“She gave you her real name,” Ash commented in surprise.
Hurtheven sent Ash a withering gaze.
“How much has she revealed?” Pen asked.
Everything. Or so he’d thought. “I cannot say, can I? ...If I don’t know the whole.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I was under the impression she had agreed to wed me last night.”
“Last night,” Ash repeated grimly. “I wager you’ve been bedding her longer than that.”
“You’re not being helpful, Ash.” Chev returned with a drink.
“Itoldhim to take care. Heneverlistens.”
“You told me to offer for her, should she and I make a carnal arrangement. Well, Ididoffer for her. Which is more than you did afteryoufuc?—”
“Mywifeis present,” Chev interrupted.
Hurtheven muttered an apology to Pen. Then he turned back to Ash. “You said you weren’t in her confidence.”
“I wasn’t. And I didn’t know then...” He glanced askance at Pen. “...As much as I know now.”
“How much of her past did she reveal to you?” Pen asked.
“She told me she’d had an affair,” Hurtheven replied.
Ash folded his arms. “That’s all?”
Pen laid a silencing hand on Ash’s shoulder.
Hurtheven grimaced. “Just let Ash tell me what I missed. He’s dying to make me feel small.”
Ash lifted a brow.
“If you can’t stop yourself from glowering, would you just take yourself off?” Hurtheven demanded. “I asked her to marry me—and not because you demanded I do so, but because I love—” He shifted in his seat, moving a suspicious, defensive gaze between all three of his friends. “Because Iloveher, and Iwantedto propose. Just tell me where to find her, would you? I will handle the rest.”
Ash shook his head. “Your arrogance has saved me on more than one occasion. Saved Chev, too. Your absolute conviction that you can bend the world to your will earns you plenty of hate, but believe it or not, until today, I’ve always seen it as your greatest strength.”
“Thentell mewhat I have done wrong!” he gritted. “Tell me so I can follow her and make things right.”
Pen knelt. “She doesn’t want you to follow her.” She placed a hand on his knee. “If you do, you will damage her reputation and almost certainly harm her chances of getting what she truly desires.”
“Hang gossips!” He frowned. “Did you say, ‘what shetrulydesires’?”
Pen took a deep breath. “She has a child, Hurtheven. A child she was forced to leave with a foundling hospital. But, with Alicia’s character reference, she hopes they will soon be reunited. She begged us to prevent you from interfering, because if there isanysuggestion, she has not reformed...”
“A child?” He interrupted, amazed.
She had achild? And she had beggedthemto keephimfrominterfering?
Ever since he’d set eyes on her, a part of him had known she wasthe one. Had she felt the same? She couldn’t have. She’d never trusted him at all.
“Why didn’t she ask me to intervene?” he said. “No board of directors would rejectmyplea.”
Ash snorted.
“I’m afraid they could and would,” Chev replied. “Any suggestion that they are not keeping to their mission would put their mission—and the hundreds of innocents dependent on that mission—at risk.”
Were his hands truly tied, then? Frantic for a way out, his mind circled back.
