“Well,” he said, his own lips turning up, “since you wouldn’t share your kinks with me, I had to remember something.”
She took a tentative sip of the scalding drink, the sweet, creamy bitterness releasing some of the tension in her shoulders, then dug into the omelet and potatoes.
“Fuck,” she said around a crispy mouthful. “This is really good. Why do the insane ones always serve the best food?”
Ronin polished off his own omelet in three bites, then shoveled the entire pile of potatoes in his mouth.
Mireille snickered.
“What?”
“You eat like a wolf,” she said, amused.
“Old habits.” He brushed his mouth with a cloth napkin. “Where’d you go this morning?”
“Took a little jog to clear my head.”
His grin exposed a hint of fang and her neck prickled. As if her body remembered just how incredible they’d felt on her neck last night. “Why’d you need to clear your head?”
She ignored his question, hoping the flush from her run was hiding the new flush blooming on her cheeks. “Who dropped off the tray this morning? The silver-haired man? Same one we saw in the crypt last night?”
Ronin nodded, plucking up a strawberry and sinking his teeth into it. High Gods, why did that look so enticingly obscene? Her thighs clenched, and she turned away to rummage through her jacket.
She pulled out a pile of soft pink petals, then spread them onto a napkin.
Ronin’s brows rose. “I saw those in the greenhouse the other night. While Nero was drooling over you. They were under glass. I assumed they were poisonous.” His eyes scanned her face, as if he were worried she’d inadvertently hurt herself.
“Not poisonous.” The tension in his shoulders melted away. “But they are extremely prone to dehydration. They dry out faster than almost any other flower. They’re called Bleeding Hearts. The dried petals can be brewed into a tea that makes someone…let’s just say,very susceptibleto suggestion. And if I mix in some of those dried Lethaphyll leaves from the cigarettes Mattias gave you.” She brought her fingers to her temple, popping them out to mimic a small explosion. “That servant won’t remember a thing after.”
Ronin’s brows rose further, a broad smile forming. “You’re a fucking genius.”
She smiled back. “Told you I’d surprise you one day, Matakos.”
He shook his head. “You being a genius doesn’t surprise me at all. Gonna have to try harder than that. When can we use it?”
“It’ll take about twenty-four hours for the petals to fully dry out. We can brew the tea tomorrow morning and give it to our servant when he comes back to pick up the tray. And then persuade him to let us into Otto’s office.” Mireille folded the napkin over the petals, then hid the parcel on the top shelf of the closet.
“So, what’s the plan for today then?” Ronin drained his tea to the dregs. “Where are we going snooping?”
Mireille turned back, smirking at him. “We’re not going snooping, we’re going hunting. For Fallen Goddess relics.
“Time to tour Otto’s galleries.”
Ronin’s footstepsechoed off the flagstone path that led to Otto’s famous galleries, a wide, white building that bled into the surrounding snow.
Beside him, Mireille was a coil of barely contained energy. He couldn’t decide where it was coming from—the run she’d taken this morning, her excitement at touring a private art collection that barely anyone on the continent had ever seen, or…
Their kiss last night.
Hecertainly hadn’t been able to get it out of his mind. More than once in bed he’d had to talk himself out of rolling over, grasping her soft body to him, and burying his fingers inside her. Doing some more rehearsing of their roles.
He’d almost confessed it to her last night. How he was feeling. How the lines between what was fake and what was real were starting to blur.
For him, at least.
The look she’d given him after that mind-obliterating kiss, all cool calculation and professional distance, had dissuaded him from revealing what was creeping into his heart.
They still had a job to do. He didn’t want to make things awkward.
