“Yes, and now all the effort you’ve put into Aegis will be dismantled,” I tell her. “Because here’s my promise, Mariella. I will unearth every member if that’s what it takes to find my wife.”
“Why?” she asks.
I stare at her like she’s forgotten who I am.
“Why do you need to find her?” she presses.
“She’s my wife.”
“This isn’t a matter of principle,” she argues. “You could have married anybody. Why did it have to be Abella?”
Irritation seeps under my skin. She shouldn’t be asking me this. Especially not now.
“Can you admit that you love her?”
The answer splinters inside my chest, squeezing my ribs in a vise grip. Mariella knows it, and I glare at her as she smiles. But her amusement fades quickly.
“What do you plan to do if you can’t have a baby together?”
Again, I don’t answer.
“Would you subject her to an affair just so you can meet the requirements of the treaty?”
“No,” I growl.
The finality of that statement settles over the room like a dark cloud. Mariella knows as well as I do what that means. My inability to let go of Abella will impact all of us.
As much as my sister has tried to hide her interactions with Ares Stavros over the years, I know something happened between them. I don’t know what or when, and if I ever uncover the truth, I might murder him for the hell of it and start a war anyway. Because fuck him.
The problem is, she would never forgive me if I killed him.
Mariella leans against the door frame, lost in her own thoughts as she seems to piece something together.
“Did you know Abella’s fertility would be tested before you married?”
“No.” I never would have asked that of her. But it doesn’t surprise me Maurizio ordered the tests. He wanted a fat paycheck for all his daughters.
Mariella frowns as if I just confirmed her thoughts, then nods.
“By the way, you should probably know Genevieve Wilkes has been yapping her mouth and telling everyone you have a list of other prospects to knock up when Abella fails.”
My last thread of patience snaps. “Since when?”
“Since the night of the ball, at least. Probably before that. But that’s when Abella overheard her.”
“Christ.” I scrub a hand over my face.
“I take it that’s not true then?”
I level her with every ounce of my annoyance. “No, Mariella. I don’t have a list of suitable broodmares, for the record.”
She shrugs. “Guess your plan to make Abella jealous kind of backfired, didn’t it?”
“You have two seconds to get out of my office before I call Ares Stavros and sign a marriage contract with your name on it.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine. But if you find her?—”
“You mean when I find her.”
