Page 70 of Reckless
Roman excused himself.Xerses didn’t move.
“Barely made it out.”
One corner of his mouth moved.“Vault?”
“Your mother has enough diamonds to blind God.”
“That seems right.”
I should have stopped there.
Instead I said, “I told my friends to keep their opinions to themselves.”
That got his attention in full.
That sudden narrowing of focus he did when something mattered.
“How did that go.”
“Better than expected.I said my choices are mine to make.”
His gaze moved once over my face, reading whatever it was he always read there.“Good.”
He leaned closer, not enough to touch me, enough to make the air between us feel denser.“You have a lot of supporters.”
My pulse kicked.“I don’t need a chorus of people voicing their opinion.”
“That’s fortunate.”
I smiled despite myself.“Don’t ruin it.”
“Too late.”
“You always ruin it.”
“That implies a pattern.”
“It is a pattern.You say something almost kind and then you add the thing that makes it impossible to believe you mean it.”
“You could stop taking it that way.”
“I could.That seems unlikely.”
“Why.”
“Because your ruined version is still better than most people’s best.”
I almost closed my eyes and decided to kiss him now.
But the salon was filling around us.Voices layering.Glasses clinking.Hope laughing in the distance.Charlie already too loud.The room was alive, but the minute we occupied felt strangely private anyway.
Now that I’d claimed my own space with my friends, I didn’t feel pulled in six directions at once.And because standing in front of Xerses no longer felt like waiting to be handled.
It felt like choosing to stay.
And God help me, it was exactly what I wanted to do.
Roxanne called everyone toward the terrace for after-dinner drinks, and the evening moved.
