“May I take it that you’ve decided to join me for dinner, then?” Theo asked, eyeing her dress.
“That will depend entirely on how you answer my questions,” she said.
“I’ll take care to only tell you what you want to hear then,” he said.
“No,” she countered. “I just want the truth.”
She set Sesame on the ground.
“I saw you yesterday, after you left our lunch,” she said. “You said you were going to see a family friend.”
He remained expressionless. “In a way, I was.”
“And yet you went to the Tunnels.”
He was so handsome in the golden light of the afternoon, surrounded by the scent of roses and the drone of bees—his dark lashes lining his eyes, the shadows cutting like a delicate knife along his cheekbones.
“I was trying to help someone who was in trouble,” he said.
“An honorable thing, to be sure,” Grace said. “Then why lie about it?”
The familiar storm cloud passed over him, and she saw the look of arrogant disdain in his features. But it was something else this time. Something warring within him.
“When I heard that you had been robbed and threatened—that someone could have hurt you—I… snapped,” he said, his jaw twitching. It was a confession, unhidden by banter, a lifting of his armor to the softness underneath. “I wanted to undo it in some way. I wanted to help. And I knew the best way to do that was…”
“To help my brother.”
Their fingers were a whisper’s breath from touching. She felt pulled to him, as powerfully as a magnet.
“Theodore,” she said faintly. His hand reached for hers.
And then the butler emerged with a tea tray, and Theo abruptly stood.
“Thank you, Doyle,” Theo said, turning to him stiffly.
Doyle took the hint and left the tea, but Grace joined Theo in standing.
He had helped to get Walt off the street and keep him out of prison. It was a risk to his reputation and assuredly an enormous sum to get him the best care.
Something was smoldering inside of her. It must have come out like shadows in her gaze. She drew toward him but kept a tantalizing distance.
“You’re a difficult man to really know,” she said.
He stiffened at her words, as though they were raised weapons.
She tilted her face up. Her lips were just close enough to his, without touching. “Like a storm that tries to warn people away,” she said in a husky voice. “But what you really are…”
He traced his thumb down the curve of her jaw. “… Is the shelter from it,” she finished.
He kissed her. Softly, more softly than she ever would have expected. He had formerly been all angles and sharpness and shadows but not here. He was delicate and gentle, and she was heat and sparkles, a firecracker that blazed right after it had been lit. She kissed him back, melting at the pressure of his lips on hers. It lit a hunger in her she had never known before, a taste for something that was instantly her favorite. He slipped his hand around her back and everything in her came alive. She let out a small sigh and he abruptly pulled back.
“I’m sorry,” he said breathlessly. “Forgive me.”
Her heart beat so fast she felt like she could fly.
“Perhaps I should go,” she said.
“That bad, huh?” he deadpanned.
