April’s gaze lingered on the words died and car crash and black despair threatened, jabbing at every nerve-end, twisting her brain with jagged flashes of memory.
Her baby son’s face, his milky smell, the down of his hair as a newborn, the first gummy smile, the first toddling step... And then nothing. There would be no more firsts. No more anything.
Because Edward had died in a car crash.
Her fault—the knowledge throbbed and pulsed her brain.
Fact One: I was planning on leaving my husband, Edward’s father—Dean Stanworth.
Fact Two: Dean discovered my plans and arrived home in a drunken violent fury, snatched Edward and drove off.
Fact Three: He crashed, and both he and Edward perished.
Breathe, focus. She used all the tricks of the grief trade, so carefully learned, and tried to numb the pain. One last exhale and she was able to regard her notebook again, read the facts about Axel with structured dispassion. Able to block away the grief that clamoured behind the barricades.
The question now was: what next? Speak with Prince Frederick about it? No. Too soon. She needed further verification—after all, there was every chance her source was unreliable... Brian Sewell was a known anti-monarchist. Yet the intuition born of three years of dedication to her job—countless interviews—told her this was the truth.
Damn it.
She liked Frederick, she liked Sunita, and her commission was to write a happy piece—a feel-good fairy tale article that indicated belief in a happy-ever-after. April might not have achieved a happy-ever-after of her own, once the glitter had blown away her own personal fairy tale had decayed into a dark story of misery-ever-after. But that didn’t mean she begrudged happiness to others. However—and there always seemed to be a ‘however’—she believed in the truth.
If she had faced up to the truth earlier, tragedy might have been averted.
Relief swathed her as the phone rang, distracting her from another visit to the past. It was imperative she kept herself on track. Picking up the receiver, she identified herself.
‘Good morning, Ms Fotherington.’ The hotel receptionist’s professional bell-like tone was clear. ‘Marcus Alrikson is here for your meeting.’
Marcus Alrikson? Meeting?
April’s mind slalomed, raced, whirred as she considered the words. For a start she did not have a meeting scheduled with Lycander’s millionaire Chief Advisor, because he had made it crystal-clear that he didn’t see any need for one.
April hadn’t taken it personally—Marcus Alrikson hadn’t given a single press interview in the past two years. He was a man who wielded massive influence and acted behind the scenes. Of course she knew about him. A self-made millionaire by the age of twenty-five, thanks to his start-up company, Alrikson Security, and from a privileged background. He’d attended a prestigious school where he’d met Prince Axel of Lycander, and after Axel’s death he’d been appointed Chief Advisor to Prince Frederick.
She’d seen him before too, of course, but only from a distance or in a photo, or in the very briefest of video clips as he strode through packs of reporters. Enough for her to garner the sense of a man who radiated an aura of tightly self-contained power, and to register the fact that he had the looks and build to wow the public, if he so wished.
Yet that desire was quite clearly not on the man’s wish list—his expression always neutral with a veer towards grim.
So what was he doing here?
Clearly her meeting with his sister Elvira had rattled his cage.
Excellent.
‘I’ll be right down.’
Grabbing her oversized bag, she spared one glance at her reflection as she headed to the door. Good thing she always dressed ‘business casual’, and her wardrobe choices were simple. Today she’d opted for slim-leg trousers, a tucked-in shirt and a blazer. Sensible flat shoes. There was no need to do anything to her dark auburn hair; her chosen style was short, sleek and easy to maintain.
So she was ready to face whatever Marcus might throw at her—and she had no doubt there would be something. Marcus Alrikson was anti-press, and if he was here that meant his feathers had been seriously ruffled.
The lift took her down to the marble lobby, and she crossed to the curved reception desk and nearly screeched to halt. The man standing there was...gorgeous.
Those glimpses of him, those images, couldn’t have prepared her for the reality of Marcus Alrikson in the flesh. Or for her visceral reaction to him. Her tummy twisted and her hormones fizzed out of their deep hibernation mode with a suddenness that had her brain at panic stations. Shock slowed her steps further.
April didn’t do attraction; her hormones hadn’t so much as whispered in the past years. In fact forget hibernation—she’d been pretty sure her hormones were stone-cold dead. And that had been fine by her. The fuse of attraction could set off a chain reaction that ended in misery—that was a life lesson she’d learnt. So this fuse was being doused right now.
Marcus’s eyebrows rose and he raised his hand in salute.
Get a grip and get moving!
As she headed towards him she reminded herself that she’d interviewed princes and billionaires, Hollywood A-listers and models. But, dammit, this man had a presence that had nothing to do with his undeniable wealth, status, or even his equally undeniable good-looks: dark unruly hair, a shade overlong, midnight-blue eyes, a firm jaw, and a strong nose that looked as if it might have broken at some point.
OK. So he was good-looking. But that wasn’t the point. The point was the story—and she’d clearly provoked concern at the very least or he wouldn’t be here. Yet he didn’t look remotely worried, or angry, though there was a sense of taut energy in his stance—an energy she sensed was his perpetual state, a part of who he was.
‘Mr Alrikson.’
There was a moment, a fleeting instant, when his expression registered the tiniest glimmer of surprise. Surprise and something else—his dark gaze had rested on her face, something had flickered and her treacherous body had responded, craving to move nearer to him.
Staunchly she kept her feet planted on the floor. ‘This is unexpected.’
‘Yes, it is.’ He frowned, as if the words had escaped of their own volition. Then, ‘Please, call me Marcus.’
She inclined her head, knowing that common courtesy indicated a need to shake hands. But she didn’t want to. Stupid, she knew, but her body’s reaction to him had caught her utterly off guard, wrong-footed her enough that it was a relief not to be in heels.
This was ridiculous. Her distrust of good-looking men was based on experience of the bitter kind. Handsome men had a different perspective on life—a belief that they were God’s gift, and an easy arrogance that could lead to less than desirable character traits.
Never judge a book by its cover was a saying she believed in wholeheartedly.
‘Marcus. I wasn’t aware that we’d scheduled a meeting. In fact I am certain we didn’t, because you made it very clear that you felt there was no need to meet me. Instead you very kindly had your office give me this scintillating quote: “I wish the couple every happiness”.’
Easy does it, April.
She really did have to get a grasp of events. If she could pull off an interview with Marcus it would be a journalistic coup.