I open my mouth, but no words come out... because I don’t have any.
He stares at me, waiting for me to start yelling or hitting him or something. I remain silent for a few more moments and then regain my composure. Err, sort of.
“There are ways to prevent that nowadays,” I say lamely.
“Not one hundred percent accurate ones,” he says, turning the ring I gave him slowly.
I fall onto an idea and state it without really thinking it through, “The future me didn’t have children.”
“In the parallel universe, you had plenty. With everybody,” he says back.
Everybody? Well, that’s a bit insulting. Eh, who am I kidding, seems it was everybody.
“What I mean is this,” I hold up the document, “will only come into effect once we are married. I intend to carry on my ‘sexual relations’ with Lincoln, if it doesn’t happen in the next hundred years, why would it at all?”
He grimaces at me. “There is nothing I can do about what you do before we are married but once you are my wife and we are trying for a baby of our own, you will not be permitted sex with anyone who can get you pregnant.”
I gape at him. “Well, same to you then,” I round on him.
He looks taken aback. “What do you mean ‘same to me then?’”
“The idea is to get you up to scratch, not me,” I say, and he flinches at the insult. “I will not be a stepmother to any half Vampire, half whatevers, should you knock someone else up.”
He takes a moment to process that and then he laughs at me. I mean actually laughs in my face. “Oh, my sweet. You do not ever have to worry about that. I am yours, completely.”
“You said that before and then did…stuff with Vivienne,” I point out. Yeah, that stopped you from laughing at me. Jerk.
He clears his throat. “I never fucked her. I had no intention of fucking her. I will not ever fuck another woman besides you. And I know this isn’t the point and I will incur your wrath but just for accuracy's sake, I must point out that she is a Vampire, and therefore incapable.”
Wrath? Oh, this is wrath, more than wrath. They don’t even have a word for it.
“If you plan on hitting me again could you mind the furniture and ornaments? There are some priceless pieces scattered about,” he says worriedly. Not so much about me hitting him but about his priceless artifacts. That makes me giggle. Idiot.
I shake my head at him. “Just don’t be surprised when I show up with my own set of T & C’s,” I say breezily.
“I won’t be,” he says, relieved I am not about to go homicidal on his arse for being a tool. He takes the document from me and rips the pages from the back. “These can wait,” he says, holding up the Terms. “This I want you to sign now.” He hands me the property transfer document back.
“I will read it first,” I say, taking it from him and sitting on the bed.
“I expect nothing less,” he says and sits next to me while I read. It is standard but with clauses I am unfamiliar with due to the Italian way of doing things. As the document is in Italian there are also some legal words I am struggling with, but I point them out and he fills me in. Once I have read it and then read it again this time with full understanding, I hold my hand out for a pen and he hands me his Montblanc. I sign with a flourish.
“That is two castles I have given you this week. What next?” he says happily.
I am about to smile back but then my face freezes. So does his as he realizes what he has just said. I stand up and hold my hand up to him. “You bastard,” I hiss at him as he stands up quickly.
“Wait, Aefre. That came out wrong. I didn’t mean it to sound…”
“Save it. It came out exactly how it is. You haven’t given up. You haven’t given up at all. You are still fighting, but now you are fighting dirty. Making me, us, think that you were going back to the original terms. That you were going to respect our marriage.”
“I meant what I said, Aefre. I did step back. I am going to respect your marriage,” he says desperately.
“Then what the fuck is this?” I gesture at the pages he is gripping tightly. Probably so I won’t rip them out of his hand and tear them into two million pieces.
“Our future,” he says quietly.
I shake my head. “Cole wondered what you would cough up next after giving me Cassis. The only other thing in the world that was out of my reach, that only you could give to me.” I look around sadly and say, “This place.”
“No, that is not what this is about,” he says firmly. “I promise you, that is not what I am doing. Please don’t turn this into something foul.” He frowns. “You know how hard these things come to me. You know what this means to me, and I know what it means to you. Please don’t crap on it by making it into something that it is not.”