ALTAIR LAURENT & GALE KAPUR (LATER IN THE EVENING).
Altair was surprised by the emotion that flooded through him at her words: relief. Monogamy was never something he'd wanted for himself. While he'd always known he would one day be forced to marry, when his future wife was merely an abstraction, he'd had no problem with the assumption that he'd simply step out on her as his desires dictated. Unfortunately, Gale was a real person, one who Altair even liked to a degree, and he wanted her not to be entirely miserable married to him.
He thought that he could give up the brothels when he had to, but he didn't want to by any means. One always knew where one stood with prostitutes. It was a business transaction, involving no messy emotions. Certainly he enjoyed the company of the ones he'd developed a good working relationship with, but in the end, he held no illusions about their feelings for him. They were with him because he was paying them, and that was that.
There, too, was the problem of Altair's more than passing attraction to men. He'd slept with both men and women, and he enjoyed both in different ways, but if he were pressed to state a preference, he would have to admit that he preferred men. He'd always known he'd marry a woman. Marrying a man would make absolutely no sense, since the entire point of marriage was to produce an heir. If he were to fall in love (a ridiculous prospect in itself), and should it be with a man, it would not change his need to marry a woman. Marriage and love were completely separate issues in Altair's mind, and the latter did not apply to his own life at all.
So, relief was what Altair felt at Gale's answer. If she needed time, it was time during which Altair could continue to live as he always had, and while he would doubtless have to make these decisions eventually, it was enough for now to put them out of his mind until that time came.
"Of course," he said smoothly to Gale. "You should take as much time as you need. In the meantime, I shall be discreet."