“I’ll take care of myself,” he said, wanting to end the conversation fast, watching as Silver came over and took the empty bench across from him.
“I love you even though I’m such a brat to you, you know that right?” Neve asked.
“I love you, too,” Nuri replied warmly, frowning when Silver noticeably paused with the coffee cup he’d brought along halfway to his mouth. He clicked the communicator cuff on his ear to end the call and tilted his head at the Emperor. “You spoke with my sister.”
“I did.” Silver sipped at his coffee and then slowly placed the cup back onto the saucer held in his other hand, glancing up to meet Nuri’s gaze with a cool expression.
“Why?”
“You were distraught,” he replied nonchalantly. “It was never my intention to sour your relationship with them. After seeing how upset you were, I assumed giving you an alibi was the least I could do. It also seemed it would be more believable coming directly from me. Was I wrong?”
“You’re saying you did it for me?” Nuri found that hard to buy.
“Why the suspicion, Narek?”
“What’s it going to cost?”
“Excuse me?”
“For you to keep your word and allow me to go to Vitality,” Nuri elaborated.
“Have you always thought of me this way and I just never noticed?” He took another drink of coffee, leaning back in his seat.
“Are you saying you don’t want something in return?”
The corner of his mouth tipped up.
“What do I have to do?” He’d known there was a catch.
“Be good for me, Nuri,” Silver surprised him by saying. “Be good, and at the end of the week I’ll take you to Vitality to visit your siblings.”
Wording was everything and that wasn’t lost on Nuri. Silver was insistent on going with him because he was afraid Nuri wouldn’t return otherwise. Still, knowing he couldn’t argue those points, especially not right now, without risking making the Emperor change his mind entirely, he latched onto the other hidden meaning in those words.
For the millionth time in the past sixty minutes alone Nuri thought about the scene in the kitchen.
“You meanmake itgood for you,” he corrected tersely.
“I want you in my bed,” Silver agreed. “You didn’t seem disappointed to be there the other night when you were ruining my sheets and screaming my name.”
“I told you, I—”
“Barely remember,” Silver waved him off, “yes.”
Suddenly, someone cleared their throat and they both turned to find Falc standing a few feet away.
Nuri squeezed his eyes shut, face heating. There was no way the older man hadn’t heard that.
“What is it this time?” Silver asked, not even the least bit embarrassed by being listening in on.
“Mr. Nickel is at Master Narek’s house now and was wondering whether or not he should collect the stack of Digi-folders from his coffee table?” Falc said.
“What?!” Nuri shot to his feet, letting out a pained sound when that immediately put pressure on his injured ankle.
“Sit down, Narek,” Silver demanded, but Nuri shook his head.
“What is this about? Why is Mr. Nickel at my home?”
Nickel was a man under Silver’s employee who acted in a similar capacity as Nuri, only he was given the lowlierassignments, ones that required muscle and grunt work more so than brains and a business understanding. Which wasn’t to say the man wasn’t smart, he was. Nickel had graduated top of his class at AU University but for some reason had applied to work for the Imperial family directly after graduation.
