But also, she was prickling with annoyance at the way he was bursting her lone bubble of comfort: her feeling that today was going so much better, that the visual assault of Versailles was uniquely suited to stop her from being anIs she looking at Jamie?sideshow, that Emily and Michael looked like they were having fun, like they were going to be perfectly fine.
So she said, “Isn’t this, like—the decor of your people?”
He slid his eyes toward her, narrowing them slightly.
“Let me guess. Someone told you I’m rich.”
She snorted. “Someone told me you’re abillionaire.”
He laughed.
Helaughed.
A short laugh, but still: a huff of air out, a rasp of the lowest register of his voice escaping through the flash of his straight, white teeth, which Layla had never gotten a good look at. She felt, for a second, like one of the hideous, heavy chandeliers had fallen directly onto her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Michael’s face turn toward them—as though even from several steps away, with several sets of people milling between them, he could hear Griffin’s laugh, too.
“You’re…” She trailed off, temporarily stuck on the wrong completion of this sentence.
You’re even more handsome when you laugh. You’re like a secret door in the wall. You’re an electrical storm in my spine.
“…not?” she eventually got out, hoping she didn’t sound too breathlessly curious.
He wasn’t smiling anymore, not really. But on that side of his face he let her see, there was still a different set to his mouth, a slight quirk. He’d put his eyes back on the big billionaire bed, but somehow, it still seemed as though he was side-eyeing her.
“That’s what all theat least I have a jobstuff is about, I guess,” he said after a few seconds.
Her cheeks warmed. Shehadsaid that a couple of times. If it wasn’t true, she supposed she should be embarrassed. Then again, her threshold for being embarrassed on this trip was now absurdly high. At least he wasn’t considering moving hotels because of her. At least he hadn’t thrown up on her.
At least she wasn’t lying crushed beneath an ugly chandelier.
“So you’re not a billionaire,” she said.
“No.”
That quirk again. A little line in his cheek, as interesting as any one of his scars.
“And youdohave a job.”
He didn’t answer. Just kept the quirk, kept staring at every ugly thing in this ugly room inside this ugly palace.
“You know,” she said, surprised at the jokey, casual note to her voice. Surprised at how comfortable she sounded. Like they weren’t faking anything at all. “Afriendwould tell me.”
He made the noise again—theHmfrom before, but deeper this time, and all sense of jokey, casual comfort fled from her body.Maybe it was only a simple, more contemplativeHm, but something about it—Layla thought it sounded, somehow, like a promise.
Like a noise someone would make right against your skin before they kissed it in exactly the right way. Exactly the way you always wanted.
Oh my god.Whatwas she thinking?
She swallowed, faced forward again, except of course, the only thing to stare at straight ahead was Marie Antoinette’s stupid gigantic bed. She blinked at it, blurring its big, garish florals into a mess of color, waiting for the heat in her face to dissipate, for her breath to go back to normal.
Griffin waited, too. As though he knew.
And when she finally felt like she was ready to move on, he spoke again.
“Maybe I’ll tell you,” he said, sounding closer to her this time. Warming her up all over again. “When we’re somewhere more honest.”
* * *
More honest, it turned out, was hard to find in Versailles, even once you went outside.
