Ivan didn't speak in the corridor. Or on the stairs. Or through the front doors. He didn't speak until we were sealed into the SUV, leather seats warming beneath us, bulletproof glass fogging at the edges from the temperature differential.
Then he turned to me. “I got word to Gregor.”
“Good.”
"But Mary McCarthy. How the fuck are you going to explain that?"
"We have to."
"But Mary McCarthy," he repeated, like he was testing whether the name could become less insane through repetition. "The Irish girl in our safehouse. The one who asked Blade if all Russians were born looking like they were actively planning an invasion."
"That very same one.”
He stared at me. Outside, my father’s estate slid past.
"All right," Ivan said finally, very calm now, which meant he was furious. "Let me make sure I understand. You have just told the council, which I might add, wouldn't hesitate to kill you if they know that you’re lying.”
“I know.”
“But you told them that you are marrying a woman who doesn't know she's engaged. You need to produce a marriage certificate in one month. And you need to do this while simultaneously convincing Callum McCarthy, who hates you, and Mary herself, who thinks we're all Bond villains, that this is somehow a good idea.”
“I know.”
“Oh, and Maeve. Our omega, the mother of our child, who just gave birth doesn't know about any of it."
"That's accurate."
"And you think this is going to work."
"I think it has to work."
"That's not the same thing."
"No," I agreed. "It's not."
Ivan's jaw worked. His hands flexed against his thighs. The anger was still there, it was always there now, simmering under his skin like a second pulse, but it was bending toward the same point everything had bent toward since Prague.
Maeve. The pack. The baby.
"If Maeve thinks you're replacing her," he said, "she will leave. She'll just—go. Quietly. Because that's what she does when she thinks she's a burden. And we will never find her."
The words landed harder than anything Yuri had said.
"I know."
"Do you? Because you just bet her security on a lie you told to men who will absolutely use her against you the moment they figure out she exists."
"That's why I told the lie. So they don't figure out she exists."
"For now." He shook his head. "You have to tell her. Quickly. Before someone else does. Before she hears 'Mary McCarthy' from anyone but you."
"I know."
"And then you have to convince Mary McCarthy to fake a marriage to a man she's barely spoken to, without her father finding out it's a sham and starting a war.”
"I'm aware of the logistics."
"Logistics." Ivan snorted. "You sound like Gregor."
