Page 98 of X: Command Me through Alexander’s Eyes

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“So we’re back to this?” There’s no hint of disgust in Edward’s voice. Instead, he joins me, dropping into a chair across from me and grabbing the bottle of Scotch. I hadn’t bothered with a glass. He doesn’t either. After a long swig, he stretches it out to me.

I accept and take another drink.

“David still not talking to you?” I ask. I’m not entirely certain where the saying ‘misery loves company’ comes from, but it’s only half wrong. Misery doesn’t mind company, mostly because misery doesn’t give a fuck. That’s the point.

“He’ll come around.” I envy his certainty. Edward looks better than I do. He’s dressed in real clothes, or at least, fresh ones. His hair is combed, and his face clean-shaven. He pushes his horn-rimmed glasses higher as if he’s performing a similar inspection of me.

I know what he sees. My shirt and trousers weren’t wrinkled when I put them on yesterday. I’d been determined then. Right until the moment, I found a stack of newspapers next to my breakfast, each one containing speculation on the abrupt departure of Clara from the country this weekend.

“Do you know who sold the story?” Edward asks, guessing why I’m upset.

“Does it matter? All my friends are silver-tongued serpents. I have no one.”

Edward pauses a beat and reaches for the Scotch. He takes a steadying drink. “You have me, Alex.”

I blink, realizing he thinks I’ve lumped him in with Pepper and Jonathan and the rest of the troop of sycophants. “I know.”

“Do you?” he presses.

I swallow and force myself to confront the truth. During my days on the front, I had friends, close friends. They were scattered to the four winds now, vanishing to different lives. I knew better than to think a man like me would ever have a family like that again, makeshift and ragtag as it was. But I never really considered how alone my brother must have felt all these years. He’d been a kid when I left. Part of me had persisted in seeing him that way. But he’s not. He’s my brother. A friend. A place to start building a new family of my choosing. “I do.”

“So we’re friends?”

“Yeah,” I say slowly.

“Good.” He settled into the chair, dark eyes narrowing like a hawk. “So, how are you going to win her back?”

“I’m not.” My jaw clenches, and I wonder if all of this is some manipulation. But for what end? Clara will never want to see me again. She offered her heart, and I ripped it to shreds. I hadn’t even had the decency to see her safely home.

“Why?’ The question is pointedly simple.

“Because I’m no good for her,” I growl.

“You are not your title,” he says in a soft voice.

“You sound like mum,” I say wearily and wish I could swallow it back. “Edward, I’m—”

“It’s okay. I suspect that’s a compliment.” He’d never met our mother. She’d died giving birth to him. No one had expected her death, especially our father.

“It is,” I say carefully, “but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong about being no good for her.” Edward didn’t know about the darkness that consumed me. He didn’t understand my affection came tainted with a brutal, consuming need to possess.

If I expect sympathy, my brother delivers the opposite. He shoots to his feet, his voice shaking, “What is your fucking excuse, Alex?”

“What’s wrong with you?” I look up, surprised by the volatile outburst. It’s not like him to take such a strong turn toward anger.

“I live every day in secret. I keep my boyfriend hidden. We sneak around. We endure snide comments. Because we aren’t an approved set. And you sit there: a man and a woman.”

“Thanks for the anatomy lesson.” He ignores my snide interjection.

“I live in two worlds. But you”—he points a trembling finger at me—“you can walk down the street with her, dance with her, kiss her, marry her.”

“I don’t want to marry her,” I bite out.

He barks a laugh. “You do, and you know it. She’s the one, and you aren’t too stupid to see it.”

“I’m not?” Fury seethes from me, and I put down the bottle before I throw it at him.

“You see it. You feel it. It’s there every time you look at her. It’s why our father has been acting like a toddler for weeks. It’s why every tabloid is hanging on your every move. You’re not stupid or blind—you’re punishing yourself.” He pauses, his chest heaving from his tirade. “Still. Stop punishing yourself. You can be happy. Be happy.”

“That’s a ringing endorsement,” I say dryly. Straightening up, I shrug my shoulders. “Why would I punish myself?”

He only hesitates for a second, but the pause gives him time to soften. “I know everything...about Sarah, and after…”

“Everything?” I lift a brow. “I doubt that.”

“You don’t deserve pain,” he says in a quiet voice.

“I don’t deserve happiness.” It slips out before I can stop it.

Edward throws his hands in the air as if giving up. He stalks toward the corridor that leads to his apartment. “Take it anyway. One of us should.”

I want to yell after him, demand he takes the advice he so easily throws at me. Instead, his words stir inside me, mixing to form an idea. I never wanted this world. It’s poison. Even now, with my brother, my friend, it sullies everything. It taints me. It cages me. I told myself I’d never let it do the same to Clara.

But I’ve never stopped to consider there might be another way. I don’t want this world. I never have, but I’ve never had a reason to make my own world.

I do now.