The bluntness between them left me completely disoriented—they truly must have known each other very well, and not even so many years apart seemed to have affected that.
Now, what came next left my throat dry:
“…I would gladly have had your children, even if only to be loyal to you.”
“That’s your problem. I don’t want at my side someone who only cares about keeping up appearances for the sake of the family, or who lives to submit to my will and be ready to please me all the time. If that’s the case, loyalty doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. My children were born from the love I shared with Anya, and they are mine. I won’t let anyone do to them what they did to me. Nika, I’m sorry I hurt you—but I don’t regret what I did. I’m very proud of having lived like an ordinary man all this time,”
