by Mari Carr
“What is it?” she prodded when he hesitated.
“Membership is not without...sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice?”
Levi shook his head, as if he was unhappy. “Perhaps that’s not the best word. It implies something negative, when what I wish to convey is that it’s unusual.”
This was definitely a cult of some kind. Wait, was Stefan in this cult? Was this some new Scientology thing? She waited for Levi to explain, oddly reluctant to call bullshit and end their strange encounter. “Okay.”
“The founding members of the society believed that marriage was the best way to create lasting ties and alliances. And that marriages shouldn’t be arranged to just consolidate money and power, but to create bonds, provide patronage to artists and scholars.”
“You’re sounding pretty scholarly right now, Professor Hart.”
“Really? Thank you.”
“Yes. Now get on with the story. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“Arranged marriage. You have to agree to an arranged marriage.”
“Who would it be arranged by?”
“The head of the society, the Grand Master.”
“I see why you first called it a sacrifice.”
“Er, I’m not done.”
“Oh?”
“Partnerships are good, but a stool needs three legs. With just two it isn’t stable.”
“A stool…” Beatrix said slowly.
Levi stared at her, then said, “It’s an arranged ménage marriage. Members are not free to choose who they wed, and the unions are between three people, not two.”
Beatrix reared back in her chair, trying to make Levi’s words soak in. “If I joined the Trinity Masters,” she didn’t doubt there was an invitation in that envelope—why else would Levi tell her all of this, “then I would agree to let the Grand Master marry me to two strangers?”
Levi nodded.
“You’re a member, right?”
Again, Levi nodded.
“And you were okay with this...rule?”
Levi grinned. “I’m not going to say it didn’t shock me at first, but when I considered all the good the Trinity Masters has done in the world, when I weighed the benefits to not only me, but to the things I could do to leave this place better than I found it, well, it seemed like a small price to pay. Plus, I’ve had the chance to meet quite a few trinities and, Trixie, what I’ve seen is nothing short of love. These trios may have started out as strangers, but they found love just the same.”
“Were you a legacy? I mean, if you grew up in that sort of environ—”
“I wasn’t a legacy,” he interjected. “I was recruited. Just as…” He handed the envelope to her. “I’m recruiting you.”
Beatrix took the envelope, but she didn’t open it, her mind whirling. “If I open this…”
Levi chuckled. “It’s just an invitation, Trixie, not a binding contract.”
“Bea,” she corrected.
Levi tilted his head, then gave her a smile so charming, her pussy actually clenched.
“Bea,” he repeated, as if she’d given him some amazing gift.
Her attraction to Levi had been instantaneous when she’d first seen him at the restaurant and it had continued to grow steadily. It had been so long since she’d felt even the tiniest flicker of…
Fuck.
“Stefan,” she whispered, his name broken.
Levi didn’t need to hear more than that. He knew exactly where her thoughts had gone. “He’s a member.”
Suddenly, things that had made no sense clicked into place. The two of them had dated for several years, Beatrix madly, passionately in love with him. She’d never had a doubt about their future together, never questioned that he was the man she’d grow old with.
Early in her career, she’d played the sarcastic best friend in a romantic comedy centered on the Irish tradition that women propose to men on February twenty-ninth, and she’d always thought it was a whimsical tradition. So, on February twenty-ninth, she’d planned a fancy dinner, right here on this patio, complete with a white tablecloth, candlelight, soft music.
At the end of the evening, she’d gone down on one knee and opened her heart to Stefan, declared her undying love and revealed that her deepest desire was to spend the rest of her life as his wife.
He’d said no.
He’d rejected her. Shattered her heart into pieces so small, she knew it could never be mended again.
He’d looked agonized as he told her he was sorry, that he had made a horrible mistake. No amount of begging on her part would convince him to explain himself. He refused to tell her why he believed they were wrong for each other, why they couldn’t be together. Instead, he’d simply apologized again, broken their relationship off completely, and walked away from her.
She’d been as confused as she’d been devastated because every fiber of her being had genuinely believed he loved her as much as she did him.
That night, that horrible night, she’d questioned that surety, until as the weeks turned to months, she’d convinced herself everything she thought she had known about him had been a lie.
Being forced to pretend they were still dating so as not to fuck up the promotion plans for their various upcoming projects had just been insult to injury.
A sudden numbness covered her, thick as a fleece blanket. “Stefan isn’t free to choose who he marries.”
It wasn’t a question, but Levi answered as if it was. “No. He isn’t.”
Months of pain morphed into something completely different, red hot, the wrong kind of passion, and her heart mended in the blink of an eye, fused together by a blinding fury.
“We were together for years. We were,” she choked on the next words, “in love. He let me fall in love with him knowing…”
Beatrix stood up from the table, wineglass in hand, and she threw it violently against the wall of her house, relishing the sound of it shattering. She wanted to break more. Break every fucking thing in this house.
“He knew.” They were the only words she could say, that she could think.
Levi rose quickly, taking her hands in his. She tried to pull them away from him, ready to throw more than the glass. She wanted to punch something, pulverize it, pound it to dust. Stefan would have been her preferred target, but Levi would do.
She didn’t give a fuck if she was killing the messenger.
Levi must have read her intent because he held fast to her wrists, locked them in his strong grip as she struggled for freedom.
“Let go of me.”
“Not yet.”
What the fuck did that mean?
“Goddammit, Levi. Let me go!”
He shook his head, dodging when she kicked out at him. She was amazed how easy it seemed for him to evade her kicking legs, her thrashing body, hell, even her attempts to headbutt him, while still managing to keep hold of her.
Dammit. In her head she was an excellent fighter, but usually her opponents were choreographed to fly dramatically through the air when she Capoeira-ed them into next week.
“Levi!” she hissed, but her strength was beginning to wane, her anger escaping no longer through violence but through tears. Tears that pissed her off even more because she didn’t want to fucking cry anymore.
Not over Stefan. She’d shed an ocean of tears for him already.
And he’d known.
Known she was in love with him, known what she wanted from him.
Known they couldn’t be together.
“Bea,” Levi said softly when all the fight drained out of her. Using his grip on her wrists, he pulled her toward him, engulfing her in his huge, powerful embrace.
She clung to him, her arms wrapped around his middle as she sobbed out her sorrow, her pain. Everything.
Through it all, Levi, this soldier, this stranger, merely held her, whispering sweet, soothing words.
She wasn’t sure how long they’d stood there, wrapped around each other, but when she
finally felt strong enough to step away, the clouds had covered the moon, casting them in near darkness.
She hadn’t turned on more than the pool lights when they’d come outside, the moon providing what she’d dramatically thought the perfect environment for the sharing of secrets.
“I’m okay now,” she whispered, staring resolutely at his chest lest Levi was able to see in the dark. She was certain her face would betray her words as a lie.
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She shook her head, unwilling to listen. “Perhaps not. But he did.”
Levi reached out and cupped her cheek, lifting her face to his, just as the clouds shifted, the moon reemerging.
“Bea,” he began.
“No. Stefan’s actions are his to explain. Not yours.”
Mercifully, Levi merely nodded, accepting her words and letting the subject drop.
She glanced back toward the table where she’d left the unopened envelope.
“Are you going to open it? Accept the invitation?” Levi asked.
She considered everything he’d told her about the Trinity Masters. A wise woman would take her time, truly think about it.
But wisdom was overpowered in this instance by instinct, a gut feeling that told her exactly who she was and what she was meant to be.
“I am.”
The Trinity Masters had come for Beatrix, and that meant he was too late.
Stefan stared down at the papers he had spread over his desk. Real estate dossiers, ten packets of legal paperwork on the shell corporations he’d set up, the name of a forger and a copy of the wire transfer he’d paid as a deposit for two passports, and information on the Cayman Bank accounts he’d set up.
Stefan Boyd had a plan. A plan to take the woman he loved and run.
He hadn’t decided where they’d go yet. He knew it had to be non-extradition, since the Trinity Masters weren’t afraid to use the U.S. legal system to punish members who broke the rules. It had to be someplace where money could buy the kind of security they’d need if they were going to live out their lives in peace.
He was so close to completing his plan, and once he had the plan in place, he would go to Beatrix and tell her everything. Tell her why he’d said “no”—the Trinity Masters, a society his parents and grandparents had belonged to. He’d never thought of the arranged marriage as onerous, until Beatrix.
Until he’d fallen in love.
Being with Beatrix had been so easy, so right, that the Trinity Masters and their robes and secrets had seemed far away and unimportant.
Then last year his mother had pulled him aside, after he’d brought Beatrix home for a long visit. She’d seen them together and asked Stefan if he’d made a mistake and fallen in love.
But loving Beatrix hadn’t been a mistake. It was the most real, wonderful thing in his life.
His mom encouraged him to break it off, her gaze soft with worry. He’d lied and said he would.
Instead, he’d started scheming a way to get Beatrix invited. If he was a member, she should be too. She was far better suited.
He’d asked his dads to ask around and heard that the Grand Master had put a hold on all recruitment.
But if she became a member, they lost the right to choose one another. He’d planned to beg, to offer anything he could, if the Grand Master would place them in a trinity together. It didn’t matter who their third was. Beatrix might be a little freaked out about a ménage, but Stefan had grown up with trinity parents, and he was sure he could help her come to love whomever their third was.
It was a risky plan, to wait and hope.
Then Beatrix had proposed. And he’d said no. He’d said no when everything inside him had been screaming yes.
He’d said “no” because he knew he had to.
That’s when he’d decided to run. Disappearing was hard, especially when he was trying to hide from an organization that could, with a single phone call, have the NSA pinpoint their location so the CIA could kidnap them to some black site where they’d never be heard from again.
In the months since the day of the proposal, he’d spent every waking moment either working or planning their escape.
And now none of it mattered. When he’d gotten the message that Beatrix was a legacy, that he was being tapped to help recruit her, he’d laughed until he cried.
All the plans, and he’d still lost the woman he loved. He knew Beatrix, and knew she’d accept, knew she’d want to be a part of something bigger than her, something that had the power to create change.
There was some small part of him that hoped she’d realize why he’d said no and forgive him.
But the rest of him knew that was a vain hope. He’d broken her heart, and his own, and had waited too long.
And now, even if his plan were in place, even if he’d gone to her right now and proposed they run together, that running was the only way to ensure they be together, she would say no.
He’d lost her.
Forever.
Chapter Five
“Levi is on his way to Boston with Ms. Stokes.” Harrison glanced up from his phone. “Some good news.”
“That is good news.” Juliette grabbed her mimosa and raised it in a toast. Her brother picked up his glass and touched it to hers. “And thank you again, for managing the Boston-based security team.”
“You mean the Warrior Scholars.” Harrison raised a brow. “Say it.”
Juliette made a face at her brother. “No.”
“Say it.”
“No. Why are you so dumb?”
“Ha. You’re dumb.”
“Great comeback.”
“Children.” Franco leaned into the doorway, a spatula in hand. “Play nice.”
“He started it,” Juliette said, smiling at her husband.
Franco put a hand on his hip. “Don’t make me take off my chancla and come in there.”
Juliette raised both hands—careful not to spill her drink—in mock fear. “We’ll behave.”
Franco’s eyes crinkled with a smile, even as he pointed at each of them with the spatula. Her husband knew how long it had taken her and Harrison to reach a point in their relationship where they could tease and squabble like siblings. It was new for them because they hadn’t fought like this when they were children. Partially due to the large age difference, and partially because their father had focused on Harrison, grooming him to be Grand Master, while Juliette had been more of a prop, a bargaining chip. It was why she’d been betrothed as a baby to the children of two powerful legacy families.
And now she was Grand Master.
She was doing the best she could, making hard decisions, but there were moments like this, when she was able to make something good happen. In this case, when she was righting past wrongs—like what had been done to Trixie Stokes’ family—that she thought maybe she wasn’t doing such a terrible job after all.
Unfortunately, the moments of success were too few and far between.
Harrison’s phone buzzed again and he glanced at it, then chuckled. “The others aren’t going to let him live this down.”
“What?” Juliette craned her neck to see his screen.
Harrison turned the phone, showing her an entertainment website. There were two photos at the top. One showing Stefan Boyd and Trixie Stokes sharing a kiss while Levi stood on her other side. In the second photo, Trixie was looking at Levi while Stefan was looking at her.
The caption under the photos read, “Sexie making magic at the Magic Castle. But who is Trixie’s hot new bodyguard?”
“Hot new bodyguard,” Juliette read aloud. “Yep, I doubt they’ll let him live that down.”
“Since Andre is the one who sent this to me, you’re right, they won’t.” Harrison smiled. “I’m guessing that at this point they have that picture blown up to poster size, printed out enough times to wallpaper the living room of their home.”
Juliette pulled out her own phone and, after a quick search, found a few
more photos. Levi getting into the passenger seat of Trixie’s car. Stefan watching the car drive away. And most interestingly, a shot of all three of them standing shoulder to shoulder, a bit too close to one another to be casual. It must have been right before or after the kiss.
“No phones at the brunch table,” Franco declared, carrying in a platter of huevos rancheros. Michael was behind him with a stack of plates. Alexis followed, one hand on her stomach, just above the small baby bump. She was pale and looked irritated.
“Do you want help, darling?” Harrison rose from his chair as she approached.
“No. Don’t touch me. Don’t even look at me,” she snapped. “I have been pregnant for a thousand years.”
“Honey, it hasn’t been—” Michael started to say.
“Shut up. This is your fault. This one is your baby again, I just know it. And it is slowly draining the life from me.” Alexis was strong-willed and fierce even when she wasn’t suffering from morning sickness, which had continued into her second trimester.
Harrison leaned back so he was out of her peripheral vision and mouthed “Say you’re sorry” to Michael.
Michael cleared his throat. “I’m very sorry, my love.”
Franco’s hand stroked Juliette’s hair, and she stiffened. How much of what she was feeling right now was showing on her face?
“I’m sorry, querida,” Franco whispered in her ear.
She was the one who was sorry. She wanted to have Franco and Devon’s children. She wanted to take that next step in her life.
She couldn’t.
But that was an existing hurt. One she’d learned to live with.
Smiling, she turned and stroked Franco’s cheek. “I’m fine.”
She wasn’t, but not for the reason Franco hinted at. Harrison, Michael, and Alexis’s first child—James Thomas—had just turned two and was currently napping. Hearing Alexis declare that this baby was Michael’s “again” had reminded her of a conversation she’d overheard between her brother’s spouses.
“No matter what, this is your baby too,” Alexis said to Michael.
