The last button snaps apart, and I turn, preparing to show him the jagged cut across my right ass cheek.
“Father, enough!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Gabe rips asidethe partition curtain and bounds forward until his body is between mine and the chancellor’s.
“Ah, I was wondering how long you were planning on hiding,” Chancellor Bren says while rising from the vanity and smoothing out the invisible creases in his suit.
“How’d you?—”
“My shadows saw you sneaking in here a few minutes ago.” The chancellor shrugs. “I’ll admit, I’d expected to see you buried between her legs, not cowering in the tub.”
Pink rushes to Gabe’s cheeks, and his fathertskshis disappointment.
My nose snarls as I retreat towards the wall and hastily refasten the buttons of the flap. “He’s married.”
The chancellor waves a dismissing hand. “He’s a Bren. We cannot be expected to refrain from indulgences, no matter who we indulge within, and your infertility is rather convenient. There’d be no need to worry about concealing the potential fruit of the transgression from the public. Although your history would complicate things, if you two were to be seen together.”
Bile burns in my throat. “I can assure you that won’t happen.”
“Unfortunately, dear, it already has.”
He’s right. Between Gabe’s reaction at the ceremony and conspicuously sneaking into my private room, people will talk.
“Well, it won’t happen again,” I say, lifting my chin.
“Finally, a truth.” Humor returns to the chancellor’s cold eyes as he collects the sand clock from the vanity, re-pocketing it. “You don’t mind if I hold onto this, do you? You won’t be needing it during the Hunt.”
Finding his voice again, Gabe asks, “You’re not actually making her go up there, are you?”
“It’s her duty.”
“We had a deal.” Gabe jabs a finger at his father’s chest. “The only reason I agreed to the divorce was because you promised?—”
“Our deal was annulled the moment she stooped to desertion.” Chancellor Bren flicks his son’s finger away like it’s nothing more than a minor nuisance. “Would you rather she be imprisoned in the Abyss for treason?”
Gabe’s shoulders deflate.
The chancellor claps a palm on his back. “If I didn’t hold my friendship with the Way family in such high regard, that’s exactly where I’d send her. Be grateful for this mercy. Now, fuck her, if you must, and say goodbye. You have five minutes until my shadows return.”
He offers me one last smile before spinning on his heel and stomping into the hall.
Silence descends after the door clicks into place.
Gabe’s soft auburn brows furrow low as our gazes lock. But while his pupils dilate in and out, searching for what to say, mine remain unmoving.
What does he expect from me? Gratitude? His intervention savedme from baring my backside for his father, but perhaps the chancellor wouldn’t have bothered paying me a visit if his henchmen hadn’t seen Gabe sneaking in here.
My head pounds with the all-too-familiar effort of trying to make sense of why these Bren men insist on bringing chaos into my life. I tilt my neck back, fighting to keep my hooded lids from closing.
Gabe is the first to break. “I’m sorry, Elle.”
“For what?” I whisper, relying on the steady presence of the wall at my back, holding me upward as a decade’s worth of walls are crumbling within me. “Sorry for divorcing me? For showing up now, pretending like you care whether I live or die, after ten fucking years of nothing? Right when I wasthisclose to erasing your name from my mind. Or are you sorry you still haven’t found the balls to stand up to your father, even while he speaks about me like I’m no better than a whore for the taking?”
My voice rises as the words continue spilling out. “What exactly are you sorry for, Gabe? I’d love to know before deciding whether to accept your apology.”
“For all of it!” Gabe throws his hands in the air before bunching them in his mussed hair. “None of this was supposed to happen. My father . . . I made him promise you’d have permanent exemption from the Hunt, as long as I agreed to the divorce.”
