Page 9 of The Alpha's Mail Order Bride

“I see,” she said finally. “That—okay. I’d better go then, hey? Wow.” She straightened her back, and to his surprise she was smiling again, albeit in a brittle, manic kind of way. “Wow, what a weird afternoon. For you as well, I bet. Um. Sorry to disturb you, I’d better get back to—”

She was leaving, wrestling with the suitcase and turning back toward the beach. Something stirred in him, deeper than thought; something closer than the instinct that carried him in battle than to his conscious mind. His hand flew out and caught her elbow, gently but firmly, turning her back toward him. The warmth of her skin surprised him, the firm but yielding flesh under his fingertips…he’d opened his mouth to speak, but his mind took a few seconds to catch up with his body.

“I think you should come in,” he said, to Claire’s obvious surprise—and his own, he reflected briefly. When had been the last time he’d had anyone but close family in his house? But something in him hadn’t wanted this strange woman to walk away. Was it just his curiosity that had made him stop her? It felt good to see Claire’s smile come back, despite the uncertainty that was still vivid in those dark eyes.

She had incredibly expressive features, he thought as he led her awkwardly into his home. Her eyes were constantly shifting, her lips shaping a dozen different smiles a second… it made him self-conscious about his own brick wall of a face. Old habits. In the tradition he’d been raised in, stoicism was the preferred mode of a leader. But things had changed so rapidly over the last few years that he’d begun to doubt whether any of the traditions to which he’d dedicated his life were even relevant in this new world. Even the language he spoke was beginning to change, influenced as it was by the island’s bilingual population. Right now, of course, with a worried-looking stranger sitting awkwardly at his kitchen counter, he was grateful that he knew enough of the strange new language to communicate with her. The situation was confusing enough without having to resort to mime.

“Thanks,” Claire said softly as he set a cup of tea in front of her. She sat on the stool he usually took when Lyrie or Reeve visited—not that she had any way of knowing that, of course, but the strangeness of the situation was only heightened by the unfamiliarity of the seat he was sitting in. The silence hung heavy and thick in the air. The longer it stretched, the more impossible it seemed to break.

Finally, he couldn’t stand it any longer. “Tell me what Reeve did.”

It sounded more like an order than he was happy with, and the way Claire flinched told him he’d startled her, but anything was better than that horrible, stilted silence.

“Um.” Claire winced and muttered something under her breath that was too fast for him to catch. But before he could ask for clarification, she pressed on. “We first made contact online, via the profile he set up for you, on…” Her dark eyes were fixed on her drink, and he could see her cheeks reddening. “You knew about the profile, right?”

“Online,” he repeated, narrowing his eyes as he furiously searched his memories of every tedious conversation he’d ever had with his brother about technology. “Online is…computers? Or telephones?”

“I’m going to take that as a ‘no,’” Claire muttered, again in that rapid undertone he had to lean forward to catch. “Um. Online is computers, yes. Online, as in…the internet? Never mind,” she said quickly, clearly taking the hint from his expression. “Um. To cut a long story short, he said you wanted…” she trailed off again, her cheeks bright pink. “This is—this is the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me,” she murmured faintly.

“I sympathize,” Darion said stiffly, his hands feeling like they were frozen around his cup. “Reeve often puts people in awkward situations. It’s one of his talents.”

“He really didn’t tell youanythingabout me? It’s been weeks since we first made contact.”

Darion shook his head, and Claire dropped her head into her hands, narrowly avoiding knocking her teacup over. She mumbled something that he didn’t catch, though he had a suspicion that it included more than a few of the English language’s stronger profanities, then looked up at him again. “Sorry. This is probably weirder for you than it is for me.”

“Maybe.”

“Reeve flew me out from Los Angeles a few days ago. I changed planes on like three different islands before a helicopter dropped me on his yacht last night. I slept off the journey, then he rowed me over to the island, and…” her eyes narrowed with the first flash of anger he’d seen in her since she’d arrived. “He had this smile on his face when he said he was going to leave us alone to get acquainted. It was like…”

She paused for a moment, then twisted her lips into a leer that almost startled a laugh out of Darion.

“Not a bad likeness,” he allowed, torn between amusement at her impression and his growing fury with what his brother had done. “So he just—sent you here to meet me, with the understanding that I’d be expecting you not only to visit, but presumably to—stay.” He gestured at the suitcase beside her, and she nodded agreement. “Why?”

Her blush had faded a little, but he could see her cheeks reddening again. “I hope this is going to be funny someday,” she said quietly, and something told him it wasn’t for his benefit. “Darion, I—I’m so sorry. Um. We’re married.”

“Married,” he repeated, keeping his voice deliberately quiet. There was a mixture of mortification and genuine fear on Claire’s face, and he didn’t want to make her any more uncomfortable than she was already. “You mean…”

“I mean in the legal sense,” she said quickly. “It was—there was paperwork and lawyers and everything. I’m sorry,” she said again. “I thought it was a little weird that you weren’t there in person, but I didn’t imagine Reeve would have done something like—like arranging a marriage without even telling you—”

Darion grimaced as a sudden realization hit him like a stone. “He would,” he said tightly, deciding against getting into his and Reeve’s complicated history with this near-stranger. “He’s absolutely the kind of person who’d do something like this. His idea of a joke,” he muttered, feeling the anger rising higher and higher in his body like a flame. “A prank. Getting revenge on me.”

He could picture the smug grin on Reeve’s face, almost hear his mocking laughter, but the image vanished in the wake of a hot, stinging pain in his hands. He looked down and uttered a growl of dismay as he realized he’d gripped his teacup hard enough to crack it, and the hot water was rapidly spreading across the counter.

He tossed the broken cup into the sink with a clatter, swearing under his breath as he grabbed a cloth to clear up the rest of the mess. When he looked up, Claire had shrunken in on herself, her dark eyes wide. She was frightened of him, he realized dully. Of course she was. No doubt she’d spent the whole day with his charming, charismatic brother, getting her hopes up about the man she’d come here to marry.

Well, he wasn’t anyone’s happy-ever-after. And the sooner he got her out of here, the better.

Chapter 5 - Claire

When Claire was fifteen, she’d saved her allowance for weeks to buy a pair of jeans she’d tried on at the mall one weekend. They were the most expensive thing she’d ever bought, but she’d fallen in love with them as soon as she’d seen them, and trying them on had only confirmed her suspicions that they were destined for her. Looking in the mirror in that changing room in the mall, she’d known that these jeans were going to change everything. She’d walked into school that Monday morning like a newly crowned queen walking into her palace, head held high, feeling the admiring stares of her classmates following her all the way down the hallway.

At least, she’d thought they were admiring. But by the time first period started, she’d realized her mistake, courtesy of a whispered warning from a girl whose name she didn’t even know. Someone on the bus must have spilled something onto the seat she’d chosen…and her jeans had a huge, bright red stain right across the butt. That moment—the moment she realized that the stares and whispers were mocking, not admiring—still kept her awake at night sometimes, even fifteen years later. But right now, Claire would have traded places with her mortified teenaged self in a heartbeat. Because compared to how she felt sitting in this gruff, guarded man’s kitchen with a suitcase at her side, that day had been an absolute breeze.

What was she going todo? She couldn’t keep her thoughts straight for long enough to come up with a plan. Fresh shocks of embarrassment just kept knocking her train of thought off the rails. She was sitting in a total stranger’s kitchen. A total stranger who she’d introduced herself to as his wife. A total stranger who she was beginning to suspect had not only had no idea she was coming, but had zero interest in finding a wife in the first place. From the look of the place, he lived here alone—and from the look on his face, he liked it that way. She wanted to call Reeve, but a phone call felt woefully inadequate somehow. What she really wanted was to get her hands on his shoulders and to shake him until he explained what the hell he’d been thinking. But beyond all that, what she wanted was to do what she’d done when she was fifteen, which was to hide under her blankets and wait for the inevitable death from humiliation to claim her.

But the ground didn’t reach up to swallow her, to her great dismay. Time kept passing, and she was still sitting on a stool in this stranger’s pleasant kitchen, watching him clean up the tea he’d spilled. And as Darion gave the countertop a final wipe, she took a sharp breath and squared her shoulders. Reeling in shock wasn’t going to get her out of this awful situation, was it? That was down to her.

“Thanks for the tea,” she said, hauling a smile onto her face that was the furthest thing from a true reflection of her feelings. Smile anyway, that was what her parents had always said. Even if you’re faking it at first, even a forced smile has a way of spreading cheer. “I’ll head back to Reeve’s yacht. I’ve intruded enough on your time.”

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