Kelley Armstrong - Otherworld Chills

You are my heir. You will inherit the Cortez Cabal.

Which was the last thing Lucas ever wanted. Yet if he didn’t accept the role, it went to his only remaining brother. Carlos was as inept as he was cruel, and for a corporation employing hundreds of supernaturals, I’m not sure which of those attributes was more dangerous.

Dinner with Benicio was never easy, but at least I could be guaranteed two hours without hearing the word “baby.”

Lucas pulled out my chair.

“Carlos’s wife is having a baby boy,” Benicio said.

I bit back a laugh.

“She had the ultrasound today,” Benicio continued. “It’s a boy.”

“Excellent,” Lucas said. “And I believe I know just the person to gift them with the perfect stroller.” He opened his menu. “Also, Carlos’s wife’s name is Annette. You really ought to remember it, Papá.”

“I’m not sure Carlos can remember it. I’m still convinced his best man had to prompt him at the wedding vows.”

There actually had been an awkward pause at that moment in the service. A few years ago, Carlos had been the very model of a rich playboy—too many women, too much booze, too little responsibility. In the six years since his brothers’ deaths, he’d cleaned up his act, preparing to take center stage as heir-elect. Part of that included finding the perfect wife. Model thin and beautiful but lacking self-confidence. Young but not idealistic. Bright but not well educated. Hispanic, from a long and proud lineage going back to Spain. And human. In other words, everything I was not. But I’m okay with that. Benicio remembers my name.

“So it’s a boy,” I said. “But unless Annette is secretly a witch, that was guaranteed.”

“There’s always the chance of a genetic mishap.”

I arched my brows. “Girls are genetic mishaps?”

“For a sorcerer they are, as a son would be for a witch. But she is pregnant with a healthy baby boy, which will help his case as heir. There is only one way you and Lucas can fight that.”

Lucas’s fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on his menu. “You need to have a baby,” Benicio said.

Silence. One moment of absolute silence. Then the slap of Lucas’s menu hitting the table.

I thought Benicio was joking. A poor joke, but a joke nonetheless. Benicio knew we’d decided long ago not to have children. He’d learned to swallow that disapproval or risk torpedoing an already rocky relationship with his youngest son. But when Lucas smacked the menu down, Benicio flinched, and I knew this was no joke.

Lucas pushed his chair back an inch and looked at me. He wanted to go, but he’d never storm out, leaving me to run after him. I rose, and we walked through the restaurant, his hand wrapped tightly around mine.

Outside the front doors, I said, “You knew he was going to suggest that, didn’t you? He’s brought it up before.”

“After he learned Annette was pregnant, he broached the subject with me. I had hoped that the intensity of my response would discourage any future revivals.”

“Ah.”

“In fact, I made it very clear that resurrecting that topic—”

“Paige? Lucas?” Benicio said behind us, his shoes slapping the sidewalk.

Lucas kept walking, his voice low as he said, “The answer is no, we will not discuss it. As for the question itself, I will not even dignify that with an answer. You know it. You have always known it. Not having children is our choice, and it is our right to make that choice. It isn’t a medical issue. It isn’t something we have tabled for future discussion.”

“I’m thirty-four,” I said. “Passing the age where it can be a future discussion.”

“But not past it yet,” Benicio said. “Not for a few years. The fact that neither of you has taken steps to permanently prevent the possibility suggests it isn’t an absolute decision.”

“That would be personal and private medical information,” Lucas said, his voice ice-cold. “I suppose I should not be surprised you accessed it, Father. Whether we have made our decision a medically permanent one is absolutely none of your business. What counts is what we are saying. What we have always said. That we choose not to have children.”

“Because there’s too much else going on in your lives. You don’t want to bring a child into that. But no one expects Paige to give up her career for a baby. I can ensure she has the best possible child care.”

“Right,” I said. “Because our dream is to have a child … and then watch her be raised by nannies. The only point to that would be if we were so narcissistic we had to reproduce, whatever the cost.”

“I’m saying I could help you make this happen at absolutely no inconvenience to either of you.”

“Inconven—?”

“With Annette’s pregnancy, we’re losing the board. They want to support Lucas. If you were pregnant, that would decide the matter, and they would recognize the sacrifice you’ve made.”

“Sacri—? Are we still talking about having a child here?”

“I’m wording it poorly. I apologize for offending—”

Lucas cut in. “There is no possibility of phrasing this suggestion in a way that is not unrelentingly offensive. You are asking us to have a child to secure the future of a corporation . You are asking my wife to lend her body to the cause. To bear a child as a political gambit.”

“I’ve upset you—”

“Me? No, Father. My role in this is significant, but it pales in comparison to my wife’s . To a child’s . To use them to secure a lineage is beyond appalling.”

“Tell that to every monarchy in the world.”

“Then perhaps it is indeed a sign of progress that our country broke away from that tradition centuries ago. And whatever we might think of that tradition, it is about nationhood. This is about a company .”

“Which employs—”

“Spare me the statistics, Father. I recite them to myself every time I cannot believe I’ve taken a role in the Cabal. And now, with this suggestion , I suspect I’ll spend the rest of the night quoting those statistics to myself and mentally crunching the numbers, deciding yet again if it’s worth it.”

Lucas took a quick breath and finished with, “Paige and I are going back to our condo. As much as I would love to fly from the city tonight, we have work to do here and our commitment is to that work. But I would strongly suggest that we don’t have any more reason to speak this week, or I may rethink that commitment. Good night, Father.”

We did not discuss what happened on the drive back to the condo. What would we say? Endless variations on “Can you believe he said that?”

The truth was that I could believe it. I was even willing to cut Benicio a little slack in this. Yes, the idea of donating my reproductive system to his business interests was absolutely heinous. But I understood he wasn’t thinking of it that way. He believed Lucas and I must secretly want a child. Which is a bit of a head-scratcher, given how his own experience with fatherhood worked out. Three sons born in wedlock, all of whom saw Benicio only as the obstacle between them and unlimited power as CEO of the Cortez Cabal. Then there was Lucas. The so-called bastard son whom Benicio adored. The one who had the most difficult relationship with him. And yet the one who also had the best relationship. Lucas was Cordelia to Benicio’s Lear, the youngest child and the only one who truly did love him.

If I had to speculate, I think Benicio saw in us something he never truly had a chance at—the opportunity to bear a child in love and raise it in love. It was also one last chance for him to be a real grandfather, his dead sons having kept their own boys away from him as punishment for not being named heir, with Carlos already threatening to do the same. In Benicio’s relationship with Savannah, I see that yearning, and I felt bad that we couldn’t fill it for him. But we can’t.