He stole the phone from her then. “I have treated her better than anyone in your household ever did. I will be sending over my demands by the end of the week.”
“You have the terms of the agreement,” Octavio said in response.
“I will have the terms I lay out. You tried to run from me, Octavio. Men who run from me are always caught. Make no mistake.”
He hung the phone up and tossed it down on his desk.
“He won’t go against you,” Fern said. “He’s far too aware of his own need to preserve himself.”
“You definitely made an impossible situation for him.”
She laughed. “Well. Seeing as he spent the last twenty-one years putting me in impossible situations it feels almost poetic. I never would have thought that I could use any of these things to my own advantage. How nice to be proven wrong.”
“A word of caution to you,” he said, pausing for a moment and looking into those fathomless green eyes. “I will not be manipulated.”
“Then continue to treat me like a partner and I won’t need to do it.”
He almost admired her. The way that she refused to cower. Refused to say that she wasn’t trying to manipulate him, or that she never would.
She was intent on going toe to toe with him. It was difficult to object.
Because in his life, strength could only be admired. And he had to admire hers as well, even if he also had to be wary of it.
“You are not in a position to negotiate.”
She smiled. “Neither are you. Now, we have married. What is it that you intend to do next?”
“I have new legislation to review.”
“Do you have a parliament or anything like that?”
“No. There has been some talk of implementing one, but until then, I am mainly focusing on restoring functionality to the system.”
“Is there anything that I can help with?”
He frowned. “I did not marry you for help with matters of state.”
“In a fashion, you did. You said that you wanted me to help you with diplomacy.”
“That’s different. It is a woman’s work.”
He said it dismissively. Without thought. And when he looked back at her green eyes, she was giving him a deep glare. “What? Do you object to the characterization?”
“Yes. I do. Because I watched my mother be pushed into the background, disrespected, relegated to the shadows because her work was only a woman’s work.”
“You don’t intend to stay here,” he pointed out.
“No. I don’t. How…was your parents’ marriage? How did they balance things?”
And here was where that great yawning cavern existed. That place that stood empty. Meaningless. His past life before he had left the palace.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“You don’t know it at all?”
“No. I’ve mentioned already, I don’t remember how I escaped. I don’t remember the day that the palace was taken. And I don’t truly remember my life before.”
“Did you…?” She moved closer to him, her scent intoxicating. She was like wildflowers and the forest. Something that he missed sometimes.
