“Well, there is her temper,” I add.
Santiago gives me a look.
“Then you have your hands full,” Jonathan says. He holds the box out toward us and opens it.
I’d almost forgotten this part. The bracelet for all little girls born within IVI.
“Thank you,” Santiago says.
Jonathan nods, and he and the priest take their leave.
Santiago clasps the chain around Elena’s pudgy wrist.
I try to process what I feel about this, and in a way, it’s strange. I feel nothing. At least not right now. Maybe later I will. There’s one thing I’ve realized in the last year. The Society is a sort of extended family. And if you are on good terms with them, then they’re a powerful support system.
But if you’re not, if, like my brother, you turn against them, their wrath is just as powerful, their justice swift and final. But there is also compassion. Hazel and Michael were welcomed back. I don’t know what my father or she or even I had expected would happen if they found her. I always imagined them hunting for her. Hunting for anyone who’d left the fold. But it’s not like that. They will hunt you. Absolutely. If you’ve caused harm to members of The Society or The Society itself, they will hold you accountable. But walking away is not a punishable offense. At least it hasn’t been in the case of Hazel. My father’s fear had been in her running off, shunning a Sovereign Son. But that’s not how IVI saw it. I'm not sure how much Santiago had to do with that, but I am happy for the end result.
This doesn’t mean that I plan on enmeshing myself more than I would any other group or organization, but it makes me see things a little differently, and that’s a good thing because I know how important IVI is to Santiago. His ancestors are among the founding families, after all. It’s in his blood.
Someone clears their throat. We turn to the door to find Colette and Eva standing there.
“Are you guys coming?” Eva asks anxiously.
“The guests are getting restless,” Colette adds.
“I mean, really, if you want to hang out here,” Eva continues, rolling her eyes and walking toward us. “My niece is the main event so…” She trails off, shrugging a shoulder.
“We’re coming,” Santiago says.
“Actually,” I contradict, handing Elena over to her favorite aunt. “We’ll be there in a minute.”
Eva’s gaze shifts from Santiago to me and back to him. “Just remember it’s a church,” she tells him and turns to walk away.
“How old is she again?” Santiago asks as the door closes behind them, and we’re alone. He turns to me, eyebrows raised. “We should go in. The sooner we do, the sooner we can go home.”
“You’re such a homebody.”
“And you’re a socialite?”
“You have a point.” I take his hand and lead him to a pew. We sit down beside each other and he studies me, his expression more serious.
“Ivy?”
I see the furrow between his eyes deepen and reach out to smooth it out. “It’s nothing bad. I just wanted to have a minute alone with you. We’re so rarely alone now.”
He smiles but waits. He knows me too well now.
“I wanted to wait until I was sure,” I start, glancing up at the altar as my eyes warm with tears. Happy ones. When I turn back to him, his are nearly the same as he waits expectantly.
I touch his collar to straighten it.
He takes my hands and dips his head to draw my attention back to his face. “Ivy?”
“We shouldn’t pack the christening gown away just yet.”
He cocks his head, draws a deep breath in as understanding begins to dawn. “Are you—?”
“We’re having another baby.”
He hesitates.
“I’m pregnant,” I say, just to be clear. He lets out a laugh and hugs me so tight, it hurts. But to hear him laugh and to feel him hold me like this, and to feel his happiness, it makes that same feeling of joy almost burst inside me, and tears are streaming down my face by the time he draws back. He’s using his thumbs to wipe them away as he kisses me, telling me how happy he is, how proud he is of me. And when my tears stop, we rest our foreheads against one another’s, and I touch his cheek.
“I love you so much,” I whisper.
“I love you even more.” We stay like that for a long moment before we pull apart. “Let’s keep this secret to ourselves for a little while.”
“Yes.”
“We’d better go in,” he says, pulling me to my feet.
I nod, and he places one hand at my back as we walk to the door. He opens it, and I step out.
“I’m not surprised, you know,” he says as we walk through the courtyard to the reception room.
“No? Because you seemed surprised.”
“Well, the De La Rosa virility is a legendary thing,” he says as he opens the French door and gives me a wicked grin. “I’ll show you again tonight.”
I put my hands on his shoulders, lean up on tiptoe and give him a one-sided grin. “I only hope your stamina is as legendary.”
What To Read Next
A sample from Mine
by Natasha Knight and A. Zavarelli
Unlocking the door, I push it open to go inside, and goose bumps rise every hair on my body.
He’s been here. Inside our house. I feel it now. Feel him. Smell him?
No, that’s my imagination.
I quietly close the door and lean my back against it, feeling the pocketknife in my hand. I decide to switch it out for a real one and set it on the counter. My hand is trembling as I pick up another knife, a sharper one, and I don’t allow myself to think about Lev. To wonder if I’ll be able to do it. To kill him.
Kill him?
I grip the lip of the sink as a wave of nausea overwhelms me.
I’ve done it before. I know what it feels like to plunge your knife into
