Page 58 of When Hearts Collide

I don’t look at him, my eyes now surveying the glass fortress next door, The Orchid, our haven, the establishment opened by our great-great-great-grandfather when he emigrated from England because he missed the gentlemen’s clubs like White’s over there. It blossomed and grew from the moment the doors were opened.

“I think it’s a woman. You’ve done well under pressure before, so this can’t be work,” Maxwell comments and chuckles softly under his breath. “I never thought I’d see the day when my twin is troubled by love.”

“There’s no one. Stop it.” There can’t be anyone. For way too many reasons. The IPO, our pristine reputation, my academic tenure, her dreams, and her future.

“Why? You’re the second-born. You don’t have the fucking curse hanging over your head. Why can’t you fall in love? Live because you can do so when others can’t.” His normally calm voice takes on a chilly edge and my eyes dart to his face, finding his eyes darkened, his features glacial.

A vein throbs on his forehead. “Why are you wasting your life, Ryland?” The life I wish I had. The words are unsaid but heard, nonetheless.

A swift burn churns through me, a tempest out of clear skies. “You don’t know anything, Maxwell. You don’t know how much I gave up for the family. You don’t know—”

“Well, tell me then! Because, for fuck’s sake, I don’t understand why you’ve become more and more of an unemotional rock in the last few years. This is the most emotion I’ve seen from you in two years! Two fucking years! You think I don’t notice how you go through the motions at family dinners, at meetings? Your smile as fake as shit?”

He steps closer, his eyes ablaze with a rarely seen passion. “You don’t go out. You barely step foot into The Orchid other than your damn apartment and I’m pretty sure you haven’t had a fuck in years. You think the others don’t notice? Even Steven texted me the other day, asking what the hell was wrong with you. Even he noticed and he just went through his own crazy shit storm when he got together with Grace. You were that obvious. We’re your fucking family. Tell us so we can help!”

A frustrated growl tears out of my throat, and I swipe a few books off the bookshelf, the burst of violence loud in the room. The heavy volumes lay in a heap on the floor.

I’m fucking unraveling.

“I can’t breathe, Your Majesty! Okay? Is that what you want to hear?” I’m not allowed to have what I want in life. If I do, you and the people I love will lose everything. I’m trapped, lifeless, like the boar I killed in the past. This fucking guilt is snuffing the life out of me. “For fuck’s sake. Leave me the hell alone. Stop reading my mind. I’m already trying to live for both of us, dammit. I don’t owe you anything!”

I don’t owe you anything.

The words echo in the large office, and I’m thankful the walls are double insulated, which I hope means no one else outside of this room can hear my outburst. Maxwell staggers back, his dark eyes wounded, his jaw clenching.

Anguish slices through me. I owe him everything. I owe it to him, to my family, to wear my responsibilities with pride instead of suffocating resentment. Fleur is my life, my blood, my future, the Anderson legacy. My family always comes first.

Always.

Despite the twist of the knife in my gut and the coiling of the rope around my lungs. Loop, loop, loop, the binds getting tighter over the years.

He rakes his hand over his dark hair and lets out a frustrated sigh. “I can’t deal with you like this, Your Royal fucking Highness.” He sneers, tossing my nickname back at me. “I came to ask you if you had reviewed the draft S-1 filing for the IPO yet.”

I huff out a frustrated breath. What the hell is wrong with me today? “What filing?”

Silence fills the room.

“The fucking registration document that gets filed with the SEC. One of the most important regulatory filings for the IPO. I’ve looked over it, and so has Ethan. Where the hell are your comments? They were due last week. You never forget this stuff.”

Shit. Fuck this shit. I bend down, gather the books on the floor, and slowly stack them back on the shelf, one by one, sorted by topic.

How could I forget? Why did I forget?

You know why. Your mind is filled with useless, inappropriate thoughts of the one woman you shouldn’t think about.

She’s the one person who gets you tied up in knots like this, and you aren’t even in a relationship. Imagine if you were in one, how she’d have the power to destroy you.

Maxwell walks toward the door, pausing before he twists open the doorknob. “I don’t know what the hell is going on with you, but get your shit together, Ryland.”

He slams the door shut behind him and I grit my teeth. I stare at the leather bracelet around my wrist as guilt threatens to suffocate me. I still clearly remember the day when Maxwell gave it to me during our trip to Dublin after high school graduation.

He made a huge and uncharacteristic showing of sentimentality and sat me down on a bench in St. Stephen’s Green, Ireland’s answer to Central Park, after a day of sightseeing and drinking too much Guinness. He shoved a package at me wrapped in parchment paper and tied with twine. Sweat rolled down my forehead from the summer heat as I stared at him quizzically, and he grinned and motioned to the gift.

I untied it and held up a sturdily braided leather bracelet, the deep brown almost black in some areas. It had a rectangular silver clasp on one end and, on the other, an intricate knot—one of those infinity knots I’d seen before.

“It’s a Celtic sailor’s knot. There’s no beginning or end. Supposed to symbolize protection and eternal love and friendship. It was said the sailors gave it to their loved ones before they went to sea,” Maxwell said as he pulled up the hem of his blue T-shirt and wiped the sweat rolling down his forehead.

A heavy punch of guilt threatened to unmoor me when I saw the large gashes on his torso, now fully healed, but the ugly, winding scars still marred his otherwise unblemished, muscular body. He spent three months in the hospital to heal from his injuries from the boar attack and endured multiple surgeries. It was touch and go for a while there. Lacerated internal organs, severe hemorrhaging, months of utter terror for the entire family.

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