Dixon held up his notepad. Matrons have no need for highborn who refuse their duty. Her mother would exile her as an example, daughter or not. She’d have to.
“No, she wouldn’t. But even if she did, who care
s? If your mother doesn’t want you as chief, then join me. I’ll take you on as a hacker. We’ve done a lot of good together, Lila. We can keep doing good together.” His eyes pleaded with her, and she knew his frustration wasn’t only about the prime role.
“I don’t want to leave my family.”
“Family? Family doesn’t force you to be what you’re not.”
There are worse things than doing what others want.
“Well, it’s pretty far down on the list. A real family doesn’t do that to one another.”
Lila pushed her mug around the coffee table. The scraping filled the silence. “Real families aren’t neat and tidy, Tristan. Just because you ran out on yours when it wasn’t perfect, doesn’t mean I should do the same.”
“You’d rather have sex at your mother’s command, Chosen One? Dixon left his family, and he’s okay.”
That was different, his brother wrote. Lila thought back to the countless times she’d seen Dixon’s back. Dozens of white scars slashed it. Someone had done that to him, tortured him, though she’d never found out why.
She’d always suspected it had been his highborn family, but he’d never explained.
I was half dead when we got away. I had to go. That’s not what Lila is facing. Being exiled is being cast out from your home, cast away from everything and everyone you’ve ever known.
Tristan’s feet stilled upon the wooden floor. “Not everyone you’ve ever known. I’m your brother. I’m here, aren’t I? Do you actually miss those assholes?”
Sometimes. Some of them, at least. They were my family. That was my home.
“I’m your family. This is your home. I’m the only one who gave a damn about saving you from that place. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Is this my home, or is it a cause?
“Is that how you feel?”
Dixon closed his notepad and dropped it on the coffee table.
“Maybe you should leave, then,” Tristan said, retreating to the window. “Maybe both of you should. For oracle’s sake, why am I never good enough for either of you?”
“Becoming prime has nothing to do with you.”
“Doesn’t it? You’re going to attend that ball tomorrow night, and some highborn asshole is going to climb into your bed. You’re going to spread your legs and fuck him, and you think that has nothing to do with me?”
Dixon stood up and squeezed Lila’s shoulder. He pulled on a pair of pants abandoned on the floor and slipped on a sweater. His cane smacked against the floor as he retreated from the apartment.
Tristan watched him go.
“None of this has anything to do with you,” she said after the door snicked behind Dixon. “You’re not my husband. You’re my lover, and I have my family to think about. There is truth in what my mother said and in what she asks of me, whether you want to admit it or not.”
Tristan lowered himself into Dixon’s spot. The plush chair scraped against the wooden floor as he sat. “Gods, it really is that easy for you. You see nothing wrong with slipping out of my bed and climbing into someone else’s.”
“You knew what you were getting into. Don’t act like this is a surprise.”
“A surprise? I thought you were—”
Different.
Lila knew exactly what he would say. He’d said it over and over again as though trying to shape her behavior, as though she were a wayward puppy to be molded. If what she had done was on the list of things he liked, he’d say it with a smile. If it was on the list of things he hated, he’d say it with a sneer.
A sneer crossed his face this time.