Page 52 of Bad Duke

I look back over my shoulder at the confused lad who's covered in blood and waiting on my instruction.

“Get back in your car and go home, shower, and get rid of those clothes. If the police question you, you know nothing.”

“But I found his body,” he argues.

“Yeah, and instead of phoning them straight away, you fucking came here. How do you think that looks?” I shove his phone back at him and head back inside the house.

“Alex, where are you going?” Will calls after me, sounding concerned.

“To tell my wife our date’s been cancelled!” I snap back.

* * *

I find her in our room contemplating between two dresses that are hanging on the wardrobe door.

“I’ve called the restaurant, they're going to cook us something off the menu and Levi will pick it up. You just have to pick what you want,” I tell her, knowing that she’s going to be disappointed.

Her head spins fast to look at me and I’m faced with exactly what I expected.

“What? No. We’re going out.” She frowns at me.

“Yeah, well, I thought we’d be better off eating at home.” I try to stay calm, reminding myself that she has no idea what danger she’s in and that she can’t.

“No, Alex, I don’t want to eat in. I want to get out of here,” she tells me firmly.

“And what’s so fucking bad about being here?” I yell back when all my anxieties and rage rush to the surface at once. “Jesus, Liv. I’m trying to make you happy. I’m trying to make sure you have everything you need and I’m trying to keep you safe.” I close my eyes and try to calm myself. The last thing I should be doing is shouting at her.

“It’s dinner, Alex, and the first time I’ve left this house in months. When you put this agreement in place you said nothing about keeping me prisoner.”

“Agreement.” I look at her and shake my head because she might as well have gotten a stake and drove it straight through my heart.

“You think this is still a fucking agreement?”

“It’s feeling that way.” She rips the dresses off the wardrobe to the floor and storms out of the room and I’m too fucking angry to go after her, so I stare at the wardrobe in front of me.

Suddenly, this isn’t about a dinner anymore, or the fact she’s mad at me. What I’m realising is that I can demand what I want from Olivia, I can give her orders, and make her come, but I can’t make her love me. She wears my ring on her finger and carries my child because, like almost everyone else I know, she’s afraid of me. I sit on the end of our bed and let that sink in, burying my head in my hands and, for the first time in my life, feel completely out of control.

* * *

“I’m sorry to hear about Trent.” It's a few hours later when Olivia steps out onto the patio. The investigator who came here to tell me Trent was dead has left. He didn’t have many questions, apparently, he was just informing me out of courtesy because I own the building where the murder happened. Olivia takes a seat beside me and I tip my head in the opposite direction so I can exhale the smoke I've been holding in my lungs, away from her.

“You know I’ve been craving that smell.” She laughs softly as if she’s trying to play nice with me.

“People always crave what's bad for them,” I tell her blankly. Thinking about how bad she is for me. I never asked to have these feelings. I never wanted them. She put them inside me, she destroyed the man I was before her and she crushed the life out of him.

“Alex, I’m sorry about what I said earlier.” She touches her hand over mine and when I snatch it away she looks at me as if she’s going to cry. It gives me no pleasure, in fact, it fucking hurts in all the places it shouldn’t.

“Are you sorry?” I look at her intensely. “Are you sorry that being here with me is your only option? Are you sorry that you have something that's mine inside you, right now?”

“No.” She shakes her head firmly. “Alex, don’t be stupid. What I said upstairs came from hurt. I was really looking forward to going out tonight and?—”

“This isn’t an arrangement for me, Olivia. This is everything I never thought I wanted. And now, it’s my only ambition. You have no idea how terrified I am of losing you.” I let her have it rough and raw because it’s the only way to understand it.

“You're not going to lose me, you won’t lose either of us.” She stands up in front of me and drags my hand so it rests on her stomach. And I can’t help thinking that it’s easy for her to say that when she’s being kept in the dark about so much.

“I’m sorry.” I look up at her and fake a smile. She has no idea just how much I mean those words. I’m sorry for so much more than just tonight. I should never have dragged her into this life where her head has become a target.

“I hate it when we fight.” She smiles down at me and when I stroke over the round of her stomach, we both look at each other in shock when I feel something move under my palm.

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