Page 54

Ignoring him, and Maxime and Pierre, Alain dragged out a chair and slumped into it.

“Let me guess,” said Louis, “you didn’t tell her something, she found out, and now she’s mad.”

Pierre frowned at his twin. “Louis.”

Mad? No. Worse, much worse. The hurt in her eyes, in her scent, had all but sliced him in two. “Bernard told her Cordelia is my ancestor.”

“What!” both Pierre and Louis exclaimed in unison.

“Ah,” said Maxime. “You know about that?”

“Of course I fucking know about it.” Maxime and his fucking journal, keeping its secrets. “Everybody in my line knew about it.”

Louis abandoned his pain au chocolat. “You mean, you are a descendant of Cordelia’s?”

Alain’s shoulders sagged. “Constance, D’Artagnon’s mate, was her granddaughter. I have her eyes and her second sight, which she inherited from Cordelia.”

Maxime fetched the cognac and four glasses. He poured a drink for each of them, handing them out. “I gather Grace didn’t take it well.”

Alain tossed his drink back. The burn down his throat was nothing compared to the pain in his chest. Putain. How did Maxime stand this? He held his glass out and Maxime poured him another.

“She’s your mate.” Louis chewed on a mouthful of flaky pastry. “She’ll come around.”

Alain tossed back his second cognac.

Louis mocked him over the rim of his glass. “You haven’t told her yet, have you?”

“She wasn’t ready,” he snapped.

Pierre cocked an eyebrow. “Or was it you who wasn’t ready?”

Maxime refilled his glass again. “It might have changed things.”

Alain rounded on his alpha. “And how did that work out for you?”

“It didn’t,” agreed Maxime. “And I let her walk away. Worst mistake I ever made. If I had my time over again, if I were to ever get a second chance with my mate, I’d never let her go.”

“What would you have me do?”

“Talk to her,” said Pierre. “She can’t hold something that happened generations ago against you.”

“She won’t talk to me. She’s holed up in there with her mother and him.”

“Mec.” Louis threw his hands up in the air. “Anyone would think a guy with a playroom like you would have a handle on this sort of thing. I guess not. Break down the door and throw her over your shoulder. Take her back to your room and—”

Alain slammed his glass down on the table.

Pierre nudged his twin, shaking his head.

“What?” Louis looked first at Pierre, then at Maxime. “Don’t tell me you both weren’t thinking the same thing?”

Alain rested his head in his hands. “She’s a choir girl. I’m a Dom!”

“So?” said Louis.

“Look at our ancestors. Half of them are mated to twenty-first century women.” Maxime shrugged. “Fate will find a way.”

Maxime could keep telling himself that.