Chapter Ten #2
When it flinched, I knew he’d made his decision.
I did not look back at Noé as Eliot shifted forward again, leading me through the party, down the stairs to the first floor and out onto the rear terrace.
Being in the city, the Winns did not have expansive grounds of their own; rather, their townhome backed onto a shared garden, bordered on all sides by stately limestone buildings.
The space was nearly the size of a city block, intercut with flagstone paths which wound their way beneath manicured groves of trees.
Marble statues were placed along them, like sentries in the gloom.
I spotted only one other couple lost in the dimness, pressed suspiciously close together under the boughs of a willow tree. Not ideal. Still, for a party this size, it was about as private as one could hope for.
It would have to do.
Disembarking from the terrace, we set off.
I made sure to direct a scandalized look the willow-tree couple’s way as we passed them—in my experience, the more concerned one was with being caught in an indiscretion, the less curious they tended to be about those doing the catching.
Sure enough, they shrank back at my gaze, turning their faces away.
Only once they were behind us did I risk speaking to Eliot. “I haven’t heard from you in days. I was concerned.”
My words seemed to pass over him, unheard. Glancing up, I found him peering over his shoulder toward Noé, who was trailing several paces from our backs. “He’s purposefully aggravating us,” Eliot muttered. “Why did you tell him about our meetings?”
I couldn’t help but be annoyed at how swiftly he directed the blame toward me. “I told him nothing,” I said coolly. “He guessed.” Leaning into him, I dropped my volume. “You know your reactions will only give him pleasure.”
Eliot scoffed. “Perhaps I am not so strategic as you, Lovett. Perhaps when I see the girl I love on the arm of my best friend, it hurts me, whether I wish it to or not.”
His comment stung—aimed at Noé, I knew, and yet I felt the bite of it myself. Not for the first time, I thought I detected a note of resentment in his tone. A bitter hint of betrayal, like an old wound sliced open.
Looking behind myself, I searched for Noé. He was lingering about five feet or so to our backs, hands in his trouser pockets, leaning against a statue of a nude woman holding a needle and thread. When he sensed me watching him, he glanced up, gray eyes meeting mine.
I held his gaze for a moment. Then, ensuring we were out of view from anyone within the townhome, I tipped my chin higher and pressed my lips to Eliot’s.
I saw my fiancé wince before I shifted away again. “I am not on his arm,” I said definitively to Eliot. “And someone is bound to come out here soon. Tell me why you summoned me, quickly.”
My kiss seemed to focus him. Blinking, Eliot glanced once more at Noé before returning his attention to me. His features were sharp, more like the Eliot I used to know: regimented and intelligent, always thinking three steps ahead.
They calmed me briefly before he spoke. “Lucie wrote me,” Eliot said. “Asked me to a meeting, several days ago. She said she’d finished considering our proposal and wished to discuss her decision.” He released a breath. “She thinks it is too risky to go after Bastian. She turned us down, Lovett.”
Alarm spiked within me. “Too risky?” I echoed incredulously. “What, because of his connections? If we can get the public on our side, the others will come—”
“Not because of that.” Eliot cut me off, frowning. “The risk which concerned her is you. She said…she felt you were impertinent during our meeting with her. Duplicitous.” He swallowed, eyes skating away from mine. “She isn’t certain whether she can rely on you.”
My cheeks flamed. I gathered myself. “Can we meet with her again?”
“I don’t know.” Sighing, Eliot ran a palm over his brow. “I just wish you would have let me talk.”
The words heated me to my core. Embarrassment thrashed behind my ribs; abruptly, I felt very foolish, and very small. “Are you blaming me?”
“No.”
Eliot laid a hand over mine as if in reassurance, only to let it fall away a second later. His expression was hooded; studying him, I was startled to find that I could not read it.
A moment later, he spoke. “She asked me again if I trusted you,” Eliot said. His gaze was distant, lost somewhere amongst the trees. “Looked me in the eyes and questioned me, and I didn’t know how to respond.”
My throat was tight. “You can always trust me.”
“Can I?” Eliot’s features darkened. His anger leapt forth without warning; by the way he balked at it, I guessed he was just as surprised by its manifestation as I was.
“You brought him here without telling me,” he continued tersely, nodding toward Noé.
“You agreed to marry him without telling me. I would pick you above any living creature, Lovett, but I still do not know if you would pick me.”
His voice broke. It riled me as much as it wounded me, my pride bruised all the way to its marrow. “I already have picked you,” I shot back. “I have done so time and time again. What more must I do to convince you of my loyalty?”
Eliot’s laugh was cold. “What more?” he mocked. “Dammit, Lovett, how can you ask me that when, even now, you wear his ring on your finger?”
Shame razed me. For a second, I felt myself waver, knocked back by the force of his loathing. His entire body seemed to drip bitterness, as rancid as fruit gone sour, and I—I had never seen him like this before. Had never witnessed him radiate such agony, such hatred.
Toward me. All of his emotion was because of me. My choices, my mistakes.
“It is just a facade,” I whispered. “Temporary, until we can achieve our goal.”
Eliot shook his head. “Is it? And if the facade continues to the end of the aisle? If your wedding day comes and Bastian still lives, will you keep on acting then?”
I said nothing. In my mind, my argument with Noé in the turret room echoed.
And if that takes decades of my own?
Then we will wait for decades.
“Tamerlane.” I stiffened at the feel of Noé’s hand on my shoulder. When had he approached? The thought of him listening in on Eliot’s and my conversation, overhearing his friend’s criticisms, withered me. “I think it’s time to go.”
Eliot seethed. “Do not interfere in this, Noé.”
“Do not berate my fiancée, Eliot, and you may speak to her as long as you wish.” The heat in Noé’s voice surprised me. He was typically so placid, so removed—but now his fingers were tensed, digging into my flesh. At his response, Eliot scoffed.
“She is not your anything.”
“Really?” Noé drew a step closer. “As you said, it is my ring. I think she wears it rather well.”