She knew exactly what he was talking about. And it was the last thing she wanted todiscuss.
She leaned forward to tell him so, and their eyes met.
Drowning.That was what this felt like—as though she’d been drowning her whole life and had only now come up for air. She wanted to crawl over the table and into his lap, press herself against every cool, stone-like inch of him and kiss the dark shadows beneath his eyes until they shone with something other than despair.
“No,” she said, forcing it all back, her longing, her loneliness, her lioness. The tug of fate that was so close to binding them together. Everything except the guilt. The reminder that no matter what fate thought, he deserved better than what she was.
“Of course.” His voice smoothed the rough edges inside her and left jagged holes in her self-control. “Now is hardly the time.”
She would die if she didn’t touch him. “I’m glad you agree.”
His pupils dilated, huge and black. He reached up, his fingertips an inch from her face.
Someone knocked on the door.
Francine snapped back to reality. She blinked, the heat inside her changing from desire to anger—but Julian was already on his feet. He crossed to the suite door in an instant, opening it and glaring at whoever was outside.
When he looked back at her, there was no sign of desire on his face. Only cool professionalism.
“Our hostess invites you to join her in her suite,” he informed her, emotionlessly.
She sighed—loud, dramatic, an heiress with no doubt about her position on the food chain. “Finally. I thought I’d have to go begging at her door for some fun on this boat.” She swung herself upright, stalking inside without a glance at Julian or the staff behind the door. “Tell her I have to get dressed first.”
Julian shut the door and stood like a marble statue. *You and Eloise,*he began.
*What about us?*
*It’s fortunate you know her, and she trusts you. Did Lance MacInnis foresee this possibility?*
Francine froze.
*Not that I know of,*she replied carefully. *We knew there might be others, but not who.*
*Lucky, then, that he chose you to escort me.*
She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. It wasn’t luck that Lance had sent her—he hadn’t sent her at all, and it was hisbadluck that made him a part of her lie.
But Julian was right about one thing. She was a part of this world. She knew Eloise would have something planned this morning, and every choice she made as she got ready had to reflect that. Activewear or formal? Hair up or down? Makeup—should she wear none, because it didn’t survive shifting and she wanted to remind everyone that she was a lioness, or a perfectly applied full face, because she didn’t need to make the implicit threat that she might shift and rip out someone’s throat?
She stared at herself in the full-length bathroom mirror. She needed a makeover. A facial. Whatever would transform her face into that of a woman who would rip out someone’s throat because she wanted to, and not because she was backed into a desperate corner.
*PLEASE tell me you’re almost ready.*Eloise’s voice filtered into her mind like a bell ringing in a distant room. *Girl, I need you. Please come steal this Greek guy away from me so I can get some sleep.*
Francine’s eyebrows shot up.Thatwas what Eloise wanted her for? To growl at her latest one-night stand? She should—
Oh.
Thereshe was. The woman in the mirror was the right one after all. Haughty and superior, with the slightest hint of disgust.
As though she could ever have been anyone else.
Nikolaidis didn’t look like a man who’d been thrown out of Eloise’s bed. He looked like a man who was pretending to try to get into her bed, in exchange for information Elly didn’t want to give him.
Francine was surprised at how easily she recognized the type. She stood in the doorway of Eloise’s suite and cocked an eyebrow at her old friend.
Eloise shot her a pained look. *I know, right? It’s like college all over again.*
*We barely saw each other in college.*
