“So. This birthday party.”
“Yes?”
“Do I need to worry about poison in the hors d’oeuvres? Rivals to duel? Ancient family curses requiring navigation?”
“Just my mother.”
“Just your mother.” He nods gravely. “I’ll bring my best armor.”
“She’s not that bad.”
“Isadora. You’ve spent twenty minutes looking like you’re preparing for battle. She’s exactly that bad.”
“Fine. She’s exactly that bad. Are you reconsidering?”
“Not even slightly.” He lifts my hand to his lips and presses a kiss to my knuckles. “One week to prepare. I’ll be ready.”
“She’ll interrogate you.”
“I’ve been interrogated by better.”
“She’ll find flaws.”
“Everyone has flaws. Mine are particularly charming.”
“She’ll—” I stop, laughing despite myself. “You’re impossible.”
“Remarkably so.” He grins. “Now. Shall we practice? I believe we have a showcase to prepare for, and I’d rather not embarrass you in front of the entirety of Bellamy Cove.”
“You could never embarrass me.”
The words slip out before I can stop them, honest and raw, and his grin softens into something gentler.
“No,” he says quietly. “I don’t suppose I could.”
He leads me to the center of the floor, positions my hands, and adjusts my frame with the careful attention of someone who’s been paying attention to every lesson.
The music begins. And as we move together, the bracelet on his wrist catches the light—five rubies gleaming like promises, two black stones waiting to transform. Waiting for me to want something else. To need him for something else. To invite him deeper into my life.
What will trigger the sixth invitation?
For now, I don’t know. So for now, we dance.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“You look stunning, by the way.”
Mal says it casually, one hand resting on the small of my back as we approach the entrance of the Bellamy Cove Country Club. His touch is warm through the silk of my dress—a champagne-colored number I’d agonized over for three days before finally admitting that yes, I was trying to impress my mother, and no, it wasn’t going to work regardless of what I wore.
“You’ve said that four times.”
“I’ll say it a fifth. You look?—”
“Stunning. Yes.” I pause at the carved double doors, my reflection staring back at me from the polished brass handles. “That’s not going to matter in approximately thirty seconds.”
“Your mother doesn’t appreciate aesthetic excellence?”
“My mother appreciates perfection. Everything else is just varying degrees of acceptable failure.”
