Page 77 of Vow to Claim You

She looks at me like I’ve said something absurd. Like the answer should be obvious.

“The contract,” she states.

“What about it?”

Her eyes search mine with a confusion that tells me there’s something here I haven’t reckoned with.

“Tell me exactly what’s in that contract,” I insist. Or plead. Or both for that matter.

“You did read it?” She hesitates. “Tell me you read it, Aric.”

I signed what was put in front of me. That’s the truth. The marriage was the alliance. The alliance was already decided; the paperwork was a formality drawn up by my father and Olympus’s lawyers—terms I assumed were the usual architecture of a dynastic union. Fidelity. Succession. The standard cage. I had a syndicate to run, a war to manage, and a wedding I never wanted. I skimmed the pages, signed where I was told, and dismissed the rest as details beneath my notice.

“No,” I admit. “I didn’t.”

The disbelief on her face would almost be funny if I weren’t the reason for it.

“Oh my God. You actually didn’t.” Her hands have started to tremble. She folds them together to hide it. “The arrogance. You signed the document that decided the rest of my life, and you couldn’t even be bothered to read the whole thing.”

“Ayanna”—my tone is half warning, half plea—“what is in the contract?”

She exhales and looks at me like she’s debating whether homicide would void the agreement.

“There’s a clause.” Her voice is quiet, equal parts disappointment and resentment.

“What clause?”

Her eyes close briefly, like she’s praying for patience.

“Twelve months.” She lets out a breath. “From the day we signed. To conceive and deliver a living heir.”

My blood runs cold. I stare at her as though hoping it’s a bad joke.

“And if you don’t?”

Her hand goes to her hair, pushing it back. “Then it’s a material breach.”

“Ayanna.”

“Forfeiture of life,” she says it flat, the way the goddamn document must have. “Mine.”

I don’t move. I’m not sure I’m breathing.

“Both families agreed to the penalty in advance. My father signed it. Yours drew it up.” Her voice doesn’t break, which is somehow worse than if it had. “Twelve months, or the Volds kill me. That’s the deal you couldn’t be bothered to read.”

The room goes very quiet. Very far away.

I’ve sat across from men while they learned how they were going to die. I’ve delivered that news myself more than once, and watched it without so much as blinking. I know the exact weight of a death sentence spoken out loud.

I’ve never once felt it strike in my own chest. Until now.

Twelve months. A countdown she’s carried alone since the day she signed—in a foreign country, in a stranger’s house, without a single person on her side. While I came and went, ran my meetings, kept my careful distance, and congratulated myself on being a decent man for not touching her. While my father pushed for an heir, I kept telling him to give us time, never once realizing that time was the one thing she was running out of.

And suddenly dozens of moments from the last few weeks rearrange themselves.

The let’s just get it over with. The lingerie weeks ago. The first time she appeared in my room dressed for something she clearly didn’t want.

Fucking Christ.