We sat and ordered our meals in record time. The minute the waiter left, I leaned close and hissed over the floral centerpiece, “That’s it! Stop it. You’re driving me nuts.”
He blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Don’t ‘sorry’ me. This nice attitude of yours is ridiculous.” Even to my own ears, I sounded bitchy.
He looked confused. “You don’t want me to be nice to you?”
I kept my inner shields in place as I thought, No, because you’re way too hard for a local girl to resist, Your Freakin’ Majesty. Thank God Jonas had taken the time to teach me to shield my thoughts long ago. Though most Djinn weren’t telepathic, other beings in the universe certainly were. Like the sexy Earth Lord staring at me in confusion.
“It’s not that I don’t want you to be nice to me,” I tried to explain. The waiter neared with a tray, and I prayed he had our lunch. He arrived at our table. “Thank God.”
“Ellie?”
“Our lunch,” I said quickly. “It’s here.”
I spent the next half hour engrossed in food and a pleasant, if slightly distant, Cadmus. When the bill came, he motioned for it, as if there were no question of his paying. Thinking of my two-hundred-dollar shoes, I reluctantly waited for him to pay.
We left the restaurant, and he pocketed his wallet. “I noticed you paying with a credit card. Is it real?”
His lips curled in amusement, I lit up at the sight. I was a sucker for a man with a sense of humor. Put that together with a face to sigh over and a body to kill for and I had to remind myself not to drool.
“The credit card and the money are real, courtesy of some local gambling and a few spells Uncle Arim taught us.”
“I thought you didn’t like your uncle.”
“Of course I like him. He’s family.”
Now I was confused. “But before you said?—”
“Look, he’s a pain in the ass, has a quirky sense of humor, and always thinks he knows best. He’s more than a little annoying.”
“Really?” I asked dryly, amused that he was describing himself and unaware of it.
“And he always has the worst timing. When Marcus was courting Tessa, Arim showed up and frightened the poor woman into attacking him.”
I wondered what that had been like. The few times I’d heard Arim’s name mentioned, it was with awe and usually a warning to steer clear of the powerful Killer of Shadow. Of course, that had come from Jonas, and he tended to over-dramatize most things.
“How did Tessa do?”
Cadmus smiled, his grin an obvious indicator he approved of his brother’s wife. “She caused him some damage before he fully phased.”
“Phased?”
“Completely teleported back into the house,” he explained. “Then Marcus stepped in to protect her.”
“Typical. You Storm Lords are a pushy bunch. Always taking charge, protecting the little woman.”
“Little woman?” He laughed. “Tessa’s almost as tall as I am. Trust me, she kowtows to no one, especially not Marcus.”
The affection he held for his brother and Tessa started another fissure in the ice surrounding my heart. “You really love your brothers, don’t you?”
He nodded, sobering as he stopped us on the sidewalk. “I truly do. That’s why I was so angry when I learned you weren’t who I’d thought you were, Ellie. I could never imagine placing my family in danger. I’d give my life for any of them, including my new sisters. Family is everything to me.”
And the Djinn had killed his father.
“I understand.” I felt like crying, which made no sense. Grabbing him by the arm, I started us moving again. “Let’s see if we can’t forget the past for just a little while, okay?”
He nodded. “Let’s use the rest of today as our own personal —”
