“Well played, but I’m afraid… I may not be what you’re used to,” he said, almost like an apology. But apologizing for what she didn’t know.
“That is an understatement,” she said, then stepped away. The atmosphere was still charged, still bursting with her restraint and… possibly his as well. She smoothed her dress as she let out an uneasy breath. “So,” she adopted a levity to her voice, “why don’t we head in to work, boss.”
The sadness began to recede, barely perceptible in the first place.
“If you need more time, I can call on you tomorrow,” he said.
“Nonsense. I’m going stir crazy anyway. Wait.” Her eyes went wide. “You work in the Spire, don’t you?”
The Spire. The design and structure were a glorious melding of style and function. In the excitement of everything, she neglected to connect the dots that members of parliamentworked in the Spire. A new sort of excitement began to simmer in her stomach. She might actually get to go inside.
“There are smaller offices around the ground floor. We only use it for important meetings or trials, that sort of thing. It’s largely a waste of space.”
“A waste of space? It’s a structural marvel. The height alone is beyond anything that’s been constructed before, at least with a base that’s barely thirty feet in diameter, which would make the circumference,” her eyes lifted, running the math in her head before adding, “About ninety-four. Ninety-four point two five, technically.”
He raised an eyebrow at her rushed words and Sera reigned in her excitement. “But, Icouldsee inside, right?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“Then why are we moping around here? Let’s get the fuck going.” She bounded for the stairs.
Maybe he was trying to manipulate her, playing a very long game, very well. Or maybe he was genuine—which she still could not accept—but either way, she might as well take the opportunity to fulfill her childhood dream.
Despite opinions to the contrary, Kieran was not an unfeeling monster. Sera’s words had cut into him more than she realized. Her fixation on using her body to manipulate a situation, the belief that there were no other means to get what she wanted. How her life seemed to have amounted to what she could trade her body for. He did not wish to pity her for her reality, and he didn’t.
He did, however,hateit.
He lifted his eyes from the paper he'd been attempting to read—though he only skimmed the headlines about Divinity fueled crime waves and another thwarted bank robbery by the Emerald Archer—to glance over Sera’s shoulder. She sat across from him in the carriage. A faint, almost transparent form clinging to her. As it had been for the past two weeks, though he had only seen her in passing. He had thought to give her time to settle in, as well as get a better hold on his baser biological responses to her and her insistent flirtation.
Two weeks was sufficient. While the pretense of needing a secretary had started as a lie, he also had a neglected pile of busy work and shehadbroken into his home, after all.
Sera’s head was twisted toward the window of the carriage the entire ride into the Ring. He had ridden the same path every day for the past two decades. The view was as mundane as his reflection. There was charm in her excitement.I should ask Joy to take the long way home. So she might see more views of the city.
Kieran stopped breathing.
The fleeting impulse nearly choked him. Altering his schedule so that Sera might enjoy the scenery pushed the boundary of simple kindness. He breathed out.
He would not care about her.
He refused. Never mind that his protection would be next to useless, he had sworn to never harbor affection or attachment for another.
His life was devoid of meaningful connection.Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight.
As was his fate.Ninety-six.
He had long ago accepted his solitude.Eighty-nine.
He closed his eyes as the tightness in his lungs eased. Thank the gods she was preoccupied with the sights and did not noticehis turmoil. He would have had a challenging time concealing it at the moment.
His guilt.
His shame.
Why didn’t you save them?
He continued a slow count backwards from one hundred.
What good are you?
