“I couldn’t have, and you know it. You know how Mother is. You know her intolerance of those who cannot handle their positions. It had to be Mother’s idea, her conclusion. It was the only way.”
“You could have poisoned yourself. You could have traded away your happiness if it was so damn important to you, but you didn’t do that. You didn’t even think about it, did you? You didn’t want to be barren. You still want kids. For the experience. For your art.”
Jewel worried her whitecoat’s hem, ignoring the jab. “What are you going to do?”
“Me? I’m not going to do a damn thing. I’m going to relax right here, eat some lunch, and wait while you go next door and tell Senator Dubois all about what you’ve done. Then I’m going to speak with your ex-fiancé, and see how he would like for me to proceed.”
“You can’t do that, Lila. I’m sorry. I—”
“Don’t waste your breath on me. Get your mercy from Senator Dubois.”
“Can’t we—”
“If you don’t get out of my sight right now, you won’t even have a shot at mercy. I will shove you in a holding cell and draw up charges for theft. You seem to forget, Jewel, that you used a hospital account for this little scheme, and I have plenty of evidence to put you away. So unless you wish to spend the next week before the disciplinary committee pleading your case, I suggest you get off your ass and go confess everything to Senator Dubois before I take that option away.”
Jewel slunk out her bedroom, her face a parade of tears in waiting.
Lila put her boots up on the ottoman and considered a trek downstairs for lunch. But while Chef might not press her for details about her bruises, she would certainly forward the information to the chairwoman, considering it a duty from one mother to another.
Lila didn’t want to have that conversation. In fact, she didn’t want to have any conversation with her mother at all, not before she took Jewel down to the holding cells. The chairwoman would surely attempt some sort of deal for her sister’s security, and Lila didn’t want to listen to it. Or more correctly, she didn’t want to risk it.
Instead she paged Isabel to replace the wine with a kettle of tea and bring her lunch. Then she sent a message to Sutton. Find Dr. Cristina Rubio and detain her for questioning. Message me when she is in a holding cell.
As you wish, the commander wrote back. We will talk later of your little escape this morning.
Lila slipped her palm into her pocket.
The dim room pressed in on her, the walls cloying and suffocating.
She wondered where Tristan was and what he and Dixon were doing. She’d escaped death once more, yet she was right back where she started, staying away from the person she longed to be with the most.
Tristan was who she wanted. No one else came close, not even after his ultimatum.
She stroked her belly, knowing that she wouldn’t have come to that conclusion without La Roux. If his hands had not wrapped around her throat, if she hadn’t been forced to think of her life in immediacies.
Death never listened to reason and duty. It listened to the deepest parts of one’s heart.
Her heart had yearned for him again.
It had regretted him again.
Perhaps it wouldn’t have gone there if La Roux hadn’t told her what she’d said during sex. What she had whispered. Moaned. Screamed.
Ignored. Rejected. Dismissed. Refused.
It would be like that every time. Her body and her mind wanting Tristan, even if the part between her legs responded to someone else, doing what it had been made to do.
Even if her heart desired, missed, mourned…
Loved.
Yes, perhaps she did love him.
At least La Roux had been good for clarifying things. Not that it mattered if her feelings had been clarified. She rubbed her belly again, knowing that her situation had not changed. It had only become more complicated. She was still a highborn, and he was still a former slave. She had still rejected him, and he would believe she had cheated on him with La Roux.
He’d never forgive her, especially if she carried another man’s child in her womb.
Perhaps it didn’t matter much. She wasn’t sure she wanted to share her bed with anyone for a while, not when the last man t