It was a lie, of course. Senator Dubois, her sister’s favorite senator, loved playing matchmaker, especially between Lila and his cousins.
She couldn’t blame Dubois for the interest. A match with a Randolph heir would make any senator’s career, regardless of whether or not Lila wore the whitecoat. She was a highborn, after all, and everyone knew the chairwoman considered her the prime, despite her interest in the militia rather than Wolf Tower.
That was not the only thing that made Lila so valuable. She had no children. A senator always retained custody of an eldest son born to an heir. Turned over to the senator soon after birth, he’d grow up at Bullstow, raised by his father and educated in their schools and university until he was old enough to take a position in the compound. It was how future senators were bred as well as their clerks, their militia, their chefs, their professors, their medics, and their community liaisons and social workers. The men of Bullstow had once been the children of Bullstow, bawling and snotty and laughing, doted on and spoiled by a thousand fathers.
A boy meant a child of one’s own and a child shared.
The rewards were even higher with Lila, for Chairwoman Randolph had no granddaughter yet. Such a child would be necessary to secure the hierarchy of one of the richest and most powerful families in Saxony, otherwise Beatrice’s sisters might begin to step out of line. The man who could offer that security to the chairwoman would consummate his career between the sheets.
It was really the only way. After their internships, senators began their political careers in the legislatures of the smaller cities scattered throughout Saxony. To advance to a larger, more prestigious city, a senator needed to prove himself behind the podium as well as bind himself to the highborn and elite lowborn in the region. He did that by making matches, or more specifically, by making babies. Seeding an heir for Lila, and by extension Chairwoman Randolph, would catapult most any senator directly to the New Bristol Senate, or elevate him to the Saxony Senate if he had other favorable ties in the region. A Saxon senator might even make it to Unity.
That was why she hated going to events during the season, this endless press of men smiling at her, flirting with her, merely for the chance to become the father of her children.
Children she explicitly did not want to have.
If Dubois’s plan hadn’t worked for the last four years, it certainly wouldn’t work this year.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Last night you claimed it was my fault that we wouldn’t be working together any longer, but instead you’re quitting so that you can bed a rich, pompous senator and pop out a—”
“Tristan, if you’d—”
“When the poorer classes have children, they choose that moment to fight back, Lila, to make the world a better place for their kids. But the rich shrug off their ideals and hide behind the shelter of laws and society. You always said you had no intention of having children, but I suppose that was a lie. You’ve been beating me up for two years because you think I’m a liar, but—”
“It wasn’t a lie. If you’d shut up for one—”
“Fine. You changed your mind. It says a great deal about your character that you’d quit the work so easily. I thought you were—”
“Quitting the work? I never worked for you, Tristan, and I don’t belong to you. It’s absolutely none of your business what I do or don’t do. I’m not going to apologize for not talking about my life choices with someone who has lied to me, someone who has stolen from me, someone I can’t trust, someone who has shown a complete disregard for my safety and welfare. Get over it.”
“Disregard?” Tristan gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. “I didn’t disregard your safety last winter, you spoiled ass!”
Lila jerked her hea
d away.
Spoiled.
Ass.
Tristan words echoed in the quiet truck.
She settled back into her seat, her fingers trailing out the window. Her hand caught the updrafts as they drove closer and closer toward the city. Tristan was right. He had saved her life, and he hadn’t needed to. The job was over when Lila had slipped off the downtown bridge and plunged into the waters below, knocking herself senseless when she struck the surface. She had panicked, not knowing which way was up or down, barely able to hold her breath, barely able to see the lights of the bridge through the murky water.
Tristan had jumped in seconds later.
Though she was too confused to find the surface, she’d seen Tristan. She cut through the water toward him, and he grabbed her waist immediately, pushing her toward the surface with all his strength. He kicked after her, madly mimicking her movements.
It turned out that she hadn’t been that far from the surface after all. Her head had broken the surface a short time later.
Tristan’s hadn’t.
She had been about to dive back down after him when he appeared several meters away, clawing at the water, looking afraid, his mouth barely clearing the surface. “Relax, Tristan,” she’d shouted, too scared to get close to him until he calmed. “You’re safe. Stretch out like you’re sleeping on a bed, and you’ll float.”
Tristan finally trusted her instructions and calmed. She’d circled him, grabbed him from behind, and started the long trip back to the shore, pulling him along.
They had lain under the bridge for a long time after, panting and shivering. Tristan had dug his forehead into the grass and dirt, clutching at the white wildflowers. He’d reminded her of Pax and of Simon, struggling to get himself under control.
It wasn’t until later that night, after they’d returned to the old hotel, after she was bundled in blankets before a heater, that Dixon had told her what she already knew.