"I don't need assistance," I insist when Lol asks for the third time what he can do. I'm leaned over the sink, allowing my nose to leak because I don't have the energy to tend to this just yet. I'm feeling drained. Empty. The woman has left me questioning everything.
"What's happened, Your Grace?" he asks and I sigh, finally pinching my nose.
I sit on the toilet and tilt my head back and he helps to wipe the blood from my throat.
"She's fucking Kipper." I mean to project it with hate, but it comes out sounding tired.
He pauses from wiping my neck. "Are you positive?"
"I walked in on him about to kiss her."
"That's your analysis?"
"They were close, Lol!" I'm aggravated he's questioning me.
"Mrs. Carbon is…" He pauses and steps back. "She's lost, Callum." He nods like I should understand what that means.
"Lost?" I spit at him. "What the fuck does that mean, Rupier?" I spring from the toilet seat and move to the sink to wash the blood from my beard.
"She's hurting. She's in need."
"In need of what?" I snarl, looking at him in the mirror.
"Of you, sir. Your affection, your attention, your love."
"I have no fucking love for that whore."
Our eyes meet and moments later he leaves the bathroom, harshly closing the door.
My wife the whore. And Kip. It's no surprise. He's always wanted what I've had and he's been making comments about Magdelena since he first saw her. She's always seemed to dislike him though. I never thought I'd have to worry about the woman cheating on me. How stupid do you have to be? You're married to a Duke. You have absolutely nothing except what I give you. And this is how you treat me?
I stare at my reflection, unable to shake the feeling she isn't cheating. I believe I walked in on him making a move on her, but is it so hard to assume she's a whore? Her clothes, the makeup, her entire sultry appeal.
She was a virgin for Christ's sake, Callum, I scold myself and let out a huff. I'll talk to her about it, but not today. Today we need distance.
"Fuck," I groan. We've had nothing but distance. But there's a goddamn reason for it! The distance prevents confusion and I'm beyond confused.
I don't have the answers, but I'm hoping we can sit down like civilized adults and figure this out. How I can keep her happy. How she can keep me happy. At least until I can divorce her.
I enter the dining room but it's empty. Generally she's eating her breakfast at this hour. Two hard boiled eggs. A bowl of fruit, usually berries, but there are days she's feeling more tropical and goes for melons. I check my watch again then head for the Great Room. After her breakfast she comes in here and blares her favorite song of the week twice before allowing any more music to play. Her and a few staff members chat while they pretend to clean but really they just want her attention because she's refreshing. The Great Room is empty. I go to the kitchen, because sometimes she likes to help put away the groceries. Today is Tuesday. On Tuesdays she insists the staff bring back lamb so the cook can make lamb chops. She found a new recipe months ago and he refused to make it for her the first few times. I discreetly had to step in and implore he make the meal she insisted. Ever since, she gives him at least one new recipe a week. Mostly they're horrendous. I eat the leftovers. And it seems the new recipes I don't like, are the ones she doesn't either. Those are the nights there's more food left over for me.
The kitchen is empty. With aversion, I try the cat's room, but his highness is asleep on a bed softer than mine. The gardens are my last stop before her bedroom, but I don't think she'd still be sleeping. Outside, I call her name several times, but it's quiet.
"Have you seen her?" I ask one of the staff as I enter the house again.
"Who, Your Grace?"
"Magdelena?" I snap at the dolt.
"No, Your Grace." He bows his head and I head to her room.
"Magdelena?" I knock at her bedroom door but don't get a response. With a huff, I open it. "Magdelena." The bedroom is empty and I roll my eyes.
Sometimes she'll be in the library, starting a book, putting it down and picking up another, on repeat, at times for hours. It's empty. It's not often she's in the game room unless she has someone to play with, and I haven't seen Lol, so thinking they're together, that's where I head. Coming up empty handed, I go to the monitors. The staff is buzzing everywhere but there is no sign of Magdelena…or Lol. I go to his room and pound before bursting in. It's dark, the closed curtains are blocking out the daylight and I move swiftly to turn on the lights, thinking I'll catch what has my heart hammering. But the bedroom is empty.
"Jasmine," I stop one of Magdelena's favorite maids. "Where's Lol?"
"I haven't seen him this morning, Your Grace." She bows her head and moves around me, getting back to work.
I pull my phone from my pocket and dial his phone number. It rings until voicemail. Then I try her phone and get immediate voicemail. Lastly I try his girlfriend.
"Callum." Her sultry voice comes over the line. I'm not attracted to her, but the woman oozes sex appeal for everyone but her inept boyfriend. I've told him countless times to stop wasting his life on her, but he's in love.
"Judith, where is Lol?"
"What time is it?" She pauses. "He should be back soon. If I'm not mistaken, her flight was at six?"
"Flight? Whose flight?"
"Your wife's," she says dryly. "He told me last night he had to drive her to the airport at two in the morning. I imagine he waited for her to board, so he should be on his way home."
I hang up the phone and try her again, getting immediate voicemail, then try him knowing the outcome will be the same.
My fingers fly over my screen as I text him to contact me immediately.
He didn't. He wouldn't. She couldn't!
I call her mother but get an answering machine. I don't have her sister's phone number. My last thought should have been my first, but I quickly get on the phone with my airline.
"I can have the plane turned around in two hours, Your Grace," I'm told and I almost say yes. Instead, I close my eyes and think.
"No. Please just check in when the pilot lands in the states."
"Yes, Your Grace."
I hang up and stare at my phone, falling back into a chair. What is her plan? I suppose she doesn't care anymore. She knows I will take that money from her family faster than she can blink.
A shadow pulls my attention from the black screen on my phone and I look up at Lol.
"Your Grace." He won't make eye contact.
"What've you done?" I ask calmly because I already know.
"I've shown Ms. Reif she's not captive. She's free to do what she wishes and she wished to return home."
"She is a Carbon!" I bellow, springing to my feet.
"No, sir, she was a contract. I've allowed her to file a petition for divorce. I've revoked my consent on the contract. She's a human being you're treating worse than a stray. The woman came here for an experience she wanted to embrace with arms wide open and you've severed them at her elbows to keep yourself out of reach. Do what you must to me, but just know if you force her to return, I will stand on trial against you. I will no longer idly stand by while you ruin her." He turns to exit, but shifts back and bows his head. "Your Grace." Then he exits.
Me ruin her!
Picking up the chair I was seated in, I throw it across the room, hoping for the destruction. It won't be half of what she's caused me.
My instinct is telling me to go to the states and retrieve the nuisance. No one breaks a contract with me without repercussions.
"Sir," Lol quietly says at my open bedroom door. It's been three days since I've talked to him. This is his fault. My madness. He aided in my wife leaving me.
Three days ago I was listening to my instinct. Today I'm listening to my heart. My heart says leave the woman alone. I have a few weeks before I have to report to my great grandmother. Hopefully she doesn't catch wind of this from someone else or she'll come for me.
"What?" I walk into my closet and hear him approach behind me.
"I haven't had orders from you for three days. Am I fired?"
I should let him stew on wondering if he's being let go.
"I have no orders, Rupier. You've taken my wife out of the country. Most of your orders pertained to her. What shall I have you do now?" I turn around to face him.
"Understandable." He nods before walking out. I almost stop him to ask if he's heard from her, but I don't give a damn what she's doing. She's not my problem anymore.
Somehow my week has seemed to slow down. The one week I would do better with a busy schedule it seems to be dragging. My days haven't dragged since I was a kid. This is absurd. The house is quieter than usual. The employees aren't buzzing around. There's no music coming from any of the rooms like there has been when Magdelena was here. I didn't allow it, but she allowed the staff to listen to music while working and I was never around so it didn't bother me. But now that it's not happening, that's bothering me! I want to ask someone about the cat. I could very well just go see it for myself, but why would I? I'm not going to care for that animal.
"Hello, hello?" Gee answers happily.
"I need assistance with Magdelena's cat," I say without exchanging pleasantries.
"Oh no. What's wrong with him?"
"Can you come to the house tonight?"
"No, Callum. But I can fly in Friday. Is it an emergency?"
"No. No emergency." And I'm guessing she hasn't spoken to Magdelena.
"Then Friday?"
"Thank you." I disconnect the call and scowl at my phone for several minutes.
Lifting it again, I pull up Magdelena's phone number and my thumb hovers over dial. What would I say to her anyway? Her mother will receive the collection letter that her daughter lost her twenty-five thousand. And there will be a letter with it stating how she will not inherit two-hundred thousand when she was supposed to. I wonder how her mother will feel about that. I don't actually wonder. I don't give a damn. I fling my phone away from me and it tumbles from my desk, ringing upon contact with the floor. I jump up and over my desk, lunging for it. I'm not expecting a call so I don't know who I'm hoping this is. Seeing it's my great grandmother, I walk away, leaving the ringing device in the middle of my office. I need to let off steam.
I find myself releasing steam by running. For two days I trek through snow and temperatures in the twenties until my body can't take the cold anymore. I go out into the cold and punish my lungs to the point of risking unconsciousness. I felt my nerves fraying before, but now that she's gone, it's worse.
By Friday, I've barely slept and I couldn't go out for a run today if I tried. I'm sick, I've come down with a cold and the only thing I want is sleep. I've cancelled the meeting I had and don't plan on leaving my bedroom, only due to the fact I feel weak and feverish.
"Callum?" Gee's knock wakes me and I groan, forgetting she was coming today. "Callum, open the door," she insists.
"What, woman?" I groan and the door opens abruptly. I look toward her and she has that damn cat on a leash.
"Callum, what the hell is going on? Cage didn't have food and he was running out of water."
"That woman was the one to take care of him," I mutter and turn my face to my pillow.
"What woman? Who's neglecting him?"
"Magdelena," I growl her name, feeling aversion just thinking about her.
"Where is she, Callum!" she barks with panic. "This is animal abuse!"
"Tell me about it," I mumble and pull the blankets to my chin.
"Where is Mag? What've you done?"
"Me?" I roar and sit up, wincing when pain makes my body sag.
"Where is she?" she says through gritted teeth and her eyes narrow.
"She's gone… She…left me." I lie back down and close my eyes, hating I had to say those words aloud.
"What do you mean?" She enters my room and the next thing I know, that beast jumps onto my bed.
"Gee, get it away from me. It's already maimed me. Get the ca—"
The cat head butts me and before I throw myself from the mattress, thinking it's attacking, I realize it's marking me. He's rubbing his head over my face. Perhaps he needs attention. Perhaps Magdelena's absence isn't only killing me. I barely ever saw the woman, I don't know how I'm this affected. I suppose it's the fact my wife left me. She fled the country to get away from me. At least before, I still saw her daily. She may not have seen me, but I watched her. She was in my presence if I wanted her to be. I realize how much I wanted her to be now that she's gone. This is absurd.
"Callum, he's being neglected. What is going on?"
I hesitantly lift my hand and the animal slides its head across it.
"She left, Gee. She went home to the states."
"What've you done?" she screams at me as if this is my fault! The cat jumps from the bed, obviously taking her side.
"I've done nothing!" I insist, sitting up all the way but the look on her face makes me sink back into my pillows. "I've come down with the flu. Gee, you should leave."
"You've got a cold, Callum," she snickers and storms to my curtains, ripping them open.
I almost hiss and I flinch away from the light.
"Get out of bed. We'll have tea and soup and you will be explaining. Everything. You've been having these problems for months. I knew I noticed something. So my guess is months ago you did something to upset her and she can't let it go."
She has no idea. But if I know my aunt, she will make me tell her, so I oblige. I drag my achy body to the dining room. Not until I've consumed a warm glass of tea do I open up to Gee. I've never once had to open up about my personal life, and though a weight's been lifted, I don't feel better. Especially because she's never been more disgusted with me. Finding out Magdelena was a contract almost made her break down in tears. Repeating the entire experience aloud, it made me feel sick.
"What are you going to tell your great grandmother?" Apparently finding out your grandmother arranged your nephew's marriage against his will has made Gee disown her grandmother.
"What is there to tell her? I'm afraid she'll have the other Reif girl replace Magdelena." I grimace at the thought. Mary is the complete opposite of Mag. I could only imagine that disaster.
"Mag is your wife!" she balks.
"Great Grandmother doesn't care about that, Gee. She wants a Reif woman to bear a Carbon male. She won't care which woman does. If the girls' mother were fertile, she'd have her take their place."
"I cannot believe you agreed to this." Standing, she begins to pace.
"No wasn't an option. I tried. I didn't want to change my entire life. Get married. Have children all within a year! I was content being me. I had to change."
"You made me think it was for the better. You fooled me into believing you had become a better man. You're a farce!" Her finger jabs into my face and I flinch back.
"Technically."
"Technically? Technically?" she squeals and pulls the chair out to sit back down. "Let's get technical, Callum!"
"I was a farce but I adapted. I'm a husband now. The father to two angels. The—"
"What?" Her words catch in her throat and she grabs the table. "What did you say, Callum?"
We never made the official announcement to my family that Magdelena lost our child. We rarely see them. Though Gee and Magdelena were close, they had more of a long distance friendship. We never let it be known we tried a second time and thought we were safe.
"We lost the baby, Gee," I solemnly say.
"How? She never told me. I never noticed. How, Callum?" She breaks down.
"I…don't know." I could speculate all day but there will never be a real answer. "We tried again and conceived, but six weeks later another miscarriage occurred."
"And what did you do?" she shouts at me, wiping her tears. "I can't imagine how awful you treated her because of this!"
"I never mistreated her due to losing the babies!" I shout, slamming my fists to the table as I stand. "I never once put the blame on her! How dare you insinuate I'm so much of a monster that I would berate a grieving mother. My wife!" My voice echoes and before we carry this out, I storm from the room.
There is no getting through to her. She will only think what she wants and that's I was a monster to Magdelena.
I was a monster to my wife.
"Enter," I call out.
I've been staring at my computer, trying to compose the same email I've composed a hundred times in my life, but I can't seem to find the words I need to form sentences. I'm over my sickness but I believe grief and heartbreak has taken residence inside me. I think it's going on close to a month since she's left but I try not to keep track of the days. My mood is no secret. I haven't seen a staff member in days unless I’ve gone hunting for them. People are fearing me, as if I'll strike them down just for being in my presence. They're absurd. I'm a grieving man and I want my wife back.
"Your Grace," Lol says upon entering and quickly bows his head before hurrying toward my desk. "Your great grandmother is on her way here. She wants to spend a few days with you and Magdelena. She wants to have family pictures taken while Mag is pregnant."
Both of those things are going to be an issue. I don't have a pregnant wife. I don't even have a wife.
"Rupier, prepare a flight to the states." I stand with resolution. I will get my wife back, and not for Great Grandmother's sake.