“I know that. But I thought that when I told Lucian…”
“He knows?”
“Yes. I told him.”
“And he decided to steal my child?”
She nodded. “He needs an heir. He said that it didn’t matter to him because… He’s been married twice, and neither of his wives has lived long enough to produce heirs. He thought that it was convenient that I was pregnant already.”
“Then he is a monster. But so are you.”
She said nothing more. Her unwillingness to fight him, her lack of desire to explain herself, spoke volumes. There was no sound, only the motor of the boat, the crash of the waves. They weren’t being pursued. It would be a very slow trek to the island of Marake, where he had arranged air transport for them. They had three hours in this boat, and frankly, if Lucian realized that they had taken to the sea, he would be able to overtake them in just about any air- or watercraft he chose.
Andrei had to continue to hope that it didn’t occur to him.
And that if Onyx were to give any guidance, even genuine guidance, he would say that Andrei would never take to the sea.
But he didn’t know. He did not know the ferocity of his feelings for Emerald, nor the things that had happened on the water in these past weeks.
The way that it had changed him.
“Where are we going?” Her teeth were chattering; she had been silent for what felt like an hour.
“Somewhere warmer than this.”
The journey on the water was brutal. Emerald’s stomach was churning by the time they got off the boat, and she found herself bundled onto a private jet.
“How do you have… Access to this?”
Andrei turned to her, his expression severe. “You think I do not have money of my own? Do you think I have not taken what your brother has paid me and made investments? You truly do think me common.”
“I don’t, I…”
She was miserable. She should be ecstatic. Andrei had come for her. She was pregnant with his baby. But this was like being on the other side of the looking glass. As if she had stood there, seen her dream and fallen down into the other side, been presented with a backward, twisted version of the thing that she had always wanted.
Because she had hurt him. She could see it. He was furious in a cold, frightening way. She wasn’t sure that they would ever recover from it.
The truth was, what she’d done had been a decision made in shock. Likely, she would’ve come to her senses at some point, but everything would’ve been more complicated. It was a narrow escape, this brush with marriage to the wrong man, but now she had fallen out of the frying pan and into the churning waves.
“I really didn’t have time to think—”
“I was going to take you. Regardless. I had no idea about the child.”
He sat down in a plush, leather chair, forearms rested on the arms, his legs spread wide. He was wet, and furious. She stood, unwilling to sit down, unable to. Her whole body was trembling.
“If you do not sit when we prepare for takeoff, you will fall over.”
She did sit then.
“I could not give you to him. But I had no idea what a treacherous woman you were. Still, all the better that I did take you, or I would have been denied my child. I have lost all of my family, Emerald, and you would take my child from me too.”
“I didn’t think of that. I didn’t… I didn’t think.”
“No,” he said. “You didn’t think of anyone but yourself. Your legacy, is that not correct? That is all you think of. The way that you will be written about in the history books. Well, I don’t know about the history books, but what happens today will surely be written about in headlines the world over. And our child will be able to read those headlines. What do you think they will make of them?”
She wasn’t sure that it mattered, because she didn’t know she was going to survive this. She didn’t know if she was going to survive any of this. It also wasn’t true.
“It isn’t about what they write about me. I wanted to do the right thing,” she said.
