Saetan nodded. “With enough details about his body to make it clear she’d seen him undressed. The day before she’d set her trap, he’d gotten a soaking during some game the men were playing and had stripped off his wet shirt—which she had kindly offered to take into the laundry room, along with a few others.

“The marriage broke. He’d played too close to that line too many times, and his wife had not been as unaware as he’d believed. As sometimes happens, he began to regret the loss of what he’d had—including the woman, who hadn’t seemed as exciting after she’d become familiar. And there was his daughter, his little girl, to consider.

“So they tried to rebuild what had been broken. He wasn’t living with them, but he visited every evening, doing chores he’d previously resented, playing with his children. Talking to his wife and rediscovering the woman.

“A month before his daughter’s Birthright Ceremony, he’d worked his way back to living at the family home half the time and had earned his way back into the marriage bed.”

Daemon said nothing. Saetan’s eyes still held that blankness, but Daemon felt a terrible something building under the words. Building and building.

“The Warlord going to his friend had caused problems for the Lady—the kind of problems that can be resolved only by relocating to another Province where her previous activities wouldn’t be common knowledge. So she hired a young actress and purchased an illusion spell from a Black Widow to play a prank on a ‘good friend.’

“The Warlord was going to move back to the family home after the Birthright Ceremony. His wife had already told him she would grant paternity, assuring his rights to his daughter, but his formal return as husband and father would come after the Ceremony. So he wasn’t at the house when the package arrived with the second shirt and a note that was skillfully written and indicated that the Warlord had been leaving his wife’s bed and going straight to his lover’s for some real pleasure instead of duty sex.

“The words were meant to cripple a woman’s pride and kill a piece of her heart. In that, they succeeded.

“That afternoon, the Warlord watched his little girl be gifted with her Birthright Jewel, and he waited for the last part of that ceremony that would give him back what he’d learned he held dear.

“Then his wife looked at him and said three words:‘Paternity is denied.’ ”

Saetan closed his eyes. “There are moments in a man’s life when a decision is made, and once made, there is no going back, no changing it.” When he opened his eyes, they were no longer blank. They were filled with a terrible, and growing, grief.