Burning Your Lies (King and Queen Duet #2)

13

Xavier

I scan over every word on the page and scowl as I do. The edges of the paper crinkle from my tight grip on them. All that bullshit she spewed two weeks ago about forgetting and a truce was a ploy, because she wants me to bend over and give her what she wants. Her plan has not changed; just her method. She wants to steal Elise from me. Her returning has nothing to do with me or Ray. She only wants Elise and this time she’s using the law to get what she wants. Over my dead body.

“Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Brynn places a beautifully displayed fruit platter in front of me.

I sigh and rub my temples.

“Savannah has served me with court papers. Joint custody of Elise.”

She stops chewing her apple.

“Oh. I thought you were going to say that your company lost millions or something.”

“Do you believe that is a bigger loss?”

Her eyes widen, and she shakes her head.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that isn’t the worst thing in the world. She clearly loves her from what I saw, and it’s not like she’s asking for full custody.”

I can’t blame Brynn for not understanding how devious Savannah is being because she doesn’t know the full story. She isn’t aware that Savannah had already tried to flee the country with her. There’s no way for her to know this is just a plot to hurt me after I tried to help her. I know Savannah is going to fill Elise’s head with nonsense. Even that day, all that talk about Emery grated on my nerves.

“She’s my daughter. This is her home.”

She shoots a pointed stare my way.

“You’re never here, Xavier. If she’s lucky, she might see you for ten minutes in the morning and before bed. I’m just saying, it might be good if she has a more … present parent available.”

When I don’t respond, she shakes her head.

“I apologise. It is not my business, and I have overstepped.”

I hold her hand to stop her from walking away.

“You’re right. I haven’t been present in her life, but that’s only because I’m trying to build a future for her.”

Her sad smile pierces through me.

“Look around, Xavier. You’ve already done that. You’ve just failed to build a home for her.”

She kneels on the floor and looks up at me.

“Forgive me if I am speaking out of turn, but after only three months, I look at that little girl and feel overwhelmed with love for her. She is not my daughter. I did not carry her in my womb. I did not endure hours of labour to bring her into the world. I did not nurse her.”

She squeezes my hand.

“But Savannah did. She has a right over Elise.”

Brynn is a rare diamond; unscratched and blindly beautiful. Brynn is the one I should have spent my life waiting for. She is my checkmate.

My thumb brushes the tops of her cheek.

“Your heart is so pure.”

Her hand meets mine.

“I think she’s a fool,”

she whispers.

“Because no matter how much I know I should run away from you, I can’t.”

I stop stroking her cheek.

“Why do you want to run?”

Why do you want to leave me?

She lets out a heavy breath.

“Because there’s clearly some unresolved issues between you and her. And I don’t want to get tangled in that mess.”

Tucking her hair behind her ear, I smile at her.

“There is no mess. Nothing like that ever happened with Savannah.”

The lie feels heavy on my tongue.

“She only stayed after the birth because Emery was gone, and I needed help. I promise, it was never anything more.”

“Are you sure?”

I show my commitment by kissing her. I’m soft with her, almost afraid to rumple her delicate petals. Brynn accepts our first kiss and her lips dance perfectly in sync with mine. Her eyes are closed as she finally gives into the fate I have created. And it’s everything I have wanted.

My eyes land on the papers again, and I know what I need to do.

Savannah needs to go.

“What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you want me to work today because I was just about to…”

Her mouth shuts when I shove the papers into the chest. She rolls her eyes.

“I see you got your papers.”

I turn on my heels and shoot daggers at her.

“What the hell? What happened to forgetting the past and that fucking bullshit?”

She tosses the papers at me and crosses her arms.

“I meant that. This isn’t me bringing up the past. It’s about the future and my one has Elise in it.”

“So, you’re not doing this to hurt me? To punish me?”

Another eye roll.

“If I wanted to hurt you, I would have asked for full custody. I just want to see my daughter without having to ask your permission.”

“She’s not your daughter,”

I seethe.

“You were just a fucking parcel service.”

She steps back as if my attack was physical. Tears brim in her eyes and she shakes her head in disbelief.

“You know, of all the fucked up shit you’ve done to me, I think that hurts the most. A parcel service? Is that what you’ve belittled me down to?”

I shrug, trying to ignore the stabbing in my chest from her tears.

“Don’t act like it was anything more to you.”

“Maybe it was foolish to love you. And it may be even more foolish to admit just how much I loved you. But I did.”

My voice carries the betrayal I feel.

“And then you married him.”

She walks past me and opens the door.

“I’m not doing this with you. Get out.”

I storm towards her and slam the door shut.

“No, Savannah! Lets! Let’s talk about how I saved you, and you married him.”

“You told everyone I was crazy! You put me in a fucking care home!”

She doesn’t back down from our staring match.

“You needed help! I did that. I paid for your care!”

“I needed help to get away from you,”

she spits.

“You paid to keep my mouth shut. And then you did everything you could to hurt me.”

Those pills have distorted her memory. Her ungratefulness has no other explanation. I sacrificed my marriage, my sanity, my heart for her. I protected her even when she didn’t know she needed it.

“Hurt you?”

I echo.

“I came to visit you, so you were never alone. I took my daughter into that place full of nutcases. For you!”

“She’s my daughter too,”

she says lowly.

“She’s not just yours. And the only reason you had to bring her there was because you needed to silence me.”

“I would have given you the world,”

I remind her.

“All you had to do was say yes.”

Her chest rises and falls. There’s an internal fight playing out in her eyes as she watches me. A single tear streaks down her face.

“I told you I just want to forget. I don’t want to hash this out with you. I want to be free of you, Xavier.”

She is just like my mother and the others. She used me and now wants to discard of me. No one possesses such power over me. I don’t disappear. I make people disappear.

“How much?”

“What?”

“How much money? I will give you whatever the fuck you want. Just get out of here. Forget about Elise. Have your own baby. But you’re not taking mine.”

Her hand covers her mouth but the laugh still evades.

“I think we’ve seen this movie before. What, Xavier? You promise me money and then put me on a plane. I should ask Elliot how that plot played out.”

Everything in her screams disgust at me.

“You could offer me all the money in the world, and I will never take it. Because paying a debt to you would equal my life. Or, as we both know, you prefer a diamond.”

I’m very aware this could all be a ploy to get me to admit to murder. She probably has a camera recording the whole thing. I stand taller and smooth my hair over.

“I have a chance at real love. Someone who loves me.”

She shakes her head.

“The problem isn’t her ability to love you. You are very easy to love. Emery said that to me once and I wish I heard the warning in her voice. But the problem is that you are incapable of loving anyone. You are a sociopath with psychopathic tendencies. This ideal you have built in your head of a wife and family is not because you truly want it. You only desire it to appear normal. Your brain is wired so you cannot fall in love. You did not love me. You do not love Elise or Brynn. So do us all a favour, and let us go.”

She is wrong. Elise and Brynn would not be happier without me. I provide for them. I protect them. Without me, Brynn would be lost in the big city, with no friends to call her own. She would be jobless. Elise would be without a secure future. She would live a mediocre life.

“Perhaps you are right. I did not love you. I stand by what I said to Emery the night she found out. I was desperate, and you were easy. You were a bankrupt stripper who I gave purpose to. But Brynn is not you. She is sophisticated and graceful. She is my true queen.”

She smiles at me.

“You can change the board. You can change the players. But eventually everyone realises the king is not worth protecting.”