Page 35 of Ivory Oath

Anatoly’s eyes widen. “You blamed her for something she didn’t do without letting her explain, locked her in her bedroom, and then exiled her from your house and kept her son. Which part of that screams ‘big, romantic gesture’?”

“He’s my son, too,” I mutter.

“The point is,” Anatoly continues, ignoring me, “you two have been through a lot. You can’t just tell her that everything is better now. You have to show her.”

In the last six years, I’ve acquired companies, turned enemies into allies, and built a gunrunning empire. I overthrew my own father and brother to claim what was mine.

But one thing I’ve never had to do… is grovel.

“Well?” Anatoly is annoyingly smug. “What’s the plan?”

For the first time in my life, I don’t have an immediate answer.

“The plan is to focus on something I know how to do.” I push back to my feet and continue pacing. “Like talk to the Greeks.”

Find a distraction. Yes. That’s the plan.

“War it is,” Anatoly sing-songs. I shake my head and he groans. “I hate diplomacy.”

If killing everyone who annoyed me was a solution, I’d have filled a cemetery by now. Anatoly would be dead ten times over, too.

As if on cue, my phone rings. For the fifth time in two hours, it’s Christos Drakos.

“Speaking of the devil.” I hold out my phone so Anatoly can see who it is.

“The father of the bride.” He winces. “Put it on speaker.”

I lay my phone flat on my desk and answer. “Hello, Christos.”

“‘Hello, Christos,’” he mimics. “That’s the first thing you say to me after disappearing on your wedding day? We waited for you for two hours. Helen waited. She didn’t want to take off the dress because she was sure you’d show up.”

Helen never was the sharpest knife in the drawer. I told her to her face on several occasions that I had no interest in being married to her beyond what her father could offer me. She seemed to think I’d change my mind. Up until the very end, apparently.

“Something came up.”

Anatoly seesaws his hand back and forth. He doesn’t care for my explanation. Diplomacy isn’t my specialty, either.

“Don’t toy with me, Mikhail. I know exactly what came up.”

I look at Anatoly and he shrugs. Raoul and I were discreet. Unless Agostino ran his mouth—the same way he did when he called ahead to warn Trofim I was on my way—no one should know what happened today.

“This is about that bitch, isn’t it?” Christos spits.

A low growl rumbles through my chest before I can stop myself. Anatoly lays a hand on my shoulder in silent warning, but my hackles are up. It takes every ounce of restraint for me to blow out a deep breath and speak evenly.

“She’s my wife.”

“My daughter is supposed to be your wife! We had a deal, Mikhail. Two deals. I gave you a second chance and you embarrassed me. You embarrassed my daughter.”

In my opinion, making your daughter a term and condition of a business arrangement is embarrassing enough. If Helen had any other prospects, she would have moved on by now. My guess is the marriage market is looking bleak for her.

“I could have married her and spent our entire relationship cheating on her with the woman I actually love.” It’s shocking how easily the words come. How simple it is to speak the truth—to everyone except Viviana. “I think doing things this way saved Helen a lot of embarrassment.”

Christos is silent for a second before he cackles. “You should have taken your time and come up with a better excuse than love.”

“I don’t need to make any excuses to you. It’s only as a courtesy that I’m explaining myself at all.”

“We had a deal!”

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