REIGN (A REVERSE HAREM)

19. Luca

Arabella has slept in her own room for the past week. Which was strange because she hasn't for an entire month. She would sleep in Romans room while he was away, or with Asher, or sometimes with me. It depends. She steered clear of that room.

Now she hardly leaves it.

We have to take food up to her, the only time she comes down is when she needs to, like when she needed to go to the store, she asked Katrina to go. I escorted them but she didn't say a word to me.

I knock on her door, not waiting for an answer before i walk in. She was looking out of her window, "Wanna come to the hotel?" I ask, i don't need to go but she seemed to like it the times she went.

"No thank you." She keeps looking out of the window.

"Hey, talk to me, princess." I close the door as i walk in.

"I'm being a good wife right now, let me carry on doing it." She keeps looking out of the window.

What the fuck did Roman say to her?

"This isn't you." I stand behind her, "What are you looking at?"

"There's someone in the bushes." She says calmly.

I look over her, looking around the bushes until i see the dark outline of someone placed inside one of them. "Why didn't you tell anyone?" I pull my phone out of my pocket.

"Because he looks funny, he was dancing for me." She says, and she fucking smiled.

I keep my eye on the guy as i call Roman, "What?" He grunts.

"Arabella is having a fucking staring competition with a guy in the bush. Left side of the barn."

He sighs and hangs up. I look back at the body still there, "Are you sure he was moving?"

"Yeah." She takes a step closer, "He was doing the Macarena."

I mean, if it was a threat then i don't think anybody would be doing the macarena.

Romans shirtless body walks out of the house and toward the bush, he raised his gun, took a shot, lowered his gun and carried on walking.

She sighs and turns around, walking over to her reading chair.

I keep watching as Roman drags the guy from the bush, looks up to me and signals for me that he has this under control.

I nod and look back at Arabella who had a book in her hands. "What are you reading?"

"What do you want, Luca?" She sighs.

"You to be you again."

"Why?" She shakes her head, "So you can be a bitch to me? Treat me with no respect? I'd rather hide my personality then be treated like shit."

"Not gonna treat you like shit-"

"But you're not my husband." She mumbles.

I figured out that she basically strives for Roman's validation. I mean, she's literally got to spend the rest of her life with him, of course she does. And it doesn't matter what Asher and I do, at the end of the day, it's Roman who she married to. So even if she wants to act like she doesn't care, we know she does. She values Romans validation, and he would never give it to her.

"Can you stay with me tonight?"

"No." She puts her book down.

"Roman would want you for stay with me, he's worried— as much as he wouldn't like to admit it." He literally forced us to take all the harmful things out of her room because he was worried she might actually try and kill herself.