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Then again…this is why she’s here. I knew what to expect.

I just didn’t realize it would affect me like this.

I turn to Ella.

She looks at me.

Only for a second.

Her lashes lift, and her eyes meet mine in a flash of startled awareness that goes straight to my groin. She looks relieved. Wary, too. Grateful, perhaps, though I don’t deserve that. But beneath all of it is something else.

I open my mouth to tell her how lovely she looks. The words rise in my throat, but then I bite them down.

I can’t allow this, whatever it is.

This pull. This heat. This irrational need to place myself between Ella and every unpleasant thing in the room. It feels hopeful and inevitable at once, like something that’s only just begun but has already been waiting too long.

I can’t feed it. Can’t let it develop.

I can’t have her because I’m a Vexley, and Vexleys don’t want. We take. We ruin.

I can’t have her because she works for my family, and that power dynamic alone makes anything between us suspect.

I can’t have her because my family’s secrets have fangs, and I can’t stand the thought of Ella bleeding.

I look away first.

Coward.

The salad course arrives. Tender leaves arranged in a precise fan. Candied walnuts. Shaved pear. Crumbles of blue cheese. A glossy vinaigrette drizzled across the plate.

I focus on it with the kind of discipline I usually reserve for hostile negotiations.

Food is safe.

I can sit beside Ella and eat a salad. After all, men have survived wars. I can survive a salad.

Until Ella shifts in her chair, and her scent wafts toward me.

Not perfume.

Not exactly.

The same soap I smelled earlier along with something floral. Now with a touch of champagne. And a touch of warm skin.

I take another bite of salad and stare at my plate.

She’s not touching me. Several inches lie between us.

But still I feel her.

Her warmth. Her heartbeat.

I shift slightly and reach for my water. My knee brushes hers under the table. Barely. A whisper of contact.

Nothing.

But everything.