“Because I wanted to.”
CHAPTER 8
NERO ZANTHOS
The smile spreading across Nina’s face tells me my answer is good enough for her, and her willingness to believe it nearly draws a laugh out of me.
She is so… effortless.
My mind doesn’t like the word it finds, but there isn’t another that describes the complete lack of armor with which the woman smiles, talks, or simply exists.
There is no manufactured mystery in Nina Marchesi. No disguised sensuality. No pretense of being something she isn’t. Being in the company of someone like that—someone who isn’t one of my brothers—is an experience I haven’t had in a very long time.
If I’ve ever had it at all.
I didn’t lie about my reasons for inviting her. I may not be able to justify the desire, but it existed—more than once. That isn’t what I tell her, though.
“You need to start showing a few claws,Little Fae.”
She looks away.
A completely different reaction from the other times I’ve used the nickname my brothers and I gave her back when we were children.
Nina lets go of my hand and takes a few steps deeper into the garden. Her head tilts back as she lets her gaze drift into the Khione sky.
“It was the second time today someone treated you poorly and you didn’t defend yourself,” I continue. “You can’t always wait for a savior. In real life, Knights in shinning armour. Only the horses do—and they usually come with the sole purpose of helping trample you.”
Silence.
Nina doesn’t bother to take her eyes off the sky for long minutes. I step closer again, stopping at her side and looking up, trying to find what’s holding her attention away from me.
There’s nothing but the same familiar stretch of stars.
“That’s not true,” she finally says, lowering her eyes to focus on my face.
“What isn’t?”
“That princes don’t arrive in real life. You came to my rescue both times today, didn’t you?” she asks, and I don’t stop the smile from settling at the corner of my mouth.
“Are you saying I’m a prince,Little Fae?”
Nina bites her lower lip and looks away, as if only now realizing what her words implied.
“Just for tonight,” she concedes with a shy smile.
I let out a low laugh, feeling—what must be the thousandth time today—utterly charmed by this woman.
“Then dance with me?”
I extend my hand to her, inviting her with the gesture as much as with the words.
“Before the clock strikes midnight and you turn into a pumpkin?”
I tease, and she lets out a delightful laugh.
“I never said I was a princess.”
“Then be one?” The request comes from nowhere and rolls off my lips with unsettling ease. “Just for tonight?”
