Page 21 of Hollow Knife

If Alya’s sitting across from him now, smiling while he watches her with those same eyes. If his hands are wrapped around a glass, or a pen, or maybe her wrist. If he tilts his head when he looks at her the way he does with me, like he’s memorizing her. If he tells her she’s beautiful in that low voice he uses on me. If he studies her face the way he studied mine under that tree. If he wants to paint her too.

The thought annoys me.

It shouldn’t.

Alya is the one arranged for him. If he touches her, if he smiles at her, if he draws her, what right do I have to feel anything about it at all?

None.

Kento

I pull up to the restaurant ten minutes early.

My attention locks on the entrance. Alya is there, rising onto her toes to kiss a tall man. We’re supposed to have dinner tonight since, you know, her ass-kisser of a father is trying to sell her to me and all that, which is convenient, because I have no intention of going through with that, and neither does she. She has a boyfriend.

She slides in, shuts the door, and looks over at me.

“You’re right on time,” she says.

I pull away from the curb with one hand on the wheel and hum. “Did you have fun?”

Her lips curve. “More than I would’ve had with you.”

I glance at her. “Cruel.”

Honestly, it’s probably the only remotely tolerable thing that has come out of her father’s ridiculous little arrangement.

When we first met, she looked terrified of me. Fair. I have that effect on people.

Then I told her I had absolutely no intention of doing what her father wanted, and the poor girl looked like I’d just personally pulled her out of an execution.

But while I may have told her I wasn’t interested in the marriage, I never said I wasn’t interested in what she could give me.

Alya is a one-way ticket straight to my little prince.

She knows where he is. She knows how he’s doing. If I ask about him, she answers. And if I suddenly happen to be at her house three times a week under the very respectable excuse of visiting her?

Well. Nothing suspicious about that.

She also gets something out of it.

Alya can see her precious boyfriend without sneaking around. I give her a convenient excuse. She gives me access to Ilya.

A perfectly balanced arrangement.

I drive us through the city while she fixes one of her earrings in the mirror and sits back.

“How is he?” I ask.

She doesn’t pretend not to know who I mean. “Okay, but more aggressive than usual these days.”

“So he missed me.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It’s what I heard.” It’s actually true. If we go a few days without seeing each other, Ilya gets noticeably more aggressive. He’s always been impatient, but it gets worse when I’m not around.

He starts snapping at people over nothing and picking fights he normally wouldn’t bother with. I don’t think he’s figured out the connection yet. I have.