Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Colum: Remember when I used to just sit in my archive, all alone, drinking tea?
Franco: Yes, I remember when you were slowly turning into a sad hermit…
Colum: I was not a sad hermit. I was a happy hermit.
Franco: Admit it, you like the drama and adventure.
Colum: I admit nothing.
C olum stirred milk in his tea, listening to the sound of Annie and Xavier’s voices drifting to him in the kitchen from where they were currently cuddled up on the couch. He couldn’t hear what Xavier was saying, but it must be amusing because Annie was laughing. God, but he loved that sound.
He placed the spoon in the sink but didn’t pick up his cup, didn’t seek to join them. Instead, he rested his hands on the counter and took a moment, trying to calm his thoughts. Something that was easier said than done, given everything that had happened. It had been a whirlwind to be sure.
Colum hadn’t had a moment alone since the attack, as he, Annie, and Xavier had closed ranks, none of them willing to leave the others after the horrors of last night.
Once the mercenaries were gone, the three of them had taken up camp in the tiny living room in his flat, while Spartan Guard and both knights and security officers from England swarmed the archive and stood guard. Initially, they’d simply sat together in silence. Colum suspected he and Xavier had been in shock, Xavier’s eyes closed as he waited for the paracetamol to kick in, a lovely bruise forming along his hairline where there was also a small cut that had bled a lot but wasn’t enough for a trip to A&E. As for Annie, Colum sensed she’d been trying to shut down that darker side of her nature, the one she’d shed after leaving the CIA. He feared it had cost her something to open herself back up to that part of her personality.
Eventually, they started talking, rehashing the events—Colum was heartsick over the loss of the Wedgewood—simply because that was the safer topic. They’d yet to broach their feelings over what had happened. Colum typically preferred to avoid those kinds of conversations, but right now, there were too many emotions fighting for dominance. Feelings he hadn’t experienced before.
If he was smart, he’d keep his thoughts to himself. After all, none of them had gone back to bed after the break-in, and now it was evening, so they were functioning on fumes at the moment. It was why he’d offered them tea, thinking they could all benefit from a jolt of caffeine. Annie and Xavier went the opposite direction, opening a bottle of red wine. They’d had dinner delivered because they hadn’t felt up to cooking. Even if they had, his cupboards were bare, something he wasn’t going to be able to address, since Eric had basically put them on lockdown, quadrupling the number of knights and Spartan Guards protecting the archive.
Eric had video called him in the wee hours of morning, shortly after the mercenaries left. No doubt a Spartan Guard had briefed him on the situation.
Eric had asked him no less than a dozen times if he was okay, if he’d been hurt. While Colum was touched by his concern, he hated that it had triggered his brother’s guilt over not managing to keep him safe. No doubt, Eric was reliving the trauma of Josephine’s death, horrified that he’d put Colum in harm’s way.
Once Eric was certain he was uninjured, Colum gave him the information they’d discovered from the mercenaries. He’d explained to Annie and Xavier what little they knew about the Spaniard, who appeared to have his finger in a lot of pies. The man had had a dangerous run-in with Vadisk in Crimea, and he was after Wilde’s tell-all. While Eric didn’t say as much, it was obvious he was concerned about this new threat, particularly since none of them had a clue who the Spaniard was, how he knew so much about the Masters’ Admiralty, or what his intentions were.
Colum had been tempted to ask Eric if he’d given any more thought to his request that he not be married to Nikolett, but Eric had looked exhausted. Besides, he’d asked for a few days, and it hadn’t yet been that.
“Colum?” Annie called.
He’d stayed away too long. Picking up his tea, he rejoined them in the living room.
“Sorry,”he said as he claimed his spot on the couch. “Woolgathering.”
“You okay?” Xavier asked, leaning over Annie to grip Colum’s knee.
He nodded, even though it was a lie. He was a million miles from okay, but God help him if he knew how to articulate all the shite running through his head.
Mercifully, Xavier had no trouble opening that door. “I was terrified last night,” he admitted. “I thought I was going to lose the two of you.”
Some of the pressure on Colum’s chest lifted. He wasn’t alone in this. “I felt the same,” he confessed. “When that man hit you, when I saw the blood…”
Xavier lightly touched the cut on his forehead. “Head wounds bleed.”
“How is your headache?” Colum asked.
“Gone. I’m fine,” Xavier reassured him.
It occurred to Colum that Annie had remained silent during their exchange, her ever-present smile gone. Now that he thought about it, it had been absent all day.
“Annie.” Colum wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “How’re you getting on, love?”
She sighed heavily. “Do I scare you?”
He and Xavier exchanged a confused glance.
Xavier cupped her cheek. “Scare us? What are you talking about?”
“Earlier…in the interrogation room…” The fact Annie was hesitating was concerning. Ordinarily, she was a straight shooter, who didn’t mince words. “You saw a side of me, saw a person I’m not proud of. I hate thinking that the two of you might be looking at me differently.”
Colum grasped her hand, giving it a squeeze. “You forget we saw you fling that tiny knife into a man’s eye in New York.”
Xavier feigned a shudder, meant to make her laugh, but Annie never cracked a smile. He leaned forward, tilting his head as he looked at her more closely. “You didn’t like becoming that person again.”
“I didn’t, yet it was very easy to do. She lingers just beneath the surface, always ready to break out.”
Xavier gave her a soft kiss on the forehead. “That part of you will always be there. Is that badass Annie terrifying? Yes. Is she sexy as sin itself? Also yes.”
“Terrifying,” she repeated softly, her eyes lowered, that word distracting her from the second part of Xavier’s statement.
“Hey,” Colum said gently.
When she finally lifted her gaze, that same coldness Colum had seen when she took over the interrogation had returned. “I can’t apologize for scaring you, even though I don’t like doing it.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Colum said.
Annie’s expression softened, and the sweet woman who’d stolen his heart returned to them, giving them a crooked grin. “You need to know. I would become that woman again every single day for the rest of my life if that was what was required to keep the two of you safe.”
Colum swallowed deeply, overwhelmed by her assertion.
“The rest of your life?” Xavier repeated breathlessly.
Annie smiled at Xavier, cupping his bearded cheek. “I’m in love with you. Both of you,” she added, looking over at Colum.
Colum’s heart swelled, and all those bad thoughts that had plagued him for most of the day fell away. She loved him. Loved them .
Xavier grasped her hand, keeping it pressed to his face, so that when he turned his head slightly, he could place a soft kiss on her palm. “I’ve been falling for you and Colum since the day we met.”
“That’s because you’re French,” Annie teased.
Xavier chuckled. “But of course, I was raised in the City of Love, after all.”
They shared a laugh, both sobering too quickly as they glanced over at Colum. He didn’t doubt Annie and Xavier had experienced love before, had given their hearts to another, had shared the parts of themselves that were reserved for lovers.
But he hadn’t.
He’d never felt the emotion or said the words, and now, he was slightly panicked because he was afraid they would think he was just giving those three words back because they’d said them. He needed them to know, needed them to understand just how much they meant to him.
And that was when he knew what he needed to do to prove the depths of his feelings.
“I’m giving up my job,” Colum said.
“What?” Annie asked, surprised.
While Xavier scowled, shaking his head. “No, you’re not.”
Colum persisted. “Yes, I am. I told Eric I don’t want to be married to Nikolett. It’s too…I don’t want to be married, even if it’s in name only, to the woman my brother loves.”
“Yeah, that’s deeply fucked up,” Annie agreed.
“But I have to marry an admiral because of my position as the archivist. It’s my job that’s keeping us apart. I don’t want that. I want you .”
Colum paused, taking a shallow breath, his heart racing out of control. When Annie looked up at him, her eyes sparkling, and Xavier gave him that familiar, much-beloved smirk, he found the strength to keep going.
“I want Xavier whispering dirty things in my ear, want Annie whipping out that wee knife of hers to protect us. I want the rest of our lives…just like you said. So the solution is simple. I’ll quit.”
“That’s nowhere near a solution,” Annie gently replied. “Because there are countless reasons why the three of us can’t be together.”
Colum knew that, but he didn’t like hearing it.
“Even if that alone would solve the problem, Colum, we’d never let you quit,” Xavier said softly. “This isn’t just a job to you. I saw it when you took me upstairs, when you showed me the Wedgewood and the book, when you told me all your thoughts about the history and its implications. This archive is so much more than just your profession, it’s your home and who you are.”
“It’s a building with a bunch of stuff in it,” Colum said, even though those words cost him something, because Xavier was right. He did love his archive, but… “I love the two of you more.”
Annie’s smile returned, and he noticed the sheen of tears in her eyes. “Hearing those words from you…I think my heart might burst.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek, but her eyes were sad.
Annie was right. There was a list of seemingly insurmountable reasons they couldn’t be together.
Even if he hadn’t been the archivist, Annie was a member of the Trinity Masters. Control of her marriage was in the hands of the Grand Master, not a territory admiral or Eric. Privately, he was fairly sure that if he told Franco—and by extension Juliette—that he was in love with Annie and wanted to marry her, the Trinity Masters would be willing to agree to an inter-society marriage and allow Annie to move to Europe.
But that wasn’t the only problem.
He was technically still married until, hopefully, Eric dissolved Colum’s marriage to Nikolett and Sarah—whom he’d yet to even speak to.
If Nikolett had already been married, they would have had to make the archivist marriage to an admiral, vice admiral, or security minister. But Colum knew he was right in what he’d said to Eric. Eric had seen an opportunity and taken it, using the new stipulation to place Nikolett in a trinity, and to ensure Colum was married but in name only.
Maybe, if Annie joined their society, after a few years, she could work her way up to being a security minister…
Maybe.
If.
The biggest problem of all was that none of them were free to choose each other. They’d each agreed to an arranged menage marriage when they joined.
Colum had never really considered what it meant to give up the choice of who he’d spend his life with until now. He hadn’t been subject to the arranged marriage before the Trinity Council meeting. Maybe if he came right out and told Eric what—who—he wanted…
“There’s a lot of things standing between us and a happily ever after,” Annie said, proving her thoughts had gone the same way his had.
“I have a solution for one of the problems,” Xavier said.
Colum and Annie both looked at him.
“What solution?” Colum asked.
“For which problem?” Annie added.
Xavier rested his arm along the back of the couch. “I’d rather not say just yet, but trust me. There is one problem I think I can solve, and it will allow you to remain the archivist.”
Before Colum could ask what he was on about, Annie spoke.
“You realize any ‘us’ can’t include me,” Annie said sadly. “I’m not a member of the Masters’ Admiralty and your fleet admiral doesn’t have the power to put me in a trinity marriage.”
“Then you switch. Move to Europe. Become a member of the Masters’ Admiralty,” Xavier said with a negligent shrug.
“The Trinity Masters’ membership is for life. Is that not how it is in the Masters’ Admiralty?”
“It is,” Xavier said reluctantly.
“I can’t just…switch societies.”
“No,” Colum agreed, “but inter-society marriages aren’t unheard of.”
“Are you saying that the fleet admiral has allowed people to leave the society to marry Americans?” Xavier asked.
“No, but together they—the fleet admiral and Grand Master—arranged a marriage at that Trinity Council meeting. One of our members was wed to two Americans.”
Xavier and Annie looked visibly shocked.
“It’s part of the plan to strengthen the bonds between our two societies,” Colum continued, the slightest sliver of hope emerging.
“So it’s not impossible,” Annie said slowly. “Even with all roadblocks…maybe.”
Colum started to shake his head, because it felt impossible, but Xavier nodded.
“Let me work on my part. If I…agree to some things, we might be one step closer,” Xavier finished.
Colum didn’t dare let himself dream. “It feels hopeless,” he said softly. “I’m married.”
Xavier made a dismissive noise, while Annie said, “Are you? Really?”
Colum shook his head but didn’t disagree with Annie’s words. He knew, intellectually, he was married, but it didn’t and never had felt real.
“And if I take it from hopeless to merely impossible?” Xavier asked with a raised brow.
Annie reached over, picking up her wineglass from the coffee table, lifting it up between them. He reclaimed his teacup and Xavier his glass.
“Then here’s to if,” she toasted, as they clinked their glasses together.
There was no way out. Eric put his head in his hands, eyes closed. He was no closer to an answer on the Colum issue than he was days ago. Colum wanted Annie and Xavier. He hadn’t come right out and said those words, but Eric knew him well. Hell, he’d watched him grow up. The man he considered a little brother, the man he’d spent the past few years losing countless nights of sleep over, had fallen in love for the first time. It had been written all over his face.
Colum was in love.
In love with people who weren’t his new trinity.
With an American…who was not a member of the Masters’ Admiralty. That wasn’t as big a problem as it would have been, now that he and Juliette had established the first jointly arranged trinity marriage.
But Colum was the archivist and that meant he had to be married to an admiral. Colum had been right to call him out, because if Nikolett had already been married, and if he hadn’t been desperate to find a way to keep himself from loving her any more than he already did, he would have changed the stipulation. It would have been that the archivist needed to be married to an admiral OR vice admiral OR security minister.
But he hadn’t said that at the time and if he tried to change everything…
Annie was an American. If Eric placed Colum in a trinity with her and Xavier, it would mean the archivist not only wasn’t married to someone in any kind of leadership position but married to an American, which only worsened the issue of “the Americans are going to have more access than us.”
“Fuck,” he muttered.
Eric stood from his desk, needing to pace. When that wasn’t enough, he walked out onto the stone rooftop patio, the sea spray once more dotting his face as a strong wind brought the moisture up from the sea far below.
His phone rang in his pocket, and Eric pulled it out, shoulders slumping in what might have been relief when he saw it wasn’t Colum. He didn’t know what to say to him.
He did know what to say to Grand Master Juliette Adams. He walked back inside as he answered.
“Calling to gloat, Grand Master?” Hungary—Nikolett—had lost their best security officer, Vadisk Kushnir, who, following a harrowing adventure in Crimea, was joining the Trinity Masters with his American husband and wife.
“That would be beneath me,” Juliette replied smugly.
Eric snorted. “You’re keeping score.”
“Possibly,” she conceded. “Also, I’m winning.”
“Bribery,” he declared, forcing himself to banter with her. “You bribed them.”
Juliette didn’t bother to reply to that. Nor did she laugh. “Eric,” she said gently, “are you okay?”
He sighed. “Am I that easy to read?”
“No. If I hadn’t been at that meeting, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the fact that you sound…different than normal.”
He had a feeling she’d been about to say “sad.”
“There’s a lot happening.”
“There is,” she agreed. “But that’s not why you sound like your heart is broken.”
Eric sank down on the couch. His heart was fucking broken, and hearing the words made the ripping pain in his chest ten times worse. The issue with Colum had been helping him not think about Nikolett. Now, Juliette brought it up and the sinking, sick feeling of loss made him weak.
“Nothing is set in stone. Not yet.”
Except it was. His declaration as fleet admiral was all it took.
“You love Nikolett.” Juliette’s words were direct and implacable. “And are using your position to make sure you can never be together.”
“Given what an asshole I am, I don’t actually think she wants anything to do with me.”
“I saw her face when you placed her in a trinity.”
Eric hadn’t seen. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to look at her.
“She pulled it together fast, but you broke her.”
Fuck. Angry Nikolett he could handle. Heartbroken Nikki…
Eric flung a square pillow hard enough that it flew all the way across his apartment and smacked into the stone wall, exploding in a puff of white feathers.
“Did you have a fight before this?” Juliette asked.
“Yes.”
“About six months ago?”
“Yes,” he said slowly. How did she know? Was Juliette spying on him or?—
“You have a problem,” Juliette declared. “Well, the admiral of Hungary does, and I’m guessing that you don’t know about it.”
“What? Problem?” He snarled the words, the blinding white-hot rage he tried—and sometimes failed—to control rising hard and fast.
“Someone’s trying to kill Nikolett, and has been for the past six months. There have been at least seven assassination attempts,” Juliette finished. “And I’ve decided you need to know.”
The fucking Grand Master of the Trinity Masters was giving him information he should have gotten from his own people. Nikolett should have told him. Grigoris, Nyx, Vadisk, someone should have told him she was in danger.
He let anger take hold. It was easier to deal with than the sickening fear.
The things he’d done to Josephine’s killers would seem gentle compared to what he’d do to whoever hurt Nikolett.
“Thank you, Grand Master,” he ground out the words between his teeth.
“Eric, if you love her, don’t?—”
He didn’t remember ending the call, his feet thudding as he descended the narrow, dark spiraling stone staircase at a dangerous speed. Three Spartan Guards appeared on the landing of the second floor at the sound of his steps. One looked at his face, and suddenly they each had a weapon in their hand.
“Get the plane,” he snarled. “We’re going to Hungary.”
Xavier twisted slightly to look at the alarm clock on the nightstand, his eyes widening when he realized it was nearly lunchtime. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised they’d slept the entire morning away. They were all still functioning on jet lag and too many sleepless nights, thanks to three attacks in the past week and a half.
His mind reeled over the idea that he’d known these two incredible people for such a short time. They’d crashed into his life and he knew without a doubt, nothing would ever be the same again.
“Good morning,” Annie said, stretching up to place a kiss on Xavier’s cheek. She crinkled her nose the same adorable way she always did, letting him know his beard tickled. For her, he would shave it, but then she stroked it affectionately. “I love men with beards.”
“ Bonjour, mon cheri .” Xavier loosely cupped her jaw, pulling her back to him so that he could steal a much-less platonic kiss than the one she’d just given him.
They’d crawled into bed last night after confessing their feelings for each other, kissing and touching until exhaustion overtook them and they fell asleep, wrapped up in each other’s arms.
Xavier was no stranger to the power of words, but nothing he’d ever read or written had moved him as strongly as hearing Annie and Colum say they loved him.
“Save some for me,” Colum demanded, his voice husky from sleep.
Annie giggled against Xavier’s lips, and he released her. She twisted toward Colum, their lips brushing softly at first before passion stepped in and took over. Xavier made no move to join in, spellbound by the beauty of these two souls. Watching Annie and Colum together had rocketed up his list, becoming his second-favorite pastime, right after his new number one.
Making love to them.
When they finally parted, Annie nestled back down between them, he and Colum turning toward each other, clasping their hands together on her stomach. Xavier placed a soft kiss on her shoulder while Colum grinned at him, his thick mass of brown curls a chaotic bedhead mess that Xavier longed to run his fingers through.
“What should we do today?” Annie asked. “Since we’ve been commanded to remain at the archive.”
The fleet admiral had insisted the three of them stay at the archive, which was even more well protected than before. Xavier had been moved by the depth of Eric’s love for Colum, the lengths he went to in order to ensure his brother was safe. Given what Colum had told them about Eric’s reaction to Josephine’s death, he understood the fleet admiral’s fear over losing Colum as well.
It was one Xavier now shared, so he was grateful for Eric’s diligence.
“I have an idea,” Colum said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
It had been on the tip of Xavier’s tongue to suggest the same thing, perfectly content to remain with them in bed all day—or forever—but there was something he needed to do first. Something that couldn’t wait any longer.
Xavier released Colum’s hand and sat up. “I need to call someone.”
“Who?” Annie asked.
“My admiral.”
Colum frowned. “Why?”
“Because I want to spend the rest of my life fucking you two, which means going from hopeless to impossible.”
Annie sighed. “Xavier, those are the same thing.”
He tsked. “No, no, no. Hopeless, that is giving up. Impossible is only impossible until it is possible.”
Annie made a sound that was almost a growl, and Colum chuckled.
“I cannot take down every mountain between us and happiness,” Xavier said softly. “But I can climb this one for us.”
Colum was shaking his head. “Xavier, your admiral doesn’t have the authority to place the three of us in a marriage. I’m technically already married, and Annie isn’t a member. It’s not possible for Admiral Dubois to override Eric on any matter, and definitely not this one.”
“She’s not placing us in a marriage,” Xavier said. “She’s placing me in a leadership position.”
Colum blinked a few times, then reached for his glasses, slapping them on. “You’re going to call the admiral of France and ask her to give you one of the highest-ranking positions in your territory?”
“She’ll jump at the chance.” Xavier reached for his phone, intent on dialing, but Annie slapped it and his hand down.
“Maybe you should put a shirt on first, hotshot,” she said. “And get out of bed.”
Xavier chuckled. “I’m fine like this.”
Colum rose from the bed as Annie arm-wrestled with him, holding his hand against the mattress so that he couldn’t dial.
Xavier laughed when Colum lobbed a T-shirt he’d grabbed from his suitcase at his head.
“Fine,” he relented, tugging on the shirt. Before Annie could stop him again, he grabbed his phone and dialed.
The admiral answered after the second ring. “Xavier. I just heard the archive was attacked again. Are you okay?” The admiral leaned toward the screen. “Is that a cut on your forehead?”
“It’s a scratch at best. I’m fine,” Xavier reassured her, responding in English even though her questions were spoken in French.
“You’re speaking English,” she replied, following his lead. “Why?”
“Because I’m not alone.”
The admiral narrowed her eyes. “Explain.”
“I’m in love.”
She acted exactly as Xavier expected. “Finally!”
Colum and Annie exchanged a confused look that he enjoyed way more than he should.
Xavier shot them a wink.
“And they’re there?” she asked.
“They are. Would you like to meet them?” he asked, just to watch them panic.
Annie shot him a dirty look as she tugged the duvet up to her neck, and Colum—naked as the day he was born—ran around the room in search of pants.
“ Mais bien s?r ,” she replied, also as he expected. Of course she wanted to meet them.
“Introductions will have to wait. I’m afraid they’re indisposed at the moment.”
The admiral sighed. “You’re in bed with them.”
Xavier chuckled, not bothering to reply. The admiral knew him well enough he didn’t need to. “There’s a problem—several problems—we need to resolve before we can be together.”
Her shoulders straightened, as she took on the appearance of a woman ready to set the world on fire. “What problem? Tell me so I can fix it. If you mean they’re not in my territory, that’s fine. I have plenty of ways to bargain with the other admirals for one or two of their members if that’s who you want.”
Xavier barely managed to hold back his bark of laughter when Annie mouthed the words, “What the fuck?” to Colum, who shrugged, totally bemused.
“That’s not necessary. This problem requires something more, and I think you’re going to like my proposed solution. Because it will give you something you’ve always wanted,” Xavier said with a smirk.
“I’ve been patiently waiting for a great many things when it comes to you,” she replied.
Xavier didn’t need to hear the list. He knew exactly what she wanted because she’d told him countless times over the years.
“I’ll take the job.”
She studied him at first in surprise, then suspicion. “Do you need money?”
“No,” Xavier said with a shrug. “I want the job.”
“But you’ve always turned it down, sworn you’d never accept it.”
Xavier lifted one shoulder casually. He had always said that, and until he met Colum and Annie, he’d meant it. He preferred words to dollar signs, even if he did have the Midas touch when it came to making money.
“I accept the position,” he said formally.
“Very well.” Her eyes narrowed. “Just that position?”
Xavier swallowed hard, then looked at Annie and Colum. They were worth it. “No, I accept it all.” He was fully aware that comment was going to lead to a much larger inquisition, one he didn’t really want to go into in front of Annie and Colum. “But I’m afraid I don’t have much time. Is the position mine?”
She smiled brightly, clapping her hands together in delight. “You know it is. As soon as you return to Paris, you begin your work as a finance minister, and your training to become the next vice admiral, and then admiral of France.”
Annie’s mouth fell open as Colum ran a hand through his hair, muttering something in Irish, and while Xavier didn’t know what the words meant, they were spoken with undeniable awe.
“Thanks, Maman ,” Xavier said, not looking at his phone but instead at his lovers, enjoying the matching expressions of shock as he dropped his fun bomb. It helped him ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. “I’ll call you again as soon as I can,” he promised his mother. “Because I’m sure you have a million questions.”
“A million and twelve,” Maman corrected.
“Then I’ll make sure to call when I have several hours,” he joked, saying goodbye.
Tossing his phone onto the mattress, he smirked at them.
“Your mother is an admiral?” Annie asked.
At the same time Colum said, “You’re Victoire Dubois’s son.”
“She is and I am,” Xavier replied. “Maman’s been holding one of the finance minister positions for me ever since Alice Duval retired. She refused to name a permanent replacement, demanding that I begin to step into the role she’s been grooming me for.”
“Role?” Colum asked.
Xavier rolled his eyes. “In France, to be the admiral, you start as a knight, security officer, or finance minister. Then you become the vice admiral or security minister. Then admiral. Usually, the next admiral is identified young and deliberately rises through the ranks of leadership until it’s time for the current admiral to step down.”
“You’re supposed to be the next admiral?” Annie asked.
“It’s what my mother always intended. Until I said no.”
“So it’s an inherited position?”
“It can be,” he said. “In France, nepotism is real.”
“And no one wants to be a territory admiral or fleet admiral,” Colum said. “The job is thankless.”
“It’s like being a politician, right?” Annie was shaking her head. “But you’re a poet, an artist.” She was struggling to make the pieces fit, which made sense, as he’d only shown her that one side of himself. And while it was the side he preferred, it would be no hardship to take on the minister position because it came with the greatest perks in the world.
Them.
Xavier shrugged. “I’m an artist with a talent for making money.” Hearing Colum offer to give up his role as archivist, a position that was an ingrained part of who he was, would be the equivalent of the man offering to cut off a limb.
Xavier never wanted to be admiral. He’d refused to even become a finance minister, thought he enjoyed playing and winning the game that was finance. But to go beyond that was something he’d actively rejected, despite having been raised by the admiral, trained to be a good leader in every way she could think of.
He’d turned away from that, his mother’s words on doing his duty and serving his territory leaving him unmoved. But for them, for Annie and Colum, he would do it.
Even if it meant giving up the future he’d always imagined for himself. A life as an artist and playwright. A life spent creating and appreciating the human spirit and creativity, rather than mired in the day-to-day minutia and crises of running a territory.
“You’re a finance minister of France,” Colum murmured.
“For now. As soon as the vice admiral steps down—he’s planning to retire in a few years—I’ll be vice admiral, and eventually admiral.”
“You don’t want it,” Annie said softly, studying his expression.
Xavier shrugged. “You’re worth it.”
“Xavier, no…” Colum started.
“In a few years, I’ll be an admiral. We’ll have to wait until then to get married, but…”
“And Colum needs to not be married. And I need to not get placed in a trinity back in the States. And my Grand Master has to agree to an inter-society marriage…” Annie said slowly.
“As I said, it’s only one of our mountains,” Xavier murmured. “But I needed to do it before my mother gave up and started grooming someone else to be admiral.”
“It doesn’t feel hopeless anymore,” Annie said.
“Just impossible?” Xavier asked with a grin.
Colum still looked stunned, but then he blinked, focusing on them. “What’s the next step?”
Xavier arched a brow. “You need an annulment.”