"Cecilia Araceli is my son's fiancée." August said sharply. "Why can't you see how scandalous it will be if you decide to let your son get entangled with her?"
He was seething. His hands, pressed flat against the arm of the sofa, trembled with the effort of maintaining composure.
Eliam chuckled.
It was light, almost amused, and somehow infinitely more infuriating than any argument could have been.
"Apparently your skin is rather thin, huh, August." The golden patriarch leaned back, stretching his arms along the back of the sofa. "So what? We can take as many women as we want, just because we're lords, because we're men, but we can't let our daughter-in-law have the same privilege?" He tilted his head, golden eyes gleaming. "When she's that valuable?"
Baswara said gravelly, low and cutting. "Rather than asking that, in here, you're the one who has no leverage, boy."
He didn't even need to raise his voice.
