Lucien smiled like a man about to unleash hell. “Are you in love with her?”
“Excuseme?” Dillon’s eyebrows flew up.
“Are youin lovewith her?” Lucien went fatally still.
My heart pounded. I already knew the answer. There was nothing—
“I love her,” Dillon said plainly.
What?!
The room turned blisteringly hot as Lucien turned into a human incense burner.
“I love her,” Dillon repeated like an idiot. “But...not in the way you’re implying.” His blue gaze fell on mine, softening with affection. “I love her like a pesky sister. I love her because she’s become my only family. And—”
His eyes dropped to my throat.
He blanched. “Rook...where’s your necklace?”
Chapter Fifty-Four
LUCIEN TURNED MURDEROUS. “WAS THAT something else her parents asked you to monitor? To make sure she never took the necklace off?”
I waited for Dillon to deny it.
For him to remain trustworthy and safe but...
His eyes clouded over as he shifted awkwardly.
“Whisper,” Lucien murmured.
The panther instantly shot to his paws, tail going dart-straight.
Dillon flinched and shot me a guilty look. “I did know you could never take it off. That it was a matter of life or death that you kept it on.”
“Why?” I asked, cutting Lucien off before he could blow the office apart.
“Do you remember about six years ago when you did your typical vanishing act, and I found you in the Maldives?”
I frowned; all my travels were a blur. A never-ending mess of pain and nausea as I searched the world for peace. “Vaguely.” I shrugged. “You were there when I woke one morning, fast asleep on the love seat.”
“I was asleep because for thirty-six hours you wouldn’t wake. I thought you were going to die on me.”
“What? Why?”
Lucien’s death grip on me tightened.
“You were on an island with thirty-five Celsius heat, yet...when I finally found you and knocked on your villa door, the windows were frosted—from the inside.”
Lucien’s heart hitched against my back.
“I showed my credentials at the front desk, they gave me a key, and when I went inside...it looked more like an igloo than a tropical suite.” Shaking his head, his voice turned quiet. “I’m talking literal walls covered in ice. The air so dry and cold, it threatened to stick my lungs together. And there you were, completely blue and not moving on the floor. I honestly thought you were dead.”
Lucien’s arm slid fully around my waist, anchoring me tight.
Why didn’t I remember this?
“I carried you out,” Dillon continued. “You were so cold, you gave me frostbite. Luckily, everyone was asleep and I carried you straight into the sea. The ocean was at least twenty-five degrees Celsius, but even that couldn’t thaw you.” He sniffed. “And then I noticed your necklace was missing and I remembered your mother telling me that you must never take it off. She never told me why, but...she was so insistent about it, she even wrote it into my contract.”
