“Good, because I haven’t given her a tour yet. We can hold dinner for you to do it.”
“A tour of all of Cloud Rift. Are we going to be eating at midnight?”
“The essentials, Mr. Slate.” He straightens a plate.
“Mister now? I will give her a tour, but you will owe me when you turn out to be wrong.”
There’s a flicker of a smile as he turns away. In all the years I’ve lived in the palaces of Crest Wing, I’ve never known Leopold to be so positive before.
He turns and raises his eyebrow at me in a you’re-still-here way.
“I’m going.” I exit the dining room through the main door and head out into the foyer. I take the stairs two at a time. Actually, letting her wander around Cloud Rift without a tour, and without signing the NDA, isn’t the brightest thing I’ve done. I pass each of our suites: Roark’s at the top of the stairs, then mine, and finally Kieren’s, and across the hall from the prince is the room we all avoid like the plague.
I give a firm knock on the door.
“Come in,” her sweet voice sings.
I open the door, and her face is crestfallen when she sees it’s me.
“Not who you were hoping for? Well, we can’t always get everything we want, Tiger.”
“No... again.” She pulls herself together. “I’m no Tiger. Never have been, never will be.”
“I see.” One of the last candidates whom Leopold brought to the house just about ran to my bed when I gave her a nickname: Pumpkin. I still fail to see the appeal in being compared to a squash. But then I don’t understand females. Kitten, maybe. “You’re more of a Kitten, then?”
“No, but I don’t like the sudden downgrade. Honestly, I was hoping you were Percy. With my clothes.” She pulls on the ends of the robe.
“Isn’t there a full selection of clothes in the wardrobe? Put something on from back there.”
“Those aren’t my clothes.”
“But they’re perfectly good, new clothes.” Clothes that have never been worn but replaced a number of times.
She crosses her arms over her chest, and I’m not an asshole, but I’m also not dead. The woman has a nice chest that plumps right up when she holds her arms that way. I cock my head at her. Her delicate eyebrows have furrowed at me. There’s no way this woman is our mate. She’s infuriating.
“Why do you have a closet full of woman’s clothes? Are they brand new? Whose are they?”
Ah, is that a bit of jealousy in her? I try not to think about my dick hardening in my pants, but the blood rushing there has taken away my ability to come up with a suave lie quickly. “Well, one never knows when someone might need a complete set of light blue clothing.”
“Do you provide light blue clothing for all your employees?”
“Of course. Why would you be any different?”
“Really?” Her brows have dropped. But now it’s almostlike I can see her thinking. How much money would that cost? Why light blue? Will everyone be wearing light blue?
“If they are in the way of your own clothes, we can have them removed.”
“I . . . yes, I would like them removed.”
“Do you not like light blue?”
“It’s a fine color. But I tend to wear more... darker colors. Things that hide the dirt and, well, things better.”
“Things?”
“You know, black is more slimming.”
I flick my eyes down her toned body. There’s nothing she needs to hide. The curves I can see under her robe are all lovely. “Could you wear something from the wardrobe tonight, and then we can get the rest removed in the morning?”
