Page 29

Do I have a nip slip? My heart jumps into my throat as panic surges through me.

I look down, quick and subtle, assessing the situation. The girls are exactly where they should be. Everything’s in place.

I want to bang my head against the wall. Is it my posture? My face? Something? There has to be something that’s putting him off.

He extends his arm. “Ready?”

I suppress the urge to bolt, to find some excuse to hide in the bathroom and avoid whatever volatile interactions are about to take place. But instead, I put on a brave face and hook my arm through his. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

I hope I sound more confident than I feel because inside, I’m panicking a little.

The dining room looks exactly how you’d expect the home of a family with a murder problem to look.

The table is so long it could host a medieval summit. It’s massive. Imposing. It would make an excellent setting for the dramatic reading of a will, or a dinner where at least one other heir dies under mysterious circumstances before dessert is served.

Theo looks like he'd rather be anywhere but here. His shoulders are stiff, his body rigid, like he’s mentally preparing for battle. I can practically feel the tension radiating off him.

“I know you hate being around me,” I mutter in a tight-lipped whisper. “But could you at least try to pretend you don’t find having dinner with me something akin to waterboarding?”

He looks down at me, brow furrowing in confusion. “Lila, I don’t⁠—”

Whatever Theo was about to say is cut off by the slow creak of the door swinging open. The shift in the room is immediate, a cold draft spilling in.

That cold draft would be Baryn, strolling inside with that usual assumption that the room belongs to him. Hell, that the air in it does too.

His eyes flicker to me, keen and assessing, before his lips pull into that fucking leer of his.

He doesn’t hesitate before sliding up beside me, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his body, the weight of his presence pressing in. His exhale skates along the shell of my ear, sending an involuntary shiver down my spine. Not the good kind.

“If I’d known you cleaned up this well, I’d have made more effort during our conversations,” he says, leaning in enough to test boundaries. “Especially the ones you insisted on having horizontally.”

I bristle, heat prickling my neck. Of course he’d bring that up. He’s incapable of letting anything be sacred—not even the one time I was short-sighted enough to think he might’ve actually been kind. Gentle, even. Turns out he was just quiet for once.

His gaze drops to my dress, eyes roving over it like he owns the damn fabric. “I’m trying to be polite, but that dress isn’t making it easy.”

I resist the temptation to roll my eyes straight out of my head. “You haven’t been polite a day in your fucking life, you opportunistic doorknob.”

Theo goes still next to me.

Not just still—rigid—every muscle in his body locked up tight. I feel the shift in his posture, the way his composure falters.

I turn my head just enough to glance at him, and what I see makes my throat constrict. His expression is nothing short of fury, hazel-brown eyes dark and locked onto Baryn like he’s deciding exactly how much effort it would take to throw him through the stained glass window.

For a second, I wonder if he’s going to say something. If he’s going to step in, tell Baryn to fuck off, make some excuse to pull me away. But he doesn’t. Instead, he just stands there, radiating something I can’t quite put a finger on. It’s potent. New.

I open my mouth, about to tell Baryn exactly where the fuck he can go, but before I can get another word out, the tension snaps when someone speaks from the doorway.

“Mister Mayfair,” the man says, warm but lined with authority. It’s the exact tone teachers use when they’ve caught you cheating, or when they’re giving you one last chance to stop being a jackass. “I do hope I misheard that.”

Baryn’s shoulders pull back, posture stiffening as he seems to recalculate.

The man steps into view, silver hair catching the chandelier light. He’s in his sixties, maybe older, though there’s something about him that makes age feel irrelevant. He’s steady, unbothered, entirely competent.

His eyes—clear, blue, assessing—sweep the room, taking stock of who’s here and what kind of mess he’s walking into, like he’s already deciding which Mayfair brand of disorderly conduct he’ll have to manage first.

I know instinctively this has to be Gerry. The one name everyone in this house says with the same rare, genuine fondness. Henry’s best friend. The man who’s basically filled the father-shaped hole in Emily’s life since Peter died. She talks about him constantly—little anecdotes woven between heavier things, always with that same soft look in her eyes that she doesn’t have for anyone else in this family.

He smiles, but it’s the kind of smile that could level a man without so much as a raised voice. “Your mother raised you better than to talk to guests like that.”