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“Because he just vanished in the middle of an argument with the heads of the other families.” She shrugged, her eyes darting to my necklace, an eyebrow raised. “I figured you had summoned him.”
I turned to get some eggs, hoping my flush wasn’t too obvious. That was the meeting he had been in.
“I can’t think of anyone else he would do that for.” She shifted closer and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And since he showed up to the meeting absolutely drenched in your perfume, I thought maybe…” She was baiting me.
“He was covered in blood. I was just helping him clean up.”
“And his pants were unzipped because…?”
That was harder to explain.
A change of subject was in order. “He didn’t mention anything about clover.”
But Ciara’s triumphant smile was blinding. “I knew he was with you.” She whooped. “Don’t worry. I do not want details, but I was beginning to think you two would never—”
“We didn’t,” I cut her off before she started planning our wedding. Her face fell a little, and I seized my chance to get her back on track. “What exactly was such an emergency, anyway, that he was in a meeting all night?”
She moved closer, her eyes darting around us like she didn’t want to be overheard. “He ordered our entire inventory of clover destroyed and called our men to seize any supply they knew about in the city, including our personal supply at the hotel and what we’d sent to the other courts in their welcome baskets. He’d just given the order when he realized you were being attacked.”
My hands were trembling so hard that I thought I might drop the plate. Lach had left the club and immediately done the last thing I’d expected him to do. He had actually pulled clover from the streets. “He didn’t tell me.”
“He was a lot more worried about you.” She had that wedding-planning face on again.
“Yeah.” I rolled my eyes. “He was so concerned that he left to go to a business meeting.” Twice.
“Bain had a tantrum when they came for his supply and demanded to see our family to call off the engagement. He summoned Oberon and Aurora to witness it all.”
My mouth fell open, and I hastily shut it. Why were we talking about clover when that had happened? “So, did Bain end it?”
She shook her head, disappointment tipping her mouth. “No. I convinced him not to.”
I hated that Ciara’s freedom was the cost of saving lives. She bit into a beignet, sending a cloud of powdered sugar into the air, and smiled gloomily.
“I’m sorry.” I meant it.
She swallowed hard. “I do not pretend to understand my brother at all, but I think I understand why he did it.”
Before I could ask her more, I felt him.
The air around me seemed to shift, growing thicker and darker as if even magic itself responded to the tension between us. Maybe I’d mistaken that before, but I couldn’t anymore. I forced myself to continue what I was doing as he stepped behind me. Not close enough that our bodies touched, only close enough to make me wish they did.
“Did you sleep well?”
Something of the primal creature who had visited my bedroom lingered in that voice, and I turned my attention to the beignets. “I slept great. How about you?”
Next to me, Ciara was not so subtly watching the two of us, her eyes gleaming with barely repressed mischief.
I dared her to say something, but I hoped she wouldn’t.
I kept my back to him, afraid to look him in the face, afraid that maybe I had dreamed the whole thing.
“Excuse me. I think I need to talk to Titania.” Ciara winked at me as she bustled over to her friend.
Subtle.
“I was too preoccupied to sleep,” he told me.
I took a deep breath. Do not read into that. “By the clover drama?”