Julian prowled around her. *Why are you doing this?*he asked, his voice glinting in her mind. He cleared his throat and switched to speaking out loud. “I’m sure my opinions on women’s clothing are worth less than the breath I expend speaking them.”
“Don’t be silly.” Telepathically, she added, *Why am I doing what?*
*All this.*
*To prevent your family being trafficked to the worst sort of shifter.*There. That sounded genuine, didn’t it? She tilted her chin, baring her throat to him dismissively.
*Is that so.*
His eyes moved down her throat.
Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe.
In wolves and other animals, baring your throat to an enemy meant surrender. For Francine’s pride, it was a dismissal. They used it to show that a competitor was so beneath them they wouldn’t dare rip out a Delacourt’s throat even given the perfect opportunity. It was a dare and an insult.
Julian didn’t look at her as though he wanted to rip her throat out. His gaze traveled down the column of her neck, so cool her skin chilled in its wake.
*You want me to dress you.*
*I put you through it. It only seems fair I put myself through the same.*Except he’d been tense and resentful, and she was—was tense, yes.
She couldn’t afford any weakness. But this didn’t feel like weakness. It felt like balancing on the edge of a knife. Like beingalive.
Then his eyes met hers again, sharp as broken glass. *You have a strange idea of fairness.*
She shrugged, as though it didn’t matter that one wrong step would leave her hobbled and bleeding. *What’s so strange about it?*
*You put me in an uncomfortable situation. Instead of apologizing, you seem to think the way to put things right is to punish yourself.*
A different sort of chill took hold of her. “Don’t be absurd,” she snapped. “Do you want to have any input here or not?”
“Not,” he said, ruthlessly expressionless.
“Fine. Go enjoy the rest of the suite, then.” She dismissed him with an angry wave of her hand, then turned back to the designers.
The atmosphere in the room was uncomfortable. Several of the assistants clearly would prefer to throw themselves out thefloor-to-ceiling windows than spend another moment watching her and Julian talk.
She bared her teeth in a smile. It didn’t help.
“Let’s begin, shall we?”
Eventually, it was over. She would have her wardrobe; the designers would have their money. The ship was ready. In another life, her PA would have shepherded a team of tailors onboard to ensure any last-minute adjustments to her clothes could be made as needed. Her crew would include a makeup artist. Publicist. A carefully selected retinue.
And her PA wouldbehere, instead of on the enforced vacation Francine had surprised her with.
She would have friends around her, that other Francine in her other life. Or perhaps not. Maybe she would only have more enemies wearing friends’ faces.
It didn’t make the loneliness any less painful.
She shook herself and winced as her wounds pinched. In a few hours, they would be on their way south.
She should have planned a better way to fill those hours.
Julian had retreated into his room the moment she invited him to leave the clothes fitting and hadn’t emerged since.
Ithurt.They’d barely been together for twenty-four hours, and already, not seeing him for even an hour made her feel shaky. She was having withdrawal symptoms for something—someone—she still couldn’t let herself believe was hers.
Francine lay back on the bed in her own suite, staring at the ceiling. She should have apologized for treating him like a dress-up doll. Instead, she’d snapped at him. She let out a shaky breath. If she went and knocked on his door now, there would be time to apologize before they left to board the ship.
