“Why did you miss our date then?” he asked, sounding a little annoyed.
“She was helping me,” Mattie blurted out, and I was woman enough to admit that I’d forgotten she was in the room. Alex fucking eclipsed all else at the moment. Or at least my hatred for him did.
His brow furrowed with irritation. "You blew me off all weekend to hang out with Mattie? What the hell, Violet?"
I opened my mouth to take the easy out Mattie had just provided, but... nope. I was done. I couldn't keep up the pretense even if I’d wanted to, and I didn’t. I was fucking done with Alex and his fake bullshit, and it was time he knew.
Shaking my head, I sucked in a deep breath, then released it in a resigned sigh.
"Mattie, can I speak to Alex alone a moment?"
My friend made a small sound of protest. "Are you sure that's a good idea, Vi?"
Alex's blue eyes flared with anger at this comment, and again I saw the real Alex. Clearly this side of him had been lurking just under the surface the whole time, and I'd been too busy thinking with my vagina to notice it.
"I've got this handled," I assured her with a small, reassuring smile. As badly as I wanted to publicly tear Alex a new one, my own sense of decency told me not to break up with him in front of Mattie. This conversation was going to be ugly enough without my feisty, red-haired bestie yelling input from the sidelines.
She reluctantly left my room, giving Alex a death glare the whole time.
"Come in," I said when Mattie was in the corridor, stepping aside to let my duplicitous ex-boyfriend into my room. She shot me a meaningful look as I closed the door, and I nodded.
Our unspoken understanding was clear. If I needed her, she'd be here in a second ready to castrate this prick.
"Violet, what the fuck is going on?" Alex demanded when my door clicked shut, not waiting for me to speak. One of his many charms.
"We're done, Alex," I replied, too emotionally drained to deal with niceties.
His brows shot up and his body tensed. "Excuse me?"
I blinked at him, his innocent act fanning the fire of anger within me. "Did I stutter? I said we're done. Over. Finished. Find another stupid girl to fall for your act because I'm done."
Alex didn't move. Didn't blink. But something shifted... something about him suddenly became dangerous. Threatening. "My hearing must be compromised," he said in a soft voice underscored with raw fury. "I could have sworn you just tried to break up with me."
My brows shot up. "I didn't try shit, Alex. I did. We're fucking history, so you can throw your diabolical, disgusting plot with Claudette out the fucking window. You know what? Why don't you just knock that slut up instead? You've clearly been fucking her any chance you can get. Save us all a headache and make a new marriage arrangement."
His lips pursed, his jaw clenched, and a spike of fear ran through me. I'd hedged my bets on being a better fighter than him—if it came down to it. But what if his weak hits and sloppy form in those scuffles with Rafe had been part of his act? He'd had me fooled in every other aspect, so why not this too?
Shit.
Alex took a step toward me, and I instinctively backed away, my shoulders hitting my closed bedroom door. I wouldn’t give up my secret to him yet, not unless he attacked, so it was better to act a little scared.
"Violet," he said, still using that soft voice that I'd never heard from him before. "Are you scared of me?"
Fuck. Did I even know the answer to that question?
I shook my head. "Not even close, Alex." You fuckhead. "You made a mistake choosing me for this... whatever this is. I'm not remotely the girl you must think I am. Cut your losses and move on."
His brows quirked, and my broken heart squeezed painfully. He'd had me so completely under his spell, and just being around him was physically painful now.
"I don't know what you think you know—" he started to say, but I held up my hand.
"Stop. Just fucking stop. Every word out of your mouth is a lie, Alex." I was shaking. Fuck me, I was shaking, and he could see it in my hand suspended in the air. "Leave now, and I don't care what you tell people. Tell them you ended it 'cause I'm too much of a dirty peasant. Tell them I was shitty in bed. Tell them I cheated on you. I don't fucking care. Just stop faking it with me. I can't—" My voice hitched as tears threatened "—I can't do this, Alex. I can't look at you and not see that everything between us was one giant lie."
His eyes narrowed, but he didn't move any closer to me. "Violet, baby, you need to explain to me what you think you know. I thought we were good... I thought..." He trailed off, looking pained. Upset. It was like a fucking knife through my chest.
"Fuck you," I whispered, horrified and sickened. "You thought I was falling in love with you, didn't you?" I was accusing, but he still gave a small, confused nod. "So what was next, huh? What 'binding contracts' were you hoping to make me sign? Or were you going to just hit a home run and tamper with my birth control? Get me 'accidentally' pregnant and hope I had too much decency not to abort a royal baby?"
Alex sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes wide in shock. Understandable, given how much birth rates had declined over the past three generations. None more so than within the monarchies, though. The idea that anyone would abort a royal baby was unheard of and doubtless something Alex was counting on to trap me.
"Why?" I pressed on, my own broken heart needing to hear it from his lips. I should have just ended it and kicked him out, but I needed closure. "Why do this? Why not just arrange another betrothal like every other fucking royal at this school? Why use the princess ballot?"
Give me some damn information, you bastard.
I was determined to understand it all since they’d decided to drag me into it.
Alex's jaw clenched again, and his eyes hardened, no longer the twinkling, ocean-blue gems I was so painfully familiar with. Now they were like chips of ice, and I shuddered at the stark contrast.
"Well, it sounds like you have it all nearly figured out, Violet." He snapped the words out, biting them off in anger. "So I'll give you this for free. The princess ballot is there for one purpose and one only. To provide perfect genetic pairings for royalty to ensure their lines continue. There is no charity. The monarchies don't give two craps about giving some poor orphan girl a better start in life. You, just like every so-called ballot winner before you, are nothing more than a broodmare." His face twisted into something ugly. Terrifying. Now, when he stepped closer to me, unease shot through my body and my fists clenched at my sides.
"That's disgusting," I spat back at him, but my voice quivered. I could take a beating from the best fighter in the world and never cry. But Alex had trampled all over my heart and the emotions were too raw. Too real.
His lip curled in a sneer, and he stopped just short of pinning me to the door. "That's life, Violet. We all do what we must to survive in this fucked-up world."
I shook my head, in denial. "Do it with someone else, Alex. I'm out."
He laughed then, a cruel, mocking laugh that cut through me like blades, leaving my soul in tatters. "You don't get a choice in this, you stupid girl. Here's what's going to happen." He paused, shaking his head like he could hardly believe he needed to explain this to me. "You're going to go into the bathroom and clean yourself up. You stink. Then, tomorrow morning, when you're fresh and beautiful, dressed in your uniform and ready to start the day, we will leave here together. We will walk together, hand in hand like the loved up couple we are. When we reach the dining room, you'll sit with me. You'll smile and laugh and speak sweetly. You'll fucking kiss me like you can barely wait to ride my cock the second classes finish for the day."
I was damn near speechless, my jaw hanging open in shock.
"And if I don't?" I spluttered, the horror of what he was suggesting creeping over me like a thick black fog.
"If you don't?" He shook his head again, trailing a light hand down the side of my throat. My mind couldn't help bringing up the image of him and Claudette in the hallway, how he’d choked her and she’d come. "If you don't, then you'll find yourself with a broken neck at the bottom of a set of stairs. Just like Jasmine. Or worse."
I knew what he meant by “worse.” Claudette’s casual comment about non-consensual IVF labs in Siberia still haunted my memories.
Bile rose in my throat, and I could feel the blood draining from my face. "You killed her," I whispered accusingly. "I believed you when you said it was an accident."
A flicker of something passed across his eyes. Pain? Disappointment? Maybe it was just plain old psychosis.
"I didn't kill her," he said gently, his thumb still stroking the soft skin of my throat. "But it was no accident. Don't be stupid, Violet. Don't make them kill you too."
Oh fuck. My ears rang, and I needed to blink several times to fight back the creeping blackness. I was going to pass out if I didn't sit down soon. This was a million miles above my pay grade, and that was why they chose people like me. To them—and the world—we were nothing. We had no power. No rights.
Nothing.
"Take a breath," Alex ordered me, his voice cracking with command. He'd never spoken to me like that before. I hadn't even known he had it in him. "You're panicking."