Mermaid in Manhattan

Chapter 12

Iris

“Where is my sweet sea spawn?” Monty called as Iris stood in front of the bathroom mirror, fully dressed but stalling for time.

“Getting ready to go out for our first official date,” Finn told the pelican. “Do you think you could … nudge her along for me? We really need to get going if we want to keep our reservation.”

“Beauty cannot be rushed,” Monty said dramatically. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

Iris heard the flap of his feet down the hallway.

“Darling, your human is twitching. And you are beautiful enough.”

Iris opened the door, getting a whistle out of the bird—who was now wearing a ridiculously loud turquoise vest.

His gaze moved over her floor-length baby-pink dress with its sweetheart neckline, thin straps, and dainty floral embroidered design.

But the second his gaze got to her face, his head cocked to the side.

“What happened?”

There was a lot she shared with Monty. Her intimate life was not one of them. At least not in detail.

“I don’t want to go,” she admitted. It was true enough.

“I didn’t want to let Priestess Alana pluck my feather for a spell, but alas, we have to suffer for our dreams.”

“But this isn’t my dream.”

“Dining at one of the most buzz-worthy restaurants in the city is absolutely the dream, my darling girl. I’m not at all jealous. Now, chop chop.”

“What are we even going to talk about for an hour and a half?”

“Talk about your hopes and dreams. Your tragic pasts. Your favorite seaweed dish. Or just stare at each other longingly over breadsticks. Isn’t that what the humans do?

” He gave her a wink. “Though, I’ll admit, your guy’s a bit …

stiff. Like someone carved him from a block of dry salt.

So, if all else fails, ask him about his political platform.

We both know he can talk for hours about that. ”

“True,” she agreed, sucking in a steadying breath. “Do I look okay?”

“No. You look stunning. Now go let the whole city be jealous.”

Not having a choice, Iris walked out of the bathroom and down the hall.

“Wow,” Finn said when he turned at the sound of her heels on the floor.

She liked the look in his eyes a little too much. So she rushed to grab her bag instead of letting herself soak in his admiration.

“We’re late,” she said.

Finn said nothing as he followed her to the door.

“Monty, don’t eat the cat,” she called.

“I’m going out too,” Monty said, waddling out with them. “I can’t help my nature. I would never actually eat him. His fur tastes funny, by the way.”

“Because I started using a perfume spray on him to stop you from putting your beak on him.”

“Rude,” Monty said, fluffing his feathers. “Do I look ready to party?” he asked.

He’d changed into a suit jacket instead. Iris had no idea where he even found clothes to fit him. But he did look pretty adorable all dressed up.

“Absolutely. You’ll be signing autographs in no time.”

“Of course I will,” Monty said, walking out of the elevator.

“Let’s take a cab,” Finn said, throwing a hand up in the air.

He tried to hide how he’d checked his watch again. “I’m always late,” she said, sliding into the back seat of the car. “My mother probably should have told you that.”

“We can still make it there in time.”

The restaurant was only a few blocks away. It was a brick building that had been painted black, with black awnings and a small number of outside seating surrounded by wrought-iron fences.

There were dozens of people standing outside, looking around, likely waiting for tables.

“We have to sell it,” Finn reminded her.

“I remember,” she said as Finn slipped out.

His hand extended to her, and she had to force herself to slip her hand into his.

They made their way through the crowd.

Cameras clicked. Phone screens lit up. A whisper floated by: “That’s the mermaid, right?”

Iris kept her chin lifted and her eyes forward, but it felt like barnacles were attaching to her skin.

It was impossible to tell if the stares were full of curiosity or judgment. Probably both.

“Henry will be pleased,” Finn said as they moved into the restaurant. And at those words, her heart felt like it deflated a bit in her chest. “Those pictures and videos should be circulating any moment now.”

Finn talked to the hostess as Iris turned around, taking in the surroundings.

Henry had been right about the ambiance. The entire inside of the restaurant was bathed in black, with occasional pops of red. Even the abundant overhead chandeliers and tabletop candles did nothing to brighten the cavernous--feeling space.

“Right this way, Mr. Westrock,” the hostess said.

Finn’s hand pressed to the center of her back, and she pretended to ignore the way her skin felt warm at his touch as they moved through the tight space between tables until they reached their own.

“I’m not sure how we’re going to read this,” Iris said after the hostess handed them their menus and moved away.

“You can’t really go wrong with steak.”

“Is steak good for optics?” Iris asked.

To that, Finn’s head tipped to the side, his gaze curious as he looked at her, making her feel suddenly exposed.

Whatever he was about to say, though, fell away as he closed his menu.

“Yes. Research shows that eating meat is popular among humans and most paranormals. So long as I am also willing to be seen at the occasional vegan restaurant as well.”

“Isn’t that exhausting?” she asked.

“What?”

“Always wondering what people think and want from you?”

“That’s the job,” he said, shrugging.

The server interrupted them then, taking their orders, and then pausing when there was an ear-piercing scream from somewhere deep in the building. Around them, several water glasses shattered, making the bussers rush over to clean them up.

“Our chef,” the hostess said with a strained smile. Iris was sure she could see pain behind the woman’s eyes, like she had a headache from the screaming.

“Of course,” Finn said, his press-conference smile firmly in place.

“I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

“What does wine taste like?” Iris asked after the hostess walked off.

“You’ve never had wine?” Finn asked, brows rising.

“No. We don’t have grapes in the ocean.”

“Of course. We probably should have put some wine tasting in your training. You can pretend to sip it if you don’t care for it. It’s … an acquired taste. Henry forced me to learn to like it over the course of six months. I ordered a pretty sweet one, so it’s a decent introduction.”

“Why can’t you just drink what you like?” Why couldn’t she?

“It’s more about proper etiquette. You never know what you are going to be served at various events or someone’s dinner party. It would be rude to turn something down or not at least taste it.”

“I guess that makes sense. I feel that way about fish eggs.”

“You don’t like caviar?”

Iris couldn’t help the full-body shiver at just the idea of the eggs. She was surprised by the laugh that escaped Finn—the sound making a different kind of shiver move through her. And that smile he shot her? It almost looked real.

“Did you try to get out of it when you were younger?”

“There was a particularly disastrous time I tried to hide them in my bra, only to have them float out in front of important company.”

He was laughing now—really laughing—and the sound made something in her crack open.

Maybe he wasn’t just a mouthpiece in slacks. Maybe, under all the polish and platform language, there was still a person in there.

She could almost see it in the way his eyes lit up when he mentioned his parents, the way his voice softened when he asked about her sisters.

“My mother was furious,” she concluded.

“It sounds like she’s hard on you.”

“She has high standards. And my older sister effortlessly meets them. So it tends to be a bone of contention that I don’t or can’t.”

“You have a younger sister too, right?”

“Yes. Shelly isn’t like me or Juna. She’s kind of obsessed with the surface. She was very upset that she didn’t get to be the one to come here with you.”

“What is in her future? Juna is meant for the throne, I assume.”

“Yeah. Actually, I don’t know. I don’t know if my mother knows yet, honestly. She’s still pretty young. She’s definitely in her ‘defiance, then moping when she doesn’t get her way’ phase.”

“That makes sense.”

“Did you ever have one?”

“One what?”

“Defiance phase.”

“Oh, no.”

“Of course not,” Iris mumbled under her breath, disappointed that she couldn’t at least imagine that a much younger Finn had been a human being with thoughts, desires, and dreams.

“My father was killed just around the time when I would have been heading into that phase of my life,” Finn said. “Then, well, it felt wrong to misbehave in any way. My mother was already going through so much.”

“You were too,” Iris said, just barely resisting the urge to reach out and put her hand over his.

“It wasn’t the same.”

“How so?”

“She was trying to fight the city to get them to take accountability for their part in what happened.”

“A lack of security, right?”

“Yes. There should have been paranormal security guards at the very least. But she was fighting for wards in the courthouse, so it would be impossible for anything like that to happen again, no matter how sensitive the cases they were working on were.”

“Did she accomplish that?”

“She didn’t live to see it implemented, but she definitely got the ball rolling. It became a law about a year after she passed away.”

“How old were you when you lost her?”

“Two weeks shy of my eighteenth birthday. We’d spent the night before packing all my belongings to head off to college.”

“You were the one to find her?” Iris asked, this time reaching out and giving in to the urge to put her hand over his.

“Yes. It seemed … peaceful. I hadn’t even known she was sick. Her attorney said she’d known but hadn’t wanted to worry me.”

“But knowing would have given you time to prepare.”

“I don’t know if anything could have prepared me for losing both of them so young.”

“Should I not have brought it up?” she asked, noting the tension in his body.

“No, I’m glad you did. I get asked about my father quite a bit. But everyone forgets my mother. It’s nice to talk about her. She was a wonderful woman.”

“Was she in politics too?”

To that, he shot Iris a smirk that did not make her suddenly want to slip out of her panties. Nope. Not her.

“No. No, my mother was in public relations.”

“Oh, come on,” Iris said, helpless to fight the smile that spread across her face.

“Yep. Had her own firm. Can you guess where Henry’s mother and father worked?”

“So you guys go way back.”

“We went to college together. He brought me home to his family on the holidays so I wasn’t alone. He comes off as cold, but there’s a heart under there somewhere.”

“I will have to take your word on that.”

The server came back with their wine, making her suddenly aware that she was still holding his hand. She snatched it back and thanked the server, then reached for her wineglass.

“Yeah, smelling it probably won’t help,” Finn said when she put the glass toward her nose. “A quick sip is probably the smartest bet.”

She followed his instructions, deciding it was arguably much better than fish eggs, but not anywhere near as good as her newly beloved coffee.

“I think I can learn to sip this to be polite—barnacles!” She gasped. Her whole body jolted as another scream wailed from the kitchen.

“Seems like this restaurant is a good test of nervous system regulation,” Finn said.

Finn, as usual, was unflappable, no matter how often or how loud the screaming got.

Meanwhile, Iris felt like every nerve ending was frayed by the time they finished their meal and rose from the table.

“You all right? You’ve looked a little pale for the past few minutes.”

Iris chose not to think of the way her belly swooped as he said those words directly behind her, his breath tickling the shell of her ear.

“Yeah,” she said. She sucked in a steadying breath as they moved outside, where everyone gathered around seemed oblivious to the siren calls within.

“Much better now,” she said. Her breath caught as Finn’s arm slid around her, curling her closer to his body to move her out of the way when some guy stumbled backward toward them.

He kept her close as they made their way through the crowd and toward the edge of the sidewalk.

“Don’t look, but we have company.”

“The paparazzi?” she asked, her mind conjuring up images of catching Monty talking to his reflection in the bathroom one night. No paparazzi. Please, I’m just trying to live my life!

“Yes. What do you say to really selling this?” he asked, his hand tightening on her hip, his arm pulling her more firmly against him.

“How?” She was going to pretend not to hear the breathlessness in her voice. Or the way the closeness was setting off little wildfires of need across her skin.

In answer, his head lowered down, his forehead pressed to hers.

“A kiss,” he suggested, gaze watching hers, waiting for her answer.

“Okay,” she whispered. Totally just for the cameras. No other reason.

That rumbling sound moved through Finn again as his hand rose, sliding along her jaw gently as his head angled.

Then his lips were on hers.

If she’d expected something performative and stiff, she was wholly mistaken.

He kissed her like the sea claimed the shore—slow at first, then all-consuming. Her breath caught, a gasp tangled in the pull of the undertow.

One of her arms wrapped around the back of his neck. The other grabbed the material covering his bicep.

But even as she sighed against his lips, Finn’s mouth moved from hers.

His forehead was on hers again.

“That should be on the front of a bunch of gossip papers tomorrow,” he said, making her heart sink.

“Oh, goodie,” she said, turning away from him to hail a cab.

To an onlooker, she probably looked like a woman desperate to get home to continue the intimacy they’d started on the sidewalk.

Only she knew that she wanted to get home and as far away from him as quickly as possible.

She’d thought they’d made some sort of strides over their meal. The conversation got easier, even if the topics became a lot less intense after speaking of the loss of his parents and his motivation to go into politics.

Clearly, though, it had all just been part of the show for him.

If the man was able to fake a kiss like that, if he could so convincingly manufacture intimacy, there was nothing about him that she could trust.

She’d been a fool to think otherwise for even a moment.

She needed to get home, get changed, get some sleep, then wake up in the morning and kick her plans into overdrive.

But she was going to need some reinforcements.