“A call girl, then? Or anactress?”
I shook my headno.
She checked my left hand, and even though I wore no ring, asked, “A client’swife?”
“No,” Igasped.
“Then how did you meetJarod?”
The memory of how I’d enteredLa Cour des Démonsflitted through my mind. It felt like an entire year had come and gone. “I sought him out to offer him a chance at a betterlife.”
“Better?” She made a little sound, which I wasn’t sure how to interpret until she shook her head. “Jarod leads the best of lives. He is the wealthiest and most powerful, unattached man in this city—probably in the whole country. Not to mention exceedinglyhandsome.”
“Those aren’t reasons forhappiness.”
“You have obviously never known hunger orpoverty.”
“You’re right. Ihaven’t.”
The strain that flexed her dainty shoulders led me to believe she had knownboth.
The air changed suddenly, both in texture and scent. Without having to glance over my shoulder, I sensed Jarod had arrived. Nonetheless, I glanced to fill myself with the sight of him. Gait so proud, he advanced toward me. Petra also watched him, along with everyone in the surrounding private boxes, but I was his single focus, and that did things to me that were downrightalarming.
It made me feel special. Andbeautiful.
It set me onfire.
My body began to pulsate with light, and his eyes glittered. How much of that light was a reflection of my own and how much of it was a reflection of the one in his heart? He backed me into the guardrail, his hands drifting to my waist, probably to keep me from tipping over the red velvetbalustrade.
“Sorry I left you alone so long,” he whispered before pressing his mouth to mine, and although our lips didn’t open and our tongues didn’t twine, it felt like one of the most intimate kisses he and I had ever shared, like his mouth was memorizing the shape ofmine.
The lights dimmed then, and we took our seats. As the heavy curtains parted, his hand slid off my waist but not off my smoldering body. His long fingers played my feathers with the dexterity of the harpist in the orchestra pit, strumming and flicking each one until a melodic hum made its way through mylips.
Although he kept his eyes on the show, the smile growing on his face as my breathing turned nippier and my skin shinier betrayed where his attention truly lay. I probably should’ve chided him for what he was doing, but I sealed my lips and eyes and waded through the minefield of impropriety. When his fingers sent me soaring, my lips parted with a gasp that was swallowed first, by the audience’s loud clapping, and then, by Jarod’slips.
After pleasure came pain, though. As though someone had punched my back with steel knuckles, I hissed, and my eyes flipped open, locking on Jarod’s. He lurched back, already scanning the shadowy expanse beneath my chair. When he located the feather I imagined the Ishim had purloined for our licentious undertaking, his expression darkened like my no longer glittery skin, and his hand fell away from mybody.
I apprehended his fingers. “It doesn’tmatter.”
He side-eyed me, and I sensed that, to him, itmattered.
A duet began on thestage.
He removed his hand from mine and crossed his arms, bunching the fabric of hissleeves.
Instead of trying to pry his arms apart, which I sensed he wouldn’t appreciate, I let him stew in his guilt. But I did lean over to say, “I don’t want them; I wantyou.”
“Don’t say that,” he snapped, his harsh tone garnering Petra’s and Tristan’sattention.
I shifted closer to him again. “You don’t understand what theyrepresent.”
“Your safety,” he hissed. “That’s what they fucking represent.” His gaze was still riveted to the stage and stayed that way throughout the entire firstact.
Only once did they stray, and it was to glare at the hand caressing hislap.
Which wasn’tmine.
Blood thrashed in my ears as I watched Petra stroke up his thigh again. Howdare—
