“There,” I say. “He should be up shortly.”
Celeste turns to me, silver eyes glinting in the candlelight. “You’ve been very efficient.” Something about the way she says it makes the hair rise on the back of my neck again.
Before I can respond, footsteps sound in the hall. I know that stride.
Aleksei appears at the end of the corridor in a black suit and a look on his face I don’t immediately understand. He’s moving fast, expression already dark from whatever night he’s had, but the second his eyes land on the woman beside me, he stops dead.
The silence is instant.
I look from him to her and back again.
His face changes. Not surprise exactly. Something worse. Anger, yes, but also recognition sharp enough to cut.
The woman next to me smiles. Not Celeste’s faint, cool smile. A different one. Slower. More intimate. More mocking.
“Well,” she says softly. “This is awkward.”
My stomach drops.
Aleksei’s voice comes out like stone. “Alena.”
I stare at him. Then at her. Then back again.
No. No, no, no.
The elegant brunette turns to me, not flustered in the slightest. If anything, she looks delighted.
“Not Celeste,” she says. “Though points for effort.”
I actually take a step back. “What?”
Aleksei is already moving again, every line of him hard and furious. “Zatanna. Behind me.”
That should not be hot. It absolutely is.
I obey before my brain catches up, because this night has officially become too strange to process in real time. I move back a pace as Alena, not Celeste, settles into the chair like she owns the entire floor.
“You used a false name?” I ask, still trying to make my thoughts line up.
She looks at me with open amusement. “Technically, yes.”
“You lied in a meeting I arranged.”
“Yes.”
“That is…” I stop, because there are honestly too many possible endings to that sentence.
Aleksei doesn’t bother trying for polite. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Alena folds one elegant leg over the other. “Seeing whether you’d actually show up.”
His eyes narrow. “You impersonated a candidate.”
“You were always so quick.” Her gaze flicks to me. “And she was easier to fool than I expected.”
Aleksei’s laugh is short and cold. “You lied your way into a private meeting.”
“You invited half of Manhattan to audition for marriage. Forgive me for improvising.”
