“No need. I’m ignoring him,” I rush out, waving her off as nonchalantly as possible. “See? Growth.”
“Your version of growth looks very tense.”
“That’s because growth is uncomfortable.”
We continue shuffling down the buffet, loading our plates until they’re borderline unsafe. Alma plucks the champagne from my hand—still full—and replaces it with an entirely different drink.“Here. Vitamin C. The orange slice makes it healthy.”
“That’s not how this?—”
“Shhhhh.” She pets my cheek. “Let me take care of you.”
I cackle despite myself. This is why she’s my work wife. Somehow she can simultaneously mother me, bully me, and make me laugh in the same breath.
Said cackle dies when my phone buzzes again…
I try to ignore it, I really do, but the knowledge it’s likely him is a reminder that these men won’t go away just because I’ve declared them a Past Era. I pull the phone out, more annoyed than anxious now.
Klaus
I know you’re seeing these. Answer me.
I roll my eyes so hard I swear I see my brain.
“Persistent,” I mutter. “Would be hotter in almost any other circumstance.”
“At least it wasn’t a dick pic,” Alma says. “You’d cave immediately.”
She’s not wrong…
We finally reach the desserts—thank God—and I build an entirely new, smaller plate featuring tarts, cookies, a slab of cake, and enough sugar to legally classify my bloodstream as frosting. I reach for the last gold-dusted truffle just as my phone buzzes again, drawing out a beyond frustrated sigh.
Klaus
Look up and turn around.
I gasp and nearly drop all of my food as my stomach simultaneously almost drops out of my ass.
“What now?” Alma questions, more tense than a cat near a vacuum cleaner.
“I think… I think he’s here.”
“Here? At this party? As inthis ballroom?”
I swallow hard and nod, showing her the text. “He told me to look up.”
“And turn around,” she adds grimly. “Noelle, donotturn around.”
My body moves before my brain can process what I’m doing. I lift my chin, turn slowly, and sure enough, there he is. Standing at the opposite end of the ballroom, all tall, broad-shouldered, and devastatingly sexy in a black tux that fits like a second skin. Donning a dark golden half-mask, it’s sharp-edged and sculpted in a way that makes his green eyes glow like something carnivorous.
And he’s not alone…
Beside him, equally stunning and equally disastrous, is Nick. Nick in a fitted charcoal tux with a sleek black half-mask perched on his fine face. Nick with that cool, quiet intensity that hooked me from the very beginning and has not once loosened its grip since. Nick, whose presence hits me in a different place entirely—lower, deeper, more complicated.
Two men.
Two masks.
Two pairs of eyes locked directly on me.
