‘I’ll talk to Marcus—if you need to miss any functions I’ll let him know it’s OK. I know how important this contract is for you—anything I can do to help, I will.’
‘Thank you. I appreciate that.’
He nodded, and yet still that desolation pervaded him, even as that unsquashable small voice exhorted him to do something. Anything.
But he couldn’t. It wasn’t in him. So instead he headed for the door.
One week later—Lycander Council Room
Frederick threw the pen across his desk and watched it skitter across the polished wood. Concentration wouldn’t come. The words on the document blurred and jumped and somehow unerringly formed into images of Sunita. Ridiculous.
Shoving the wedge of paper away, he sighed, and then looked up at the perfunctory knock on the door.
Seconds later he eyed his chief advisor in surprise. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. I thought you could do with a break. You’ve been closeted in here for hours. Days.’
‘A break?’ Frederick looked at Marcus blankly. ‘Since when do you care about me having a rest?’
‘Since you gave up on both sleep and food. So how about we grab a beer, shoot the breeze...?’
Frederick wondered if Marcus had perhaps already grabbed a few beers—though there was nothing in the other man’s demeanour to suggest any such thing.
‘Are you suggesting you and I go and have a beer?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
Marcus shrugged. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m pretty damn sure you’d rather shoot yourself in the foot than have a beer with me.’
Dark eyebrows rose. ‘Feeling tetchy?’
Damn right he was. Sunita had been gone for a week and his whole world felt...wrong...out of kilter. And he hated it. He loathed it that he didn’t seem able to switch these emotions off. However hard he twisted the tap, they trickled on and on. Relentlessly.
‘No. Just being honest. So, what gives?’
‘I’m your chief advisor, right?’
‘Right.’
‘So here’s some advice. Go after Sunita.’
‘Sunita is in Mumbai on a photo shoot—why would I do that?’
‘Because I think you love her.’
Frederick blinked, wondered if this conversation was a hallucination. ‘Then you think wrong. You know all this—we’re getting married because of Amil and for Lycander.’
‘You can’t kid a kidder. But, more importantly, why kid yourself?’
‘With all due respect, has it occurred to you that this is a bit out of your remit?’
‘Yes, it has.’ Marcus started to pace the office, as he had so many times in the past year. ‘But I’m talking to you now as Axel’s best friend. I know Axel wouldn’t want you to throw this away.’
Guilt and self-loathing slammed Frederick so hard he could barely stay upright. ‘Hold it right there. You don’t know what Axel would want.’