Of course, that’s what makes this possible for her. Not simply the child itself. The distance, the absence of pregnancy, and the clean arrangement of motherhood without the burden of the body doing it.
I know there are women who feel that way. I know practical fear of pregnancy exists. I know the politics of appearance would make surrogacy simpler in some circles and more difficult in others.
Still, hearing the hope in her voice sharpen around that specific point does something odd in me. Not judgment exactly, more like confirmation that whatever children we produce this way will arrive in a house built by strategy first and human feeling second.
I already feel sorry for them. Which is a hell of a thought for a man who hasn’t yet agreed to give them names.
“If that would suit you better,” I say.
“It would,” she says and smiles again, bright and grateful and suddenly young in a way she never lets herself be in public.
I kiss her forehead because it is expected and because she is easy to please when you give her something she can wear or control. “Then we’ll discuss it properly after the gala.”
That is enough.
By the time we arrive at the ballroom, the previous night is all but polished over beneath diamonds, apologies, and the sort of expensive civility that passes for intimacy in our world.
We are magnificent together.
That is the curse of it.
I keep my hand on her waist. She touches my arm when she laughs at something some donor says. I bend my head to hear her over the music and let my mouth brush her forehead once because an old man from the board is watching.
We look polished—intimate enough to reassure, detached enough not to gross anyone out. The exact level of aristocratic affection that keeps rumors bored and investors calm.
It’s almost insulting how easy it is.
Half an hour in, I’m speaking to a finance minister’s wife about hospital expansions and pretending not to notice that the minister himself has spent most of the conversation staring at Arabella’s necklace instead of her face, when I feel someone’s eyes on me.
The sensation is immediate enough that I nearly turn before I’ve consciously decided to. The back of my neck prickles, the room sharpens around the edges, and somewhere under the orchestra and the conversation and the soft chime of crystal, my body goes very still.
I look across the ballroom and find him instantly.
Nikolaj stands across the room near one of the mirrored columns, black tuxedo carved onto him with brutal precision, one hand around a low glass, the other resting loosely at his side in a posture only a fool would mistake for being relaxed.
The ballroom should flatter him and somehow only makes him look more dangerous—hair pushed back, scar over his eye dragged harshly under the chandeliers, and mouth set hard enough to qualify as violence.
He is so beautiful that my chest aches before common sense can intervene… but he is also furious.
His gaze is not on my face, not fully. It lands there, yes, but keeps dropping to the hand I have draped around Arabella’s waist—the hand, the contact, and the easy public ownership of it.
Oh.
Oh.
It hits me all at once and almost takes my breath with it.
Nikolaj Dragovich, Pakhan of the Russian sectors, feared by men twice his age and three times his size, is standing across a charity ballroom and glaring at my wife because I am touching her.
I have to drag my attention back to the conversation before my expression betrays me completely. Arabella is speaking with the foundation chair about donor tiers. I answer when required, nod at the appropriate times, and let my thumb make a slow absent stroke against her waist. Because now that I know Nikolaj is watching, I am suddenly a much worse version of myself.
This is immature, dangerous, and entirely beneath a man of my title.
I continue doing it anyway.
Arabella glances up at me mid-conversation and says, “You’re distracted.”
“Never,” I say smoothly, then lower my head and kiss her forehead again because if I’m going to be petty, I may as well commit to the role.
