Oh, God. She had been there. Even if that night had not been ‘properly’ consummated, it did not take many leaps to guess what he might have done consensually. Her words were like knives.

All he had ever wanted was to be normal.

He had half a mind to declare himself psychotic, but he also had the presence of mind to know that would look as desperate as it was.

His brows rose and he drew away with a bitter, amused look. Let him be him. What did she think that meant? A comfortable lie? A woman on his arm, in his inheritance, so he could ride a man on the side and leave a man he loved with nothing? A child that was not his own, that he pretended was his own, so society would mind its own business?

He did not bother to hide his contempt.

“If you compromise my position – you compromise the generations ahead of you.”

And then a sigh.

“When was this child conceived?”

Was he being asked to be himself as some shameless adulterer, too?