87 Explain! (1/2)

Meanwhile, Ivan too left the campus and went to Lara's villa. Even though he didn't know what her reaction would be, he couldn't imagine it to be a good one. Sadly because of Jane, there was no way for him to escape.

When he opened the door of the villa, the little girl, that had been reading one of her favorite books, while laying on the comfortable couch, jumped up to greet him.

”Daddy you are home.”, she ran towards him and hugged him, which he reciprocated with taking her in the air and swirling her around.

”I'm home.”, he replied. And to his own surprise, he meant it. Coming here and being greeted by his cute little daughter really felt like coming home, coming to a place he belonged. Of course, there was still an ice woman living here, but this didn't impact his feeling in the slightest.

Lara, having heard her daughters happy greeting, then appeared at her office door on the second floor, looking down on him. Her icy eyes made him shiver.

”Darling, let me have a chat with him first and then the two of you can play together.”, she then softly said to her daughter.

Looking a bit dejected, Jane nodded. Usually, her mother didn't take up much of the time she had with her father, so it was ok if she waited for a bit more.

”You, come here.”, Lara then ordered Ivan. The difference between her tone, while talking to Jane and Ivan was like the difference between heaven and earth.

Not daring to oppose her, he slowly made his way up the stairs, trying to delay the inevitable as much as possible, but sadly the distance wasn't that far, so he soon reached her office.

After both of them were seated, she put her right hand onto the table and pointed at the ring.

”Explain!”, just this one word, but it was infused with an easily detectable fury.

Ivan knew that there was no way around it, so he simply told her what happened. During the whole time, there was no change in her expression, which stopped him from understanding her thoughts.

”Hoho, so you just signed that contract? Without even thinking about Jane?”

”I told you, why I did that. And besides, what does this have to do with Jane?”

”Are you just playing dumb or do you really not understand?”

Ivan shook his head. He really didn't know how this would affect their daughter. It wasn't like there would be a difference in their relationship.

”Right, you have no clue as for how the family relationships work.”, for the first time, she showed some emotion, when she sighed in exhaustion.”A long time ago, there were many fights between the children of different wives. Not only them but these wives too fought against each other, to gain the best position for their own child. In a normal family, the effects were negligible, but for those families that were rich and powerful, it often ended in disaster. After one especially bloody war, triggered by such a fight between the sons of a king, which nearly lead to the extermination of mankind in this realm, the system decided, to once and for all get rid of these fights.”, she made a pause and Ivan waited patiently for her to continue. He hadn't heard about this before.

”After some experimentation, there are two main rules that have been implemented. One is that one is incapable of killing one's siblings. The system just wouldn't allow it. But it is much more difficult to stop bullying this way, so special emotional bonds have been created by the system. These bonds apply for everyone in a family, which in our case means the Hope Family. These bonds will lead to Jane seeing that new woman as a mother, while she will see her as a daughter.”

”That doesn't sound too bad.”

”Fundamentally it isn't. It's just that to archive this bond, because of some universal rules, something has to be inherited. And it will be the descendant, that will inherit. If this happens before birth there aren't any problems, as long as all the wives don't have any huge problems. But in cases like this, there will be some change to Jane, and we don't know how it will affect her.”

”But this should happen quite often, right?”, Ivan asked. It couldn't be a rarity that someone would marry someone else after already having children.

”Yes, it happens frequently. And normally it wouldn't be a problem. But Jane is a bit special. So the results may differ.”