8. CHAPTER 7 #2
I exhaled, irritated at my own slip.
“She didn’t share a bed with him,” I said. “Not in the way you mean.”
Her eyes narrowed further. “And you know this how?”
Because I’d watched every night for weeks like a creep, and I knew they weren’t having sex. I can’t speak for months before. But I didn’t want my mother having one more thing to use against her. It was stupid. I was being stupid for even defending this. And I’m never stupid.
A faint sneer crossed her face. “You are really going to use your cousin’s… spy games… to comfort yourself that the woman you’re marrying is not tainted?”
“I’m not comforting myself,” I said. “I don’t particularly care either way.”
That shocked her more than anything else I’d said.
“You don’t—”
“This is not a purity contest,” I said in a steady voice. “This is about consolidation. Total control. Solidifying my position. The Fernándezes are still valuable, and the alliance is still useful. Her brief attempt at rebellion doesn’t change any of that.”
My mother stared at me as if seeing a stranger.
“Your father would never have tolerated this,” she lashed.
“My father tolerated mistresses in his bed and worse in his business,” I replied. “He tolerated a great many things when they benefitted him.”
Her lips pressed together in a hard line.
“Do not speak of your father like that.”
“I’m speaking of him accurately,” I countered. “He initiated this merger. He wants the truce. He wants me in a position where the Board can’t touch me. This marriage gives us that. One frightened girl’s detour doesn’t undo the math.”
She shook her head, stepping back as if to get a clearer view of me.
“And what about your pride?” she asked. “Your reputation? Do you plan to smile at the wedding while everyone whispers that your bride had to be dragged back from another man’s arms?”
“No one will whisper,” I said. “Severin is handling it. There will be no photos. No witnesses with intact memories. No blogs. No gossip worthy of repeating.”
Her laughter was harsh and wicked.
“You think you can erase it?”
“I don’t think,” I said confidently. “I know.”
She went quiet. When she spoke again, the outrage had left her voice, replaced by a cold calculation. Her French accent picked up.
“Then at least be practical,” she said her voice dropping.
“You go through with this for the truce, fine. You secure your sit, fine. But do not pretend this will be a marriage like ours was at the beginning. Take your wife for what she is—a symbol for whatever you please. You can always take your pleasure elsewhere. Many men do. It is simpler that way. Everyone knows their role. No one expects more.”
Finally, there it was. The solution éliane had probably hoped she would sell me on. Let the girl play wife on paper while I played husband everywhere else.
I felt everything in me go very still.
“I’m not interested in mistresses,” I said flatly.
She blinked. “Don’t be na?ve.”
“I’m not being na?ve,” I said. “I simply don’t have the patience to divide my attention. If I marry, I marry once.”
Her brow furrowed.
“To one woman,” I added. “I don’t need any extras. No consolation prizes. No distractions.”
Esmé stared at me like I’d switched dialects.
“You would chain yourself to a girl who doesn’t even want you?” she fumed. “Who has already shown you she’ll run?”
“She can want whatever she likes,” I said. “Our marriage isn’t dependent on her enthusiasm. Only her compliance.”
No further explanations.
“You sound just like your father,” she whispered. There was something almost like hurt under the anger now. “So stubborn and cold.”
I thought of my father in the next wing, still hooked up to machines despite the slow signs of recovery. I remembered the way he’d looked at me when we spoke about the merger.
He hadn’t asked about my feelings. Not that I had any to begin with… but still he didn't. He’d asked about voting blocs, market share, board seats. Things we both understood mattered more.
“This is the world you married into,” I reminded her, my voice low. “You knew what it demanded.”
I noticed her stiffen before her eyes moved over my face like she could barely recognize the man in front of her.
She drew herself up again, shoulders squared, chin high.
“Very well,” she said. “Go ahead, then. Marry her. Drag a runaway back into your house and label it as strategic.”
Her gaze cut over the monitors as if she could see the ghost of Léonie on the screens.
“But do not come to me later,” she added, “when she resents you…because she will. When she looks at you and sees the man who closed every door she tried to open. Don’t ask me to fix that.”
I held her eyes.
“I won’t.”
She searched my face for hesitation, doubt…mercy maybe. Whatever it was, she didn’t find it.
“Henrik always said you were his true heir,” she murmured. “I used to think he meant the company.”
She turned and walked to the door. Her hand paused on the knob.
“She ran from you once,” my mother said without looking back. “You may trap her on paper. You may silence the world, but you remember this, Orion… inside, she will always remember that she never chose you first.”
Then she opened the door and left.
I sat very still, listening to her footsteps fade.
She never chose you first.
Those words could have done real damage if I were a man with feelings.
On the screen, the last still Severin had sent me was open. A wide shot of the island road, Léonie in the distance, walking with her head tipped back, as if the sky might answer her if she stared long enough.
Inside, she could choose whatever she wanted.
On the outside? Her options were already mine to write.
I zoomed in on the picture and smiled.
The farther you choose to run, Léonie Fernández, the more I own you.