Did she want it to?
She cleared her throat. “What are you doing here?”
“I would have thought that was obvious.”
“Ithought I made it clear I don’t want you in my life.”
“You need me.” There it was: the flash of fire in his eyes, and the answering tug in her heart at his words.
She straightened her shoulders and made her voice perfectly cool and professional.
“Ineedyou, sir?”
Frustration darkened his eyes. Was it frustration? Or … another sort of frustration…?
She shook herself.Now isnotthe time.Save it for her dreams tonight. No, don’t, and don’t even think about that right now anyway—
Corin cleared his throat. “You recently returned something that belonged to me,” he said.
“The necklace.” Was he going to accuse her of stealing it? Was that why he was here?
She clenched her fists under the table. It was so hard to concentrate with him in front of her, looking like—like—like he’d always looked. Dark and gorgeous, a collapsing star that pulled everything else in the world towards him.
It had been so much easier to ignore her attraction to him when they saw each other every day. After so long apart, it was like stepping into the sun after endless winter.
He pulled a small case from his pocket and laid it on the table between them. When he flicked it open—she already knew what the damned thing looked like. A waterfall of diamonds, shining like rainbows. “Why did you bring that here?”
“Do you know what it is?”
“Some priceless artifact I have no interest in getting my hands on.”
He sifted his fingers through the gleaming jewels. “This,” he said, his voice velvet over jagged stone, “is the Ocean of Stars necklace. Generations of royalty around the world have begged, bartered, and spilled their own blood for it. It has been in my family vault for the last twenty years.”
“Then you shouldleaveit there,” she told him. “What is this about? I told you to take it back. All Ineedfrom you is for you toleave me alone.Don’t send me priceless rubbish from your hoard as though you need an excuse to—” Her cool demeanor fractured. She snapped her mouth shut, but it was too late.
An excuse to what?See her? Talk to her? Accuse her of further theft?
None of this made sense.
Nothing to do with how she felt about Corin Blackburn hadevermade sense.
Corin leaned forwards, his eyes intent on hers. She felt like a little fish lost in the deep sea, lured in by a shining bright light. “I did not send you this.”
“What?” She gaped at him. “No—what are you talking about? Of course you—”
“Someone stole the necklace from my clan’s hoard and sent it to you.”
Cold crept up her spine. “But… Why? Why would anyone do that?”
“It’s a statement of power. A boast that they can bypass my defenses.”
“But why send it tome?” Her voice rang in her ears. Plaintive. Begging, though what she was begging for, she couldn’t admit even to herself.
A muscle in Corin’s jaw tightened. “I cannot say. But it is clearly a threat.”
There was a beat of silence between them. The feeling that the world was crumbling around her. Again.
She clutched at what she knew, hoping that if she held onto the pieces strongly enough, they would start to make sense.
