“What do you mean, you don’t know for certain?” her voice rose. “She’smeantto be in this house, for she is your wife. You said so yourself.”
“This is not something you need to concern yourself with,” Alexander tried to diffuse the situation.
“But I am concerned!” Odette snapped, her fists curling at her sides. “Is this because I went to the park and tried to run away? Are you punishing her for what I did?”
“I do not need to explain myself so thoroughly, Odette,” Alexander reminded her.
“Yes, you do,” she shot back, trembling. “Because I don’t understand why you would send her away unless something terrible happened, and I was the terrible thing that happened, wasn’t I?”
“You are getting ahead of yourself, Odette,” Alexander warned.
“Thenwhy?” Odette blinked furiously, her voice shaking now, raw with hurt. “It took me so long to grow close to someone again. And now you’ve taken her away from me.”
Alexander’s chest tightened. He could take the guilt and sarcasm from Oliver. But not this.
“I did what I thought was best,” he said quietly.
“Did she want to leave, too?” Odette’s next question came almost immediately. Alexander felt a wave of guilt.
She did not deserve to be subjected to such uncertainty at an age so young.
For a moment, he wondered if it would be easier for him to concoct a lie and tell Odette that Penelope had chosen to leave, making sure that it wasn’t his doing alone.
It would make this all easier to swallow. He opened his mouth to speak, but then the words would not come out. He couldn’t lie abouther.
“No,” he admitted quietly.
“She wanted to stay?” Odette’s face crumpled.
“Yes.” The word felt heavier than any he’d spoken all day.
“Then why did you send her away?” Odette cried.
Alexander rubbed his temple. He did not know how to explain these things to Odette, who was perhaps too young to understand .
“Because wanting something,” he said hoarsely, “does not always make it safe.”
“But nothing is safe enough for you,” Odette huffed. “If you had made her leave, then perhaps you should have sent me with her. At least it would have been possible to live normally with her.”
Her words landed like a blow to Alexander’s chest.
“Odette, this is enough,” he put his foot down, trying to hide the hurt in his voice. “You are to go back to your room now, and not come out till you are needed.”
“Are you exiling me to my own quarters?”
“Yes,” Alexander nodded. “Not until you learn that you cannot speak to your father in this way.”
Odette was crying now, and she huffed past him. It had been a long time since he had seen her cry.
And the sight wrenched his heart completely.
Had he somehow made the wrong decision and betrayed the little family he had made for himself? Penelope was the one who had restored the color back into the estate after so many years, and he had been the reason why she had left.
But admitting his mistake would be admitting he had been wrong. And worse, it would do nothing to cull the dangers that she would be in when they were together.
But can you live without her?
The thought arrived on its own, and Alexander did not know what to make of it at first. His first instinct was, "Yes , of course he could."
