Page 90 of Reign

His gaze stays on me, patient and dark.

I huff. “A garden should change after dark. It shouldn’t disappear just because the sun goes down. It should smell different. Softer. My mother used to say a garden that didn’t wake up at night was only doing half its job.”

The second the words leave my mouth, I want them back.

The words are hers. I can hear her saying them, gentle and certain, with dirt under her nails and sunlight caught in her hair.

I step away from the glass and clear my throat before the lump in it does something unforgivable, like become a feeling.

Luciano’s voice follows me, quieter than before. “Are those your favorite?”

I glance at him. “What?”

“Jasmine. Lavender.”

“No.” I fold my arms like that might somehow put all my organs back where they belong. “I like… Orchids.”

His head tilts slightly. “Orchids.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I just announced I only drink water imported from glaciers and require my pillows to be emotionally supportive.”

He lets out a chuckle. Deep, brief, and unfairly sexy when it comes with that smirk.

The chuckle ends, but the smirk lingers long enough to make another bathroom seem like a perfectly reasonable mistake.

“I didn’t say anything,” he says.

“You thought something.”

“I often do.”

“Congratulations.”

“Orchids suit you.”

That shuts me up for a full second, which is rude of him. Then I recover. Poorly because I know he’s calling me difficult. “They’re not as difficult as people think.”

“No?”

“No. They just need the right conditions.”

The silence after that is immediate and horrible.

He hears it too.

My face heats. “I’m talking about flowers.”

“I know.”

He doesn’t sound like he knows.

I look toward Marisol, who has been standing near the entry with the sort of professional stillness that makes me deeply suspicious she heard every word.

Luciano turns to her. “Show Elena to her room.”