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“It’s part of the plan to strengthen the bonds between our two societies,” Colum continued, the slightest sliver of hope emerging.

“So it’s not impossible,” Annie said slowly.“Even with all roadblocks…maybe.”

Colum started to shake his head, because it felt impossible, but Xavier nodded.

“Let me work on my part.If I…agree to some things, we might be one step closer,” Xavier finished.

Colum didn’t dare let himself dream.“It feels hopeless,” he said softly.“I’m married.”

Xavier made a dismissive noise, while Annie said, “Are you?Really?”

Colum shook his head but didn’t disagree with Annie’s words.He knew, intellectually, he was married, but it didn’t and never had felt real.

“And if I take it from hopeless to merely impossible?”Xavier asked with a raised brow.

Annie reached over, picking up her wineglass from the coffee table, lifting it up between them.He reclaimed his teacup and Xavier his glass.

“Then here’s to if,” she toasted, as they clinked their glasses together.

There was no way out.Eric put his head in his hands, eyes closed.He was no closer to an answer on the Colum issue than he was days ago.Colum wanted Annie and Xavier.He hadn’t come right out and said those words, but Eric knew him well.Hell, he’d watched him grow up.The man he considered a little brother, the man he’d spent the past few years losing countless nights of sleep over, had fallen in love for the first time.It had been written all over his face.

Colum was in love.

In love with people who weren’t his new trinity.

With an American…who was not a member of the Masters’ Admiralty.That wasn’t as big a problem as it would have been, now that he and Juliette had established the first jointly arranged trinity marriage.

But Colum was the archivist and that meant he had to be married to an admiral.Colum had been right to call him out, because if Nikolett had already been married, and if he hadn’t been desperate to find a way to keep himself from loving her any more than he already did, he would have changed the stipulation.It would have been that the archivist needed to be married to an admiral OR vice admiral OR security minister.

But he hadn’t said that at the time and if he tried to change everything…

Annie was an American.If Eric placed Colum in a trinity with her and Xavier, it would mean the archivist not only wasn’t married to someone in any kind of leadership position but married to an American, which only worsened the issue of “the Americans are going to have more access than us.”

“Fuck,” he muttered.

Eric stood from his desk, needing to pace.When that wasn’t enough, he walked out onto the stone rooftop patio, the sea spray once more dotting his face as a strong wind brought the moisture up from the sea far below.

His phone rang in his pocket, and Eric pulled it out, shoulders slumping in what might have been relief when he saw it wasn’t Colum.He didn’t know what to say to him.

He did know what to say to Grand Master Juliette Adams.He walked back inside as he answered.

“Calling to gloat, Grand Master?”Hungary—Nikolett—had lost their best security officer, Vadisk Kushnir, who, following a harrowing adventure in Crimea, was joining the Trinity Masters with his American husband and wife.

“That would be beneath me,” Juliette replied smugly.

Eric snorted.“You’re keeping score.”

“Possibly,” she conceded.“Also, I’m winning.”

“Bribery,” he declared, forcing himself to banter with her.“You bribed them.”

Juliette didn’t bother to reply to that.Nor did she laugh.“Eric,” she said gently, “are you okay?”

He sighed.“Am I that easy to read?”

“No.If I hadn’t been at that meeting, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the fact that you sound…different than normal.”

He had a feeling she’d been about to say “sad.”