Page 38 of Legacy of Succession

“Nicholas, you’re hurting me.”

“I don’t care. For once, you’re going to listen to me.”

“What’s the point? You have nothing to say that would remotely interest me.”

I pull her up the stairs toward my room. She digs her heels in.

“I can’t go up there.”

“My father’s out. What I want to show you is up there.”

“Thank God, you didn’t say it was in your pants.”

“You back on my dick again? I can show you that as well, if you want,” I chuckle.

“Drop dead,” she snarls.

I tug hard, and she has no choice but to follow me. Reggie appears from one of the rooms.

“Help me,” Victoria screams.

I glare at him. He holds his hands up and steps back into the room.

“Jesus, all the men in this place are insane,” Victoria huffs.

We get to my room, and I pull her inside, shutting the door and locking it, to give us privacy, I put the key into my pocket.

“I’m not going to sleep with you or suck you if that’s why you’ve brought me up here. I mean it. You're holding me hostage and should be in prison.”

“I know.”

“What?”

“I should be in prison. I know you aren’t going to sleep with me, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to touch you whenever you’re in the same room as me. It doesn’t stop me from wanting to seek you out to talk to you. In fact, you being my possession makes it even harder because I know that I can’t have you.” Both of us are breathing rapidly. Our gasps for air fill the sudden silence in the room

“Don’t, please.” Victoria’s sweet tones finally break the tranquility.

“You're at an unfair disadvantage to the others. They seem to all know what happens next. You don’t. They’ve already learned, from their fathers, what is required to become my wife. I want you to learn what’s involved from a Duchess.”

“Nicholas, there’s no Duchess? Your mother, she’s dead because of this.” The word dead is stressed with such poignant emotion that I have a momentary regret that I’m about to share a part of my life with someone. I’ve hidden it away for so long, but this is Victoria. I’ve known since the moment I first saw her, staring intently at Van Gogh’s Poppies, that there was something different about her. I’ve known that she’d be the one to break this curse, hanging over our families. I step up to a chest of drawers in my room and remove my mother’s diary from it. I brought it up here a few days ago and have read the whole thing since.

“Here.”

“What’s this?”

She looks down at the silk cover as I push the book into her shaking hands.

“Open it and read a page.”

“I don’t think I should.”

I roll my eyes.

“For once, in the short time we’ve known each other, accept that I’m trying to do something to help you. Please read the damn diary,” I snap and plonk my weight down into a Queen Anne armchair. It’s my favorite and, thankfully, survived the attack I made on my room. I place my head in my hands. I can feel a migraine simmering at the edges of my temples. This isn’t how I thought my day would go. I hear the pages turn and look up. Victoria’s flicking through the diary.

“Is this…?” she hesitates, so I answer for her.

“My mother’s.”

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