“Well, because you dragged me away from the bar.” She giggles at that, sobering a bit when she notices I’m not joining her. “I told you. I came out with my brother and his boyfriend. Neither of them gives a shit about your beef with Daddy.”
Moving closer, I kick her legs apart and stand so my shins are flush with the sofa. Her skirt rides up slightly, revealing more of her toned thighs, but her hand comes down to keep it in place.
Gently, I reach out and remove her fingers from the neck of the whiskey bottle. One by one, I pluck the vessel free, ignoring the smooth texture of her skin as I do so. She cranes her head, fixing her gaze on mine as I take the bottle back.
Surprise registers momentarily on her face as I slide one of my hands under her chin to cup her jaw, tilting her head back so she’s bent almost at a ninety-degree angle.
“No guards? I find it hard to believe your father would let you come out unattended.”
“Clearly you don’t know him.”
“Tell me,” I say, holding the mouth of the bottle inches above her parted lips. My heart ricochets around my chest, bouncing uncontrollably against my rib cage. “How would Daddy feel if he knew where you were right now? If he knew the man who once held his life in the palm of his hand was currently cradling your cheek and fantasizing about just how wet he can get you?”
The first splash of alcohol dribbles down over her upper lip, disappearing through the seam of her mouth. She jerks in my hold, but doesn’t otherwise demand release, and I find that peculiar.
Among other things.
“I imagine he’d get over it once he learned of the nature of our relationship,” she says, her tongue darting out and swiping her skin clean.
“Our relationship?” The movement of her tongue makes me dizzy, and I inadvertently tighten my grip on her.
“People saw us tonight,” she breathes, her warm gaze tangling with mine. I feel her pulse jump beneath my hand, and I press back against it, chasing its beat. “We didn’t see them, but if I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that someone is always watching. Daddy’s gonna find out either way that I was here, and it won’t take very much digging for him to find out we also… interacted at the party.”
“So?”
I tip the bottle again, allowing a droplet to land in the slight dimple in her chin; my thumb inches up, feathering out over her lips before brushing it away.
“So,” she continues, “what do you think the gossip blogs are gonna say? That nothing happened between us? They’ll make up whatever wild stories they can think of for a quick payday. Primrose gossip sells well, for some reason.”
After a moment, my hand drops, and I step away with the bottle at my side. “I fail to see how any of this is my problem.”
Lenny pushes to her feet, crossing her arms over her chest, which still glistens from the whiskey. If she was drugged, her ability to recover is impeccable.
If she wasn’t, then I’m back at square one wondering what the hell she’s on about.
“You like your cushy little life, right? Enjoy your privacy and freedom? I’m sure being in the spotlight would make your… line of work difficult, right?”
Unfortunately, she’s not wrong. That’s the main reason I refrain from interacting with my brother in certain spaces; politics and murder only mix well in the shadows. If Alistair didn’t double as my benefactor, I doubt I’d ever see the bloke at all.
Lenny doesn’t wait for an answer. “It’s a lot easier to control a narrative when you’re two steps ahead of its driving forces. If we announced that we’re dating, they’d have no reason to come running out of the woodwork for a story.”
This again. “You don’t think they’d be concerned at all, given our history?”
“Not if we give them bread crumbs. Let them fill in the gaps themselves.” Walking over to my desk, she runs her hand over the leather material of my jacket, pursing her lips.
“We don’t even know each other,” I say, moving to set the whiskey bottle down. “And I don’t date.”
I sidle up behind her as she stares down at the fire-breathing Minotaur patch sewn into the jacket sleeve, keeping enough distance between us to refrain from doing something I might regret.
“All the more reason to fake date,” she mutters. “No chance of catching feelings.”
One of my hands rises, sweeping over the soft ends of her hair and the curve of her lower back. “What’s the incentive?”
“Bodily autonomy.” A shiver racks through her, and I bite down on my tongue to stave off the satisfaction it gives me. “If I don’t pick someone, my father’s going to set me up with one of his business buddies. Or worse.”
“Worse?”
She doesn’t answer. “You’d get good publicity, for once. It’d convince Aplana Island that you’ve buried the hatchet with my family.”
I swallow. “And what’s to keep your father from simply refusing to accept me as your boyfriend?”
A long pause ensues, and I fix my gaze on the wall beyond; there’s a circular indentation in the plaster from where I rammed someone’s head into it just this morning and haven’t had time to repair it. Blood coats the cracks like a thick paint, and I can’t help wondering if Lenny sees it.
If she notices, she doesn’t say.
Licking her lips, she spins around and leans against the desk. Those big green eyes blink up at me, reminding me of that night at the party.
Something flares behind her irises, bright and full, but I can’t allocate it exactly. It doesn’t feel like fear, but that same thread of excitement I found when she crouched on the floor covered in a dead man’s blood.
“He won’t say no,” she tells me, straightening her spine, “because he’s terrified of you.”
8
The newspaper crinkles as my brother lowers the edge beneath his chin.
“You did what?”
Cash has the highly coveted corner office in his building, an environmental law firm just outside the Boston city limits. The glass walls around us give the illusion of transparency that people seek out in their legal counsel but keep all the sound inside.
Sometimes I wonder if they gave him the room so he can yell at his clients and not disturb his colleagues.
Popping another chocolate mint into my mouth, I lean back in the plastic chair in front of his desk. Maybe if I pretend that I’ve got everything together, he’ll believe it.
That’s the only good thing about having a lawyer as a brother; he operates on a strict need-to-know basis. And right now, all he needs to know is that I fucked up.
“What do you mean, you’re dating Jonas Wolfe? I wasn’t even aware you knew the man.”
I give him a skeptical look. “Hard to know who my friends are when you live off the island and never visit.”
Cash removes his wire-rimmed glasses, wiping the lenses with a tissue he pulls from a drawer. “Fair enough, but doesn’t associating with him go against several legal pretenses?”
“He was asked to stay away from us, not the other way around.”
“So, you approached him? You sought him out?”