Winston looks at the photo for a long moment, then continues into the ballroom, his shoulders relaxed. He nods at Cash. Turns. Leo’s there, crossing nearby, and I stop breathing.
A confrontation between the two of them would be a disaster.
But neither man moves to attack the other. They size each other up for the longest heartbeat of my life. And then Winston speaks. His hands come up in front of him, a quick gesture that says I tried. Leo nods once. Twice. I’m not sure which one of them offers his hand to shake first. But they do, Winston leaning in to say one more thing. Leo replies, and then they both continue on like they haven’t just sidestepped a disaster.
“Okay,” says Daphne. “That’s not how I thought it would go.”
I finally exhale. Things will never be fully resolved between the Morellis and the Constantines. There’s too much pain in the past. But tonight, at least, for my engagement party, no one has killed each other. No one has even thrown a punch. And Winston and Leo shaking hands?
A tenuous, unprecedented peace.
I lose myself in the glow of the party. The shine of fairy lights on Eva’s dress. Leo’s parents’ faces in candlelight. They all have his dad’s dark hair, but there’s more of his mother in their features than I imagined. The delicate fall of white and gold fabric. The way white is nothing without the contrast of black. The way gold shines best when there’s night behind it.
“Whoa.” Daphne’s eyes go wide. “Which Constantine cousin is that?”
I follow her eyes to the opposite side of the ballroom, and it’s obvious who she’s talking about. The man stands inside the doorway, dressed in impeccable black and very tall. He’s blond and beautiful the way a knife is beautiful. Sharp enough to cut. There’s something familiar about his features, but something’s off. Something is wrong.
And then there’s the dog.
A gorgeous black dog, huge and lean, waits at his side with a stillness that makes me think it’s a service dog of some kind. Meticulously trained at least. People are starting to notice the man. People are starting to notice the dog. A shiver drags a fingernail down my spine.
“He’s not a Constantine,” I tell Daphne.
“He looks like one. Blonde. Tall.” She grins. “Handsome.”
“Believe me. I’ve been to Constantine parties since I was a baby. He’s a stranger.”
He’s definitely not a Constantine, but he’s interesting nonetheless. There’s something arresting about him. A magnetic pull that everyone in the room feels. Leo has noticed him, too. He approaches the man and his dog with an expression of bemused surprise. A flicker of uncertainty. A flicker of worry. Then they speak to each other, and Leo’s shoulders relax.
“This night is so weird,” Daphne says. “But it’s good, don’t you think?”
“It’s the best night.” Someone calls to Daphne. It’s one of the women Petra was talking to. All three women approach the table in a flutter of gowns and laughter.
When I resurface from the conversation, Leo’s gone.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Haley
I wait twenty minutes before I go looking for Leo. It’s harder to extract myself from the party than I thought it would be. When it’s your own engagement party, it turns out, absolutely everyone wants to talk to you. It’s warm in the ballroom. Crowded.
It can be slightly overwhelming, being so happy. And so loved.
Getting into the hallway is a sweet relief. The lights are lower here, the temperature cooler. I follow the decorations down the hall and around the corner.
Leo’s in his office. Light angles out the door. More than firelight, less than the big recessed ceiling fixture that Leo rarely turns on. His door was closed earlier for the party. Eva and Daphne made several spaces for guests to go if they needed a break from the ballroom—five or six different rooms, each re-staged for the occasion. Leo swore he didn’t care who saw his furniture. Eva ignored him. “I don’t like to give out more information than I have to,” she told me.
I move toward the half-open door. My heart runs ahead. It’s not like Leo to leave me, so if he has, it must be for something important.
At his office door, I shift my position to see in.
That breathless, shimmering sensation sweeps down over me, stronger than I’ve ever felt it. Goose bumps rush from my fingertips to the tops of my shoulders. I’m simultaneously desperate to understand what’s happening and secure in the knowledge that it’s okay. That I’ll know soon enough.
Leo leans against his desk, one foot crossed over the other. Arms folded below his chest. Head bowed. One small lamp burns in the corner of the room, but otherwise only firelight illuminates him. He was standing just this way when I came back to him the first time. I didn’t know what he was doing until he made the sign of the cross. I didn’t understand. Maybe I still don’t. Maybe understanding is overrated. Maybe there’s something to be said for faith.
No Ronan now, tapping his gun against his jeans and waiting to shoot. The man from the party sits in one of the chairs by the fire, facing Leo. He’s turned on an angle to the door. I can’t quite see his face, only glimpses of his profile. He strokes the dog’s head absently. Affectionately. I’ve never seen another person so at ease in Leo’s office.
I’m not looking in on an uncomfortable silence. I’m looking in on a sanctuary.
Leo makes the sign of the cross, lets out a breath, and opens his eyes.
“Catholic?” the man says. His voice is not like Leo’s. It reminds me of ice under a dark sky.
“What gave it away?” Leo says.
The man laughs, and a chill works over my spine. “I visited a Catholic church with my brothers not long ago. It seemed to me that all the ceremony and ritual had become part of the stone.”
“I can’t imagine you sitting through Mass.”
“We did not. We were looking for a woman’s grave.”
“Did you find it?”
“Yes.”
A silence falls, broken by a quiet tapping at the window. Leo glances toward the bird. “Go away, busybody.” Then he turns back to the fire, to the man. “How long now?”
“Fifteen minutes. We should wait another five to be sure.”
A hand on my elbow very nearly startles me into screaming, but I don’t. It’s Gerard who’s come looking. He escorts me away from Leo’s office. “You’re missed at the party.”
“I’ll go back,” I say quickly. “But what—who—”
“A friend of Leo’s. Powerful in another part of the country.”
“Perhaps I should go in. Leo might need me.”
“He’ll be all right,” Gerard says, and I believe him. Enough to go back to the party. People miss Leo, too, but we’re reaching the point of the night when everyone is delighted and slightly tipsy, and no one questions my excuses. I keep an eye on his office window. The light coming through the pane. I can see the round, feathered shape of the bird in the corner. I lose myself in conversation, in congratulations, for as long as I can stand.
It’s not very long.
This time, I slip away without drawing much attention to myself. I’m almost at Leo’s office when I see him in the foyer—the man with his dog. Gerard hands him a black overcoat that reminds me of Leo’s. His dog sits at his feet as he puts it on. Gerard speaks to him. He answers. And then he looks at me over Gerard’s head.