Velario turned around. He’d take a different route home.
Danten stayed right next to him. “Seriously, Vel, you were nearly as bad as Enzi back there. Worse even, for Reyn has every reason to expect you to see her true worth.”
Velario couldn’t admit that his courtship of Reyn was all a ploy. Had been a ploy. He sighed, and the rush of red-hot anger receded, leaving him feeling both guilty and defensive that his friend would take Reyn’s side. Even if Velario was clearly the one who had erred.
Five hells. His stupid remarks weren’t just cruel to Reyn, they threatened everything he had worked toward to protect Lhanaperi’s economy. No doubt Reyn wouldn’t step back inside a single bank with him after this.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he admitted to Danten. “That’s the problem. I didn’t know what I was thinking when I stormed into Enzi’s box and yelled at him. I didn’t know what I was thinking when Reyn tried to thank me for doing what anyone should have done. She messes with my brain, Danten.”
“The best women always do.”
“But is Reyn one of the best women?”
“You’re asking me? You are the one courting her, Vel. What made you do that, when you’ve never pursued any other woman in earnest?”
Reyn’s ability to spot counterfeit money.
But that wasn’t what had sent him crashing into Enzi’s box. It wasn’t why he tried to convince himself she was a power-grabbing social climber before he forgot everything was an act.
It was the way she teased him and never backed down. Her bedroom voice, wielded as a weapon under the midday sun. The feel of her body, tucked tight against his side.
“Her laughter sounds like silver bells; did you know that?” Velario asked Danten. He didn’t even know how to answer his friend’s question, because he wasn’t courting Reyn, not truly, and yet there were so many reasons to. So he resorted to misdirection. “I don’t even know how silver bells differ in sound from any other kind, but I am certain her laughter is silver bells.”
“I’ve heard her laugh, Velario. It is a lovely sound, to be sure, but it is not bells, silver or otherwise.”
“Not her fake court giggle. Her real laugh. It is mesmerizing.”
“All right.” Danten was humoring him, that was clear. “So her laughter is like silver bells. This made you act like an ass because . . .?”
“Because she puts every man under her spell. She flirts more than Selona. I do not want to be some gullible fool under her thumb.”
“If she is charming everyone with her laughter, then why does she have a court giggle? Why haven’t I ever heard these silver bells? I think you are seeing something that isn’t there, Velario. She isn’t flirting with everyone; she’s too distracted by you.”
“Hardly. She was smiling at Enzi while on my arm the first time I walked with her in the park. It’s hardly a compliment to me that she accepts my courtship when she’d accept his without hesitation.”
Velario knew the words were a lie, a willful misunderstanding, the moment he said them. Yes, she had smiled at Enzi, and he had seen her flirt with him, but that was simply who Reyn was. She smiled and flirted with Fideo, too, and Velario never thought it was anything more than friendly. Not once since they had started their ruse had he ever had reason to believe she would jeopardize anything by flirting in earnest. She had given up all chances of finding a lover in Tryn in order to help him. And she didn’t seem to regret making that choice.
Well, she probably regretted it after tonight.
“I can’t believe you are jealous, Vel. You won the girl, not Enzi. I mean, you probably lost her now, but you had her. Five hells. Not only did I never expect you to turn into a jealous fool, but you are also an idiotic one. If you had to make a mess of things tonight, couldn’t you have punched Enzi instead of insulting Reyn?”
“I wanted to,” Velario admitted. Then he sighed. Danten was right, and there was no point arguing. “I’m an idiot, I know. But if you are going to keep making me relive all the ways I messed up tonight, can you at least wait until I have a glass of brandy?”
“Fine, but we’re going to your house—I’m not wasting my good brandy on your foolishness.”
“What about your cheap brandy?”
“You know I only buy the good stuff.”
