“He doesn’t have a year,” Axel derided. “He’s scrambling for investment funding to replace what Mira has yanked. Now that she’s working with Rocco DeStefano and tying up Rocco’s resources, the timing has never been better for me to start my own firm. I can poach from both of them. Tell Otto that his refusal to honor the marriage contract nullifies my noncompete clause. I will act accordingly.”
Not that he had been waiting on anyone’s permission to start his own firm. He’d already put Heskel on finding office space and staffing it.
When they returned home, he was still turning over the longing in Joy’s voice when she had spoken of her nephew.
“Do you want children?” he asked her.
“I—” Her voice turned strangled. She halted in removing her earrings, eyes wide as a deer confronting headlights. “Because of what I said about missing my nephew? I saw you frown when I said that. I wasn’t trying to hint that I want a baby. I’ve actually been meaning to ask you to help me find a doctor so I can use something more reliable than condoms.” She turned away to finish removing her jewelry and started on the pins from her hair.
“Meaning you don’t want children,” he clarified.
“Maybe. Someday. Not now.”
“Not with me.” That shouldn’t be such a kick in the crotch, but it was.
“Not when I’m about to get back into dance. Why? Do you want children?” She turned to face him but contorted her arms, trying to lower the zip on her dress.
He moved across to do it for her, turning her so he could reach. “I wasn’t planning to become a father, no. But it crossed my mind tonight that starting a family would go a long way to proving our marriage is more than a piece of paper.”
“This is about Otto?” She spun around to face him, affronted. “What are you thinking? That if I continue the man’s bloodline, he’ll bestow his riches upon me? There is a limit to how far I’ll let you use me, Axel. It does not extend to being a vessel that literally carries your ‘justice.’ I sure as hell won’t let you or anyone use my child for anything. Ever.” She started to brush past him.
He stopped her.
She knocked his hand off her arm and glared up at him.
“That wasn’t what I was suggesting,” he ground out. “I thought a family might be something you want. I thought we should talk about it.”
“Why would I want to have a baby with you when our marriage has an expiration date?”
“It doesn’t,” he said in another knee-jerk response. “We can choose whether we end it and when.”
“I can’t.” She took a step back, coming up against the dresser. She grasped the edge of it as though needing the support. Her mouth tightened. She looked trapped. Hurt. “You can decide tomorrow that you don’t want Vorstoben and discard me immediately. I can’t leave for a year, or there will be unpleasant consequences for my family.”
His heart lurched. “Are you saying you want to leave?”
“No.” Her brow pleated, and she swallowed. “But don’t…” Her voice cracked, and she blinked fast.
“Are you crying? Joy.” He hadn’t meant to upset her. He reached for her.
“Don’tdothat.” She shoved at his chest and stalked past him until she was across the room. “You know you can fry my brain with sex, and that’s not fair! What happens when the sex fades? Huh? Do you really see us staying married all our lives? Having a family? That’s a real question, Axel. Do you?”
“I don’t know.” How had this escalated so quickly? “It was just a question.”
“Well, stop and think for a minute how loaded that question is for me! My birth mother gave me away. The man who made me, the one you dragged me here to meet, has no interest in a relationship with me. Now you’re saying maybe you want to keep me around a little longer, but only maybe? Only if I have a baby that gets you what you want? A baby you don’t even want except for what it gets you? Do you hear how cruel that is to say tome?”
He snapped his head to the side as though she’d struck him. He felt her sharp words like claws against his cheek. It was an attack he deserved because he hadn’t really seen how tender this was for her. She was so good at hiding that particular scar, acting as though her adoptive family had given her all she needed, that he’d forgotten the very real pain of loss and rejection she carried.
“You didn’t like it when Otto changed the rules on you,” she pointed out shakily.
“I’m not changing the rules.” He did want to change the rules, though. He didn’t want a hard end date on this marriage. It bothered him to think of her counting down the days. It didn’t matter that he understood why she was doing it. He didn’t like it. Not at all.
This was the sort of inner turmoil that he had thought to avoid by marrying Mira. They would have easily ghosted through a year of a marriage that was more of a financial partnership, one that wouldn’t have caused any ripples in his life. Or his equilibrium.
“I want to give you what you want,” he said tightly. Because if he gave her what she wanted, he could have what he was increasingly feeling like he needed: her. “If you wanted children, I wanted you to know I’m open to discussing it. That’s all.”
She was still standing across the room, arms crossed to hold up the loosened dress that was hanging off her bare shoulders. Her expression was dejected. “I want to be loved, Axel. I want someone to say they want me in their life forever. I want to know that I belong with them for the rest of my life. Can you give me that?”
The sensation that jolted through him could have been the electric charge off a cattle prod. It seared so deeply and painfully within him, it damn near stopped his heart. Because how was he supposed to pay that steep a price? “No.”
