“You know I have questions.” Milo’s eyes glinted with that mischievous light every scholar had when investigating something new.
“You know I can’t answer them.”
He smiled, and I grinned back. But my smile faltered when Cosmo, surrounded by older gentlemen in ornate finery of their various houses, pointed my way as he spoke to them.
“Strange, isn’t it?” Milo asked, following my line of sight. “The old man practically begging you to bugger his grandson.”
I’d made the mistake of taking another sip of wine. I choked on it this time, dribbling it all over my dress. I muttered a curse.
“There, there,” Milo said, amused, as he reached for a cloth napkin and dabbed at my ruined silk gown. “No need to get all choked up about it.”
“Bugger?” I gasped out a moment later after setting aside my drink and clearing my lungs.
“My preferred term for it.” He shrugged. “I’ll admit, you surprised me with the admission that he’d made you promise to produce heirs in return for assuring your brother went unpunished. But the more I thought of it, the more curious I became. Not about Cosmo. His motivations are clear enough. But about you and Dante. He scares the piss out of me but he’s pretty, I’ll give him that. And the two of you seem to be getting along rather well. So my question, I suppose, is…have you?”
I glared at him. “Did Cosmo put you up to this?”
“I wouldn’t hold a hose for that man if he were on fire,” he answered flippantly, as if it were no concern to him whooverheard him speaking of House Viper’s patriarch that way. “I’m asking purely for my own…academic purposes.”
I raised a brow.
“I’m curious,” he explained with another shrug. “And I’m a friend. You can tell me.”
“He has Olympia.” I tried to hide the bitterness in my tone as I turned to grab another drink off the tray of a passing servant.
“The last I heard, he and my illustrious cousin were no longer on speaking terms.”
“You think you know everything, don’t you?”
“Most things, yes. But not this. So…?”
I looked to where Dante stood on the other side of the room, deep in conversation with some men from House Lynx at his mother’s side. Hewaspretty…
“You don’t have to tell me. If you’re not into him, I get it, but—“
“Dante of House Viper is difficult to resist,” I muttered, looking away from the man in question and staring into my drink. “Even for me.”
Milo was so silent I looked up. He was grinning from ear to ear. My shoulders slumped as I rolled my eyes.
“You can’t tell anyone,” I snarled.
He held his hands up with a chuckle.
“Your secret is safe with me,” he vowed, still grinning like a fool. A moment later, though, it slipped away from his lips. His brows furrowed and I knew what he was going to ask before he did. It still hurt though. “Why, then, hasn’t Olympia received a rejection on her offer?”
I tensed and took a breath, trying to stay calm.
“Marriage?” I asked, my voice cracking as I fought to maintain my composure. My gaze shot around the room, making sure no one had overheard my moment of weakness. “I—don’t know. I’m not ready. And Cosmo—I—“
It was a delicate thing. Fragile. I was trying so hard to keep it from becoming real, I hadn’t noticed it already had. Tears stung my eyes, the pain I’d been holding at bay ever since I’d heard Olympia’s offer rising to the surface.
Don’t cry. Not here.
Adrian?Dante’s question shattered my resolve. I could feel his eyes on me from across the room, concern evident in his tone. He wasn’t supposed to hear that. Geist, mythoughtsdidn’t even belong to me anymore. I slammed my glass onto the table at our backs.
“Adrian,” Milo's voice turned softer. When I focused on him again, though, I found pity in his eyes. “It’s okay to want.”
My jaw tensed, and I pushed past him and back into the crowd. I wouldn’t discuss this. Not here and not with him. I needed to get away before something broke. It was too fragile, too new, too scary.
