Maris gracefully pulled two glasses of wine from a passing server’s tray. He handed one to her before he answered. “Tams was the woman I left standing at the altar.”

Zarya choked on her wine as those unexpected words rang in her ears. That had been Maris’s former fiancée?

She couldn’t believe that Tams would be so nice and pleasant after such a humiliating ordeal—it was the kind of experience most women dreaded… And all the women Zarya had known would have still wanted to claw out Maris’s eyes.

“Pardon?”

He saluted her with his glass. “It’s true. And that was how I knew for a fact that I was gay. No question about it. If ever a woman would have attracted me and compelled me to be a breeder, it was she.”

His gaze went to Tamara as she and her husband were introduced to Darling. “She is truly beautiful, inside and out, in a way that very few people are. Besides Darling, she’s one of my best friends and has always been such. May the gods bless her. Rather than being scandalized and bitter, she actually thanked me in the chapel for being honest and not trapping her into a celibate marriage of convenience.”

If nothing else about Tams was gracious, that alone would have made Zarya love the woman. “I’m so glad she was decent about it.”

“No kidding. Aside from Darling, she was the only one who was. The rest of her family wanted my testicles on a platter.”

Giggling at his vivid imagery, Zarya daintily picked up a small hors d’oeuvre from the tray a waiter presented to her. She’d just bitten into it when another aristo approached them. At least, she thought he was an aristo. While he was in uniform, he had the bearing and presence of one.

Not to mention, he was amazingly handsome. Dressed in a formal black League uniform, he wore a pair of opaque sunglasses covering his eyes. His long black hair was braided down his back—the mark of a high-ranking assassin. He appeared ready to kill, but his features softened as he inclined his head to Maris.

Was he one of Maris’s former boyfriends? Darling had told her that Maris went through men faster than most people changed their socks.

“You look so happy, Maris. I hope it’s not a façade.”

Maris’s features were unreadable, but his body was rigid and cold. “I am happy, thank you.” His gaze dropped to the sleeves of the man’s uniform. A slow smile curved his lips. “I see you made assassin’s rank like you always wanted. Are you enjoying it?”

True to his training, the assassin didn’t betray a single emotion. “It’s not exactly what I thought it would be. But I can’t complain. And you…” He broke his stern countenance to laugh. “Darling made quite an impression with the High Command when he nailed every assassin Kyr sent in to kill him. It was highly impressive. Are you the one who taught him how to fight?”