The man nodded his meatyhead.
To me, Jarod said, “I’ll be up in a fewminutes.”
I released my death grip on his jacket, and it felt like releasing the tallest branch of a tree and freefalling backward. My wings poured out of my back as though they could somehow break my fall, but all they did was uselessly adorn myback.
Jarod cupped my chin. I thought he was going to kiss me, and I desperately wanted him to, if just to show Petra and the rest of the women ogling him that he was taken, that even if he didn’t love me, he liked me better than them. Instead, his chin bumped my emeraldearring.
“You are blinding me to the surrounding world, Feather. How am I expected to look anywhere else orseeanything else when you arenear?”
I wanted his compliment to reach deep and lift my sunken heart, but part of me thought he’d spoken it only to alleviate my manifestsullenness.
He canted my face. “Smile forme.”
Sighing, I raised a diminutivesmile.
He leaned over and kissed my taut lips before pulling away and striding through the crowd that parted around him and Tristan as though they werekings.
The night I’d met Asher, I remembered thinking he was attractive, powerful, and kind, but the archangel paled in comparison to mysinner.
Neither human nor angel could eclipse this man whose magnificent darkness devoured even the brightest oflights.
Chapter 52
As Amir escortedme into an opulent red box situated directly across the stage, curious glances were tossed my way, ramping up my tenaciousinsecurities.
“Tristan mentioned Jarod was acting out of character, but kissing in public”—Petra glided toward the gold handrail of thelogenext to which I was poised, scanning the crowd below—“that is certainly a first.” She leaned her dainty forearms on the scarlet velvet upholstery that matched the chairs with their deep button tufting and goldenframes.
I didn’t think she was telling me this to stroke my ego, but I lapped it right up. “I take it you know himwell?”
“Intimately, but notwell.”
I knew I wasn’t Jarod’s first, or second, or third, but hearing it from someone who’d come before me stung my already vulnerableheart.
Petra turned away from the sight below to examine me. “I do not think it is possible to know Jarod Adlerwell.”
How wrong shewas.
HowdeeplyI relished how wrong shewas.
I kept my gaze on the operagoers milling around below, flattening their ample dresses to thread themselves down the narrow rows of seats or embracing friends as though they were long-lost relatives before disparaging their outfit or Botoxed features the instant their backs wereturned.
On my way up the stairs to our private box, I’d been privy to such hushed backstabbing. I’d even heard one woman comment how someone else was wearing the same dress I was, but in black, which was so much more distinguished than lurid green. My confidence level had taken another hit, but I’d raised my chin a little higher and spread my wings a littlewider.
For a slender moment, I’d wished humans could see them, or at the very least, feel them. Bodies passing through them as though my feathers were no more substantial than vapor hadn’t been half as satisfying as smacking them would’vebeen.
Such an unangelicthought.
“It is Lee, right?” Petra asked. “Yourname.”
“Leigh,” I responded, adding a longyuhsound to differentiate it from the word that meant ugly inFrench.
“Which agency do you work for,Leigh?”
I glanced at her. “Excuseme?”
“I imagine you are amodel.”
“A model?” I actually smiled at that. “No. I’m not amodel.”
