I smiled and shook my head. “I don’t mind hugs at all.”
Then I processed exactly what she said, my face twisting in confusion.Five months?
“Wait. What?”
“We should head in,” he declared too loudly to be normal, ignoring my question. “I’m sure Felix is anxious to meet her as well. And dinner is probably ready. Don’t want it getting cold.”
“Of course. He is beyond ready to meet the woman to make you believe in love again,” Grace said as she headed inside.
Lucian huffed a deprecating laugh and took my hand to follow, but I pulled back. “What?” he asked
“What did she mean by five months?” I whispered. “We only met five months ago.”
He shook his head, frowned,andshrugged. “It was probably just a mix-up. Come on.”
With his hand on my back, and Grace waiting at the door, I had no choice but to smile and follow along, despite my doubts.
Once we were inside, Grace took my jacket and led us into the dining room to meet Felix. He welcomed me just as his wife did—with joy, acceptance, and excitement. Although his greeting was tinged with an exhaustion he couldn’t hide behind his pressed suit and open smile.
Despite their formal home and waitstaff, dinner progressed with casual conversation, easy questions, and stories about Lucian as a child. By the time we finished, all of us with a glass of wine—and a tea for Felix—my cheeks hurt from smiling so much.
“Has he shown the scar behind his ear?” Felix asked, his voice strong and out of breath at the same time.
“No, he hasn’t,” I answered, narrowing my eyes at Lucian.
Lucian rolled his eyes, but his lips twitched.
“Since we were like family with his parents, Lucian spent almost as much time at our house as his own. And his favorite thing to do was sliding down the banister,” Grace said with a laugh.
“Your mother always claimed you’d end up getting hurt and that each time you flew to the bottom, you gave her a heart attack,” Felix chimed in.
“He gave all of us a heart attack,” Grace grumbled.
“Not me and his father. We knew he’d survive whatever fall and end up learning from it. He was a strong boy.”
“Mom could be dramatic sometimes,” Lucian explained, laughing softly, staring into the red wine he swirled in his glass.
“Turns out she had a right to be,” Grace declared.
“We were both right,” Felix claimed. “When he was about eight, he was into superheroes and wore a cape—which was an oversized blanket—whenever he could. It ended up being his downfall because when he slid down the banister with it on, it tangled in the balusters and sent him flying off the side.”
“Into the corner of my console table,” Grace finished.
Lucian scoffed. “I was fine.”
Grace glared at him. “You’re lucky you didn’t hit your temple.”
I studied Lucian, trying to picture him as a carefree little boy—or even the young man they’d spent the night painting. It was hard to imagine, yet not impossible. Tonight, he smiled more than I’d ever seen him, his face softer, free of the shadows that had earned him the nicknameMr. Dark and Dangerousafter our first meeting.
The transformation was mesmerizing—I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I lingered on the fine lines that appeared around his eyes with each smile, memorized the crease in his cheek, the straight perfection of his teeth, the strong slope of his throat when he tipped his head back to laugh.
And the laugh…deep, sharp, a little rusty, and absolutely addicting.
Absolutely arousing.
I made a goal then and there to hear that laugh as much as possible over the next five years.
Don’t forget your other goal,whispered my cynical voice.
