“Yes,” he said quietly. “You would.”
I looked away first. Out the window, at the city, at the middle distance where feelings could be examined without being seen examining them.
“It’s a nice thought,” I said.
“It’s not a thought,” he said. “It’s a plan. You just stated it in the present tense.”
“Jared—“
“The Barnes would be lucky to have you.”
The simplicity of it. No qualification, no someday or maybe or if things were different. Just the statement, flat and certain, as ifit were an established fact he was reminding me of rather than a reassurance he was offering.
Something cracked open in my chest. Quietly. Irrevocably. I didn’t let it show.
“You don’t know my work,” I said.
“I know how you talked about that Sif painting the first night at Midgard,” he said. “I know how you moved through the Barnes tonight before you found me. I watched you for thirty seconds before you saw me. You weren’t performing appreciation. You were actually there.” He held my gaze. “I know enough.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again.
He had watched me for thirty seconds. He had noticed what I looked like when I wasn’t performing. He had filed it and kept it and offered it back to me now, at an hour when all the defenses I’d built were running low on whatever it was they ran on.
“You’re dangerous,” I said.
The corner of his mouth moved. “So I’ve been told.”
“I mean that seriously.”
“I know.” The almost-smile faded into something quieter. “So do I.”
The room was very still. Outside, nothing moved. Vlad’s room was at the end of the east corridor and Dimitri’s rotation wouldn’t bring him past this wing for another hour. My father’s suite was on the opposite side of the house and all of it information I knew with a specificity that told me exactly how much of tonight I had planned while pretending I hadn’t.
He stood. Crossed the room to where I was sitting on the edge of the bed and stopped in front of me, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to look at him. He didn’t touch me. Just looked down at me with those dark, careful eyes and waited.
“The Barnes,” he said quietly. “Remember that you said it.”
“I’ll remember,” I said. Neither of us moved. The room felt smaller than it had a few minutes ago. Not because of the walls. Because of everything that had just been said.
“Good.”
His hand came up slowly, giving me every opportunity to move, to redirect, to say something sensible, and tucked a strand of hair back from my face with a gentleness that was somehow more devastating than anything precise or deliberate could have been. His fingertips brushed my jaw. Stayed.
I turned my face into his hand. Couldn’t help it. Didn’t try very hard to.
He leaned down and kissed me.
Not the careful social press of a man at a gala. This was unhurried and warm and thorough, the kiss of someone with nowhere else to be and nothing to perform for, and I felt it in every place the evening had left me raw and open. My hands found his jacket again, the lapels, the same grip as the balcony. Holding on, not pulling away, just holding on while the room tilted gently on its axis.
He pulled back just far enough to look at me. His thumb moved along my jaw.
“I’ve wanted to do that properly since the balcony,” he said quietly.
“That wasn’t proper?” I managed.
“No.” His eyes were very dark, very close. “That was restrained.”
“Good.”
