After my ride, I hand the horse off to Paolo, who takes him with a quiet nod. The staff knows to stay away from me. My mood is so dark it’s as though a pall has settled over the entire house. I go into my study. I should shower first, but I don’t. Because I need to make the call. Tell him we need to talk. There’s no hiding the pregnancy anymore.

Even though it’s before noon, I pour myself a scotch once the door is closed and drink it all. I don’t allow her to put the salve on my back anymore. Not since the incident before the christening. Not since I bent her over the table and had her again. There was no pleasure in it though, not for me. Certainly not for her. But there was one thing I said that wasn’t quite right. This is my fault. Not hers. I was the one in control. I bedded her. Not coming inside her is an idiotic form of birth control. It’s pathetic I ever thought that would work. Because even if the method was foolproof, the draw to come inside her was too strong. And I gave in to it again and again and again.

It just proves my point about marriage. About what I am. Why I can’t take a wife or be a father. I am more beast than man. I have not mastered the animal inside me. It’s been there all along, quiet, slumbering, one eye open as it patiently lies in wait.

Pouring a second scotch, I swallow it down. I pick up my phone to call my friend, knowing he will probably never speak to me again. I deserve no less. My finger hesitates over the call button. It takes me a long minute to push it.

But before I can even put the phone to my ear, my study door crashes open, and I spin to find a madman at my door. Because that’s the only way to describe the expression on Santiago’s face. The tension in every muscle in his body. The rage emanating from him is a palpable thing, a thing that swallows up the air in the room and roils as I see what he’s holding. The glass box with the once-white sheet inside it. A trophy for Sovereign Sons. The sheet stained with the virgin blood of their wives.

With a roar more animal than man, he sends it crashing against the portrait of Carlisle over the mantel. The box shatters into a thousand pieces, glass and brass and the shame of what I did, what I took, at our feet. My grandfather’s face is damaged from the impact, his mouth made to look as though he is grinning.

“How. Dare. You!” Santiago stalks to me.