Page 9 of Bound Enemies
“I feel certain that my father has never once considered his children’s happiness,” Leontina said, again with that smile of hers that seemed so charming and yet Pau was certain she was hiding her true feelings somewhere deep beneath it. “In any case, the time has apparently come for me to do my duty. He’s chosen a few likely suitors.”
Then she named the men in question and Pau felt his whole body seem to…ice over.
One so-called suitor was little better than a warlord. Another was renowned in part for the family company that he had inherited and had not run to ground, but was even better known for his long line of women that he paid to remain quiet after they spent any time with him. The others were more of the same. Very wealthy, very twisted, very revolting men who shared only one thing in common. They had different kinds of power and money.
And Pau knew that Umberto had to be desperate for that. For anything that would elevate him back to the level of power and authority he felt he deserved.
Not that he wouldn’t have sold his daughter off anyway, because he had always indicated he would. He was that kind of man. A son was meant to carry his legacy. A daughter was a bargaining chip. But Pau was as certain as he could be that the list of suitors for Umberto Tavian’s only daughter would have looked different if it had been drawn up a year ago.
Back before Umberto had been rendered weak and ineffectual by the son he’d always thought was a waste of space.
“I do not see a future of wedded bliss with any of the people you’ve mentioned,” he told Leontina. After a moment.
“Indeed not,” she agreed. “Or anything even distantly approaching happiness, for that matter. Not that I require happiness, of course, the world being what it is. But I wouldn’t mind thepossibility, you understand.”
She didn’t ask him anything directly. He couldn’t be sure that she intended not to ask, or if she was simply indicating that there were broader concerns at play. Concerns that she’d decided the father of her baby needed to know before his child was raised as another man’s.
Pau then had to sit there and look as if he was mulling things over when the reality was—this was exactly what he’d wanted.
This was his revenge made real.
There was no small part of him that wanted to celebrate this, and loudly.
But it wouldn’t do to gloat. Leontina Tavian was not what he’d expected at all—not that night after the wedding and not today—and that was going to take some getting used to. Pau wasn’t used to being surprised. He wasn’t used to any person, place, or thing defying his expectations. It simply didn’t happen.
Or hadn’t in a long, long while.
He couldn’t tell if it was an act she was putting on as she sat here or if she really was this…extraordinarily unfazed.
It was a question he was going to have to answer, though not right now.
Right now, what he could not do, because it would cause undue chaos in his own life—and Pau did not allow his life to be messy, ever—was to let her know that he’d planned all this from the beginning. He had sought her out, seduced her, and had kept going all night long in the hope of this precise outcome.
He had to sit there for a while. He had to sell it.
He could not let her see that this was a victory, not today. Not yet.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” he said, after some while. Then his gaze found hers and held, and he could not seem to control the intensity in his voice then. “Because if you are carrying the heir to Calixto Enterprises—if you are carryingmy child—then I fear, Leontina, that the only man you will marry is me.”
Chapter Three
It was allexcruciatingly civilized.
They agreed that they would marry the next week—that it made the most sense given the situation. They agreed on various timelines to reveal their union and impending parenthood to Umberto, depending on how he responded to Leontina’s absence.
“Surely he will send an armed battalion to haul you back into the marriage of his dreams,” Pau said in that controlled way of his that Leontina found she was struggling with, because she remembered the fire she’d seen that night all too well—
But she supposed there was time enough to look for it.
“My father will first have to accept that I have actually left,” she said. “Then come to what will seem to him the impossible conclusion that I do not intend to return. I imagine he will first cut off my funds, as that is his primary source of control. He will then seethe about for some while,certainthat I will cave and come crawling back. Only when he begins to believe that I won’t be doing that will he send in the cavalry. But he won’t have the slightest idea where to look for me, you see. So really we have all the time we need.”
Pau only studied her as she delivered this monologue, everything about himcoolandunreadable. “Then I should think it might be best to wait for the child to be born, the better to present him with a family rather than an errant daughter. Far more difficult to brush aside.”
As if Pau Calixto himself was a gnat to be waved off.
Leontina put that aside, too.Eyes on the prize, she cautioned herself. She needed to be properly and legally married. That was the important thing—and it was a ticking clock.
They agreed that it made sense to sign certain documents, so that each of them maintained what was rightfully theirs no matter what occurred in their marriage. Leontina had no problem with this. Only extremely foolish people gambled away whatever fortune they might have in the hopes that the person they were marrying would live up to whatever ideals they carried in their head.
