As she got up, she heard Professor Byron calling her name. She looked at him cautiously, wondering if he would take this opportunity to humiliate her, the same way she had unintentionally caused him embarrassment in the past.
Professor Byron was smiling at her, his gentle countenance the same as before and she slowly relaxed when his expression did not change as he reached her side. "I am sorry to hear about your accident," he said.
Ah. An accident. So that was the alibi Rathe had used to conceal the fact that she had almost been raped by her stepfather. Mary was thankful for it, knowing the rumors would be vicious if the truth about her attack was known.
"It was unfortunate," she said carefully. "B-but I'm okay now."
"I'm glad. I have another poetry reading scheduled next week. Would you like to come? Bonus points are offered, something you definitely need to pass this course." He gave her a regretful look. "You've missed a lot of classes."
She blinked at him. She had missed a lot of classes, but she had also aced all her exams in his class. Shouldn't that have made a difference?
The professor ignored Mary's confused look. He needed to get her alone so he could remind her that he was the man meant for her and not the aristocratic prick she had left him for a week ago. "Shall I see you then?" He kept his tone brisk this time, wanting to make her feel at ease and think that he was not coming on to her in any way.
It took Mary a while to answer, but she said quietly in the end, "All right."