His face contorts. “What?”
“Marry Asta,” I echo, firm.
He traces my gaze across the room to the silvery beautiful witch with poison in her heart.
“She’s with Harling.”
“Is it announced?” I challenge. “Have the contracts been signed?”
Landon slides a humoured look to me. “How much have you had to drink? Have you been digging into the punch?”
I tut. “Your betrothed is some gentry you couldn’t care less about. Asta is aristos—and your friend. She’s also about to marry a gentry. I don’t see the confusion. Two aristos together is better than losing two aristos to gentries.”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs, a knitted frown on his forehead. “She’s a friend—she’s… Asta. She loves Harling, always has.”
“And you’re gay,” I whisper.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
It takes a lot in me to not knock him upside the head and restart his brain. “You said to me that we would be one of the happier aristos couples, because I’m deadblood and you’re gay. But you and Asta would be even happier—as long as you’re both very, fucking discreet.”
He turns to mirror me.
I have his full attention.
“Asta stays friends with Serena, who will be a Craven then—and so you’ll be around Oliver… a lot. Hard to fall with your claws already stuck in the core.”
It’s slow.
The smile on his lips.
But it grows, and it grows, until it’s a toothy grin of pearly white teeth and lovely full lips.
“Asta can have her secret affair with Eric, while you keep James as your aide, or at least on staff, right?”
Still, that grin is slapped onto his face, seemingly permanent.
“And you’re both still aristos. You are my best friend, so you will be around Dray often, and Asta is Serena’s best friend, so you’ll be with Oliver, too. It will be the six of us.”
He likes it, my idea, he loves it.
But there’s a snag.
The obvious.
The Barlows aren’t the only ones losing their grip on their aristos status.
The Ströms are, too.
“There’s no money in brews,” I tell him, and he doesn’t need me to say it, because he knows. “Prediction kept your family in the tech world, but since your mother’s print started to fade, it hasn’t been good.”
Landon runs me over with a hard stare, waiting to see where I’m going with this, or if I’m just having a dig for the sake of it.
“Asta’s father has manipulation for a print. If you’re his son-in-law, he’ll be willing to help you,” I go on, my mind whirling, like I’m figuring out pieces of a puzzle. “Put brews and manipulation together, and that’s good business. That’s…” I shrug as I scrape around my brain for something, then land on, “pharmaceuticals.”
He crosses his arms, concentration tightening his face. “I’m listening…”
“If you have James, Asta, Mr Ström, DrayandOliver on your side—I don’t see why you can’t become a pharma giant.Thatis money.”
