“Are you well?”
“Not especially,” Onyx said, looking up at his friend and brother-in-law Andrei, who was standing at the other end of his study, staring at him.
Andrei was the head of his security, and had married Onyx’s sister a year ago after her own convenient marriage imploded disastrously.
Well, Andrei was the one who had imploded the convenient marriage.
At the time, Onyx had been livid. His head of security had not acted in the best interest of the country, but rather his and Emerald’s hearts. The two of them had been in love for years, but had always believed it impossible for them to be together. Now they had a child, and were deliriously happy in a way that Onyx had certainly never been.
Which made Andrei’s inquiry now grate in a way that was perhaps unfair.
“What’s this about?”
“I’m grieving,” he snapped.
“I have no doubt you are,” Andrei said, sounding unbothered. “But you and I both know it’s more complicated than most people think. Remember, I lived here in the palace with you and your wife. I know you weren’t in love with her.”
“I won’t lie and try to change history now, but do you honestly think that makes it easier?”
“From the perspective of guilt? No. I don’t. From the perspective of missing her? I would assume so.”
His brother-in-law was so madly in love with Emerald that he’d nearly toppled two governments to claim her. If he were to lose her… Onyx couldn’t even think of it, because loss wasn’t theoretical to him. It was far too real.
But he knew that Andrei wouldn’t be mired in melancholy if he lost his wife. He’d likely burn the world down.
“I suppose that’s true,” Onyx said.
“Then what is bothering you?”
Did he tell him? He was his oldest friend. Though, there had been a big breach of trust around Emerald. It was the secrecy of it. The fact that Andrei hadn’t come to him about his feelings for his sister. And then, when he’d kidnapped her from her wedding, he’d hidden her location even from Onyx. It wasn’t that he was still angry with him about it, but it did make him feel like he didn’t owe his friend an explanation.
But he felt that he might need to give it.
Five months on from the funeral. From when he’d made love to that woman. She was all he could think about. He craved her. Wanted her in his bed again more than he wanted anything else.
And he had no idea who she was or how to find her.
“I have something to tell you, and it will likely make you think ill of me.”
Andrei shrugged. “That’s fine. I’ve given you plenty of reasons to think ill ofme.”
Onyx had just been thinking of those reasons. He didn’t say that.
“The night of Circe’s funeral I…” He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth together. “There was a woman.”
“Oh dear,” Andrei said, moving closer to where Onyx sat.
“She came to me in the library. I… I don’t know who it was. I didn’t recognize her. It was dim and I didn’t want to turn the lights on. I didn’t want to think better of…what happened.”
“I assume you slept with her.”
“Yes.”
He wouldn’t do anything to malign Circe by saying how long it had been since the two of them had slept together. Andrei knew full well that the marriage was dysfunctional. He didn’t need to do anything else to make him dislike a dead woman.
Andrei looked philosophical. “Well, you probably needed it.”
He had. He’d needed it more than he’d ever needed anything in his life. Though admitting that felt shameful.
