A tiny rueful smile. “You’ve picked that up from Graves,” he said.
“It’s useful.”
“Most bad habits are.”
There was something softer under the amusement now, and that was worse than the charm. Charm I could read. Softness required different equipment.
His gaze moved once past my shoulder to Dominic. Then back to me. “You should go to the library, little lamb.”
The name landed wrong. He said it lightly, warmly, as if it belonged to some private language we both spoke.
“Don’t call me that.”
His real smile appeared then. Not the public one. “There you are.”
“Excuse me?”
“I was wondering how long it would take to get a rise out of you.”
Irritation rose in me fast. “Congratulations. A triumph of diplomacy.”
“No,” he said. “A personal indulgence.”
Behind me, Dominic seemed to have stopped breathing.
Rhain noticed but his eyes stayed on me.
“You enjoy irritating people?”
“Not people. You.”
That shouldn’t have irritated me so much. This was, technically, the assignment. Capture Rhain’s attention. Find out what he wanted, what his father wanted, and what Norway was planning to do when the rare-earth negotiations turned ugly. I had been sent here to invite interest. Here he was, interested and trying to get a rise out of me.
“That seems unwise.”
“Most interesting things are.”
The library was waiting, and the corridor was open, and there werecameras in the corners and sensors in the walls and one dragon behind me who was becoming a structural hazard.
I didn’t move.
Rhain’s amusement softened at the edges. “I like you, Catalina.”
The sentence was simple. No flirtatious embroidery. No diplomatic maneuver. No clever ambiguity I could file underpossible manipulationand analyze later with coffee and better judgment.
My pulse gave one hard, unprofessional knock. “You don’t know me.”
“I might,” he said, “better than you think.” Arrogant. Certain.
“That seems like a dangerous assumption.”
“I’m assuming nothing.”
My mouth went dry. “Lord Solberg—”
“Rhain.”
“This isn’t appropriate.”