Tempting Fate (7 page)

“You’re not so bad yourself.” She was smiling like an idiot, but she couldn’t stop herself. His hair was a light brown, now that she could see it in daylight. His coloring wasn’t nearly so dark as the DeLeon boys, but everything about him spoke of warmth and she had to resist the urge to kiss him and run her fingers through the soft fuzz at the back of his neck.

He met her eyes, a slow smile curving his lips. “If I kiss you, I won’t stop for lunch. Let me feed you first.”

She blushed, and that was the first time a boy had made her feel so giddy since grammar school. “How on earth do you do that?”

“Do what?” he asked, pulling out a chair for her.

“You practically read my mind!”

“Oh, that.” He laughed in her ear as she sat down and he pushed her chair in.

His lips brushed against her earlobe and her eyes closed involuntarily. She wasn’t sure she remembered how to breathe.

“If this turns into something more than just a vacation, Mia, maybe I’ll even tell you.”

“I hate secrets,” she murmured.

He chuckled and sat down in his own seat. “But if I tell you everything over lunch, you’ll have no reason to let me take you to dinner.”

“Dinner?” She opened her eyes. “Tonight?”

“If you don’t mind.” He smiled. “But we’ll have to take you shopping first. The place I made reservations is black-tie only.”

She stared at him. “You don’t do things half-way do you?”

“Not when it’s something I want, no.” The way he looked at her left her in little doubt as to exactly what that was. “I hope I haven’t frightened you away?”

“Not at all.” But in the back of her mind, she wondered why she wasn’t bothered. Then he reached across the table to touch her hand, and even that curiosity was forgotten with the warmth that spread up her arm. “But I don’t have any money for anything that fancy.”

He stroked the back of her hand. “It would be my pleasure, of course. My treat.”

“I’m afraid I can’t find the decency to refuse.”

Ethan smiled, slow and easy. “Then don’t.”

Eight

Adam

She was delightful. A breath of fresh air and honest cunning, and so perfectly self-involved. She knew her own strengths and didn’t hesitate to use them to her advantage. He rather liked that she didn’t demure, even for the sake of decency. And he didn’t even need to be able to read minds to see what she was thinking. Everything was right there, written plainly in her face, in the curve of her lips or the narrowing of her eyes.

But of course he didn’t let that stop him, dipping his toe beneath the surface of her mind, using her hand in his to ease into her thoughts and the tide of her emotions. It all felt so new through her mind, the whole world filled with discoveries and fantasies waiting to be tripped over. She was already determined to be swept away, and the way her thoughts flitted over her family, with just a hint of self-satisfaction, and the dream of lording it over her sister—

He narrowed his eyes, digging deeper, but the idea was gone already, and he didn’t dare chase it. It wouldn’t be a pleasant experience for either of them, and he didn’t want her startled into running off before he’d had time to appreciate her fully.

“Why are you looking at me that way?” She jerked her hand out from beneath his, something sharp stinging against his consciousness—suspicion?

He lifted his eyebrows, forcing himself to smile against a prickle of unease along his spine. “What way?”

“Like you were looking through me, and saw something you didn’t like at all.”

“I’m sorry. I was just thinking of something else for a moment.” But it couldn’t be. She couldn’t have recognized him there, in her mind, unless… “Did you say last night, your sister was only just married? Tell me about your family.”

She hesitated, and he reached for her hand again, smoothing away the whisper of her distrust with the contact. He had to know. Before this went any further, he had to know.

“Oh, there’s not much to tell. She’s married into some rich French family. They mostly live in the south, in the foothills of the Alps.”

A chill slipped through his veins, but he forced himself to look away from her face, pretending to study the menu instead. “Have I heard of them? The family she’s married into?”

“Probably not. I certainly hadn’t, but then my family never moved in those kinds of circles. Her husband is a DeLeon.”

“DeLeon.” His gaze snapped back to her face, and his grip on her hand tightened even as he burrowed into her mind. Eve’s face. Eve’s face, and the manor, and Garrit at the table with a newspaper. No, no, no. “Not the House of Lions?”

“Do you know of them?”

“Yes.” She tugged against his grasp, and he forced himself to relax his hold, to stroke her knuckles with his thumb as if it mattered not at all. As if she had not just told him she was Eve’s own family. She wouldn’t like it, not at all, but Eve’s opinions were the least of his concerns. “Yes, I know them. But you know how it is. Well-to-do families always seem to know one another. Not unlike royalty, we’re all related somehow.” He smiled faintly. “And so you’re Abby’s sister.”

Her gaze sharpened again, and there was that needle of suspicion, pricking against his presence in her mind. “You know her?”

“No,” he said quickly. Too quickly. “Not really.”

He took a breath and gestured to the server to buy himself time. Wine. They could both use wine. Especially for what might come next. But surely if the gods had not wanted this, they could have stopped it—would have stopped it already. It wasn’t as though they didn’t interfere in everything else.

He ordered in French to slow his thoughts, thinking in another language usually gave him some kind of clarity, but in English or French it was still the same problem. Eve’s sister. Eve’s sister and he didn’t want to give her up. Not to
them.
And why should he? It wasn’t as though he’d gone looking for her, after all, and the fact that he found her company quite charming was reason enough to continue as they’d begun. Mia deserved a little bit of fun at Eve’s expense, besides, judging by the tone of her thoughts. It couldn’t be easy living so near to Eve, and no doubt it would serve her perfectly to bring home the one man her sister would never approve of.

He smiled, then, and met Mia’s eyes. “I only know
of
her, as the new
Madame
DeLeon. It was quite a stir when we found out the DeLeon heir was marrying an Englishwoman.”

She rolled her eyes. “We’re hardly in the middle of the Hundred Years War. I don’t see what difference it makes.”

“Of course, it doesn’t make any difference, not really,” he said. But it made one to her, he didn’t need telepathy to know that. Every fuss made over Eve cut through her that much deeper. “You do look pale, suddenly, Mia. Did I say something wrong?”

“I just wasn’t expecting you to know them, that’s all.” The smile she gave him was forced, but never mind, he’d do something about that soon enough. “Sometimes I forget how small a world it is. Perhaps that’s why you seem so familiar. Did you come to the wedding?”

“No, no.” He laughed and poured her a glass of wine, all the tension draining away now that he understood. No wonder they’d found one another. “I’m not so familiar with them that I would be invited.”

She gasped, her mouth dropping open and her eyes going wide. “You
were
there!”

He pressed his lips together, watching the memory play through her thoughts. Had he really looked that terrified? And what was that in his hand…?

Someone had tampered with her mind. With her memory of that moment. He could see the fuzzing around the edges, now that he knew to look for it, and if he hadn’t said exactly the wrong thing to bring it back to the surface, would she have remembered his face at all?

“It was you,” she said. “You were the man they hauled away!”

“No,” he said softly, his tone soft even as he blurred his own face from her memory, smudging the features of that terrified man with—a camera. They’d put a camera in his hand. Well, if they had not wanted her to remember his presence, they could hardly hold the same against him. “I think you’re confusing me with someone else, Mia.”

She frowned, pressing the heel of her hand against her forehead, but he didn’t release her, didn’t relent. Her eyes went glassy, and she blinked. Once, then twice. She’d be bruised later, from where he clutched at her hand, but he didn’t dare let her go now, or it would all be for nothing. Better if the memory were buried altogether. Fogged over completely. He pushed it back, encouraged her to forget.

“I had heard a rumor that there was some kind of disruption at the wedding,” Adam said, making himself smile.

“Yes.” Mia frowned again, and he could feel her struggling to find the thought. “My sister fainted. Too much excitement.” Then she shook her head, giving up. “That’s strange. I thought for a moment something else had happened too, but now I can’t remember to save my life.”

“It must not have been important,” he said, passing her the glass of wine he’d poured—had it been only a moment earlier? It felt like a week. Maybe that was why Eve lived like a mortal, but she’d never shown even the barest hint of strain. “I hope your sister isn’t suffering any lingering effects.”

“Oh, no. She’s just fine.” Mia smiled and sipped from her glass. “All of a sudden I have a splitting headache.”

“The wine will help,” he promised, though whether he meant to reassure himself or her, he wasn’t sure.

Of all the women in Paris, it had to be Eve’s sister. He could have laughed, but his head was throbbing, too. She wouldn’t have tolerated him for another moment if she’d known. She’d have thought the same thing Eve would, when she realized what he’d done. And it wasn’t true. Last night hadn’t been about Eve, and today wouldn’t be either. Nor their dinner plans, later, if he could help it.

And he could help it, so why shouldn’t he?

He raised his glass to hers, half-salute and half-vow. “Drink up.”

She was drunk by the time they left the restaurant to go shopping, which only made her that much more entertaining. The things she said—but of course, she hadn’t had much of a filter before he’d plied her with wine, and without inhibitions, well, her honesty was downright brutal in all the best ways.

“They’re so
strange
,” she said, when Adam asked her about the DeLeon cousins she was staying with. “Oh, at the manor Jean was perfectly charming, but once we arrived in Paris he just… He’s like Abby. Everyone is
so
in love with him, and he just accepts their worship like it’s his due.” Hangers squealed against the clothes rack as she pushed a swath of dresses aside too forcefully. “I’m certainly not going to put up with that in a relationship when I’ve only just finally escaped my sister!”

“I can just imagine,” Adam said, leaning against a mirror. And he could, too. Eve could have had any man she wanted with just a snap of her fingers and a glance, but she would never admit it, even to herself. She didn’t realize the kind of power she had at all, obviously, or she wouldn’t be letting every boyfriend her sister brought home fall in love with her. It was cruel, really.

“And of course the whole family bows and scrapes, desperate to give Abby anything she could ever want.” Mia pulled a dress from the rack, her forehead creasing slightly as her gaze caught on the tag.

He intercepted it before she put it back—he’d told her not to look at the prices, but even drunk she was having trouble with the idea that she didn’t have a budget. “We can do better than this, if you prefer. Something in silk, perhaps?”

“Ohh,” she sighed. “Silk! I’ve never had a silk dress. I’ve never had a silk anything!”

“Then perhaps we should get you silk everything for tonight,” he said, letting his eyes wander, just for a moment, down her body. It would certainly be fun to take it off of her, later, though if she were being watched by Lions, she could hardly stay out all night without drawing attention he didn’t want. At least not yet. Still. “Something flesh-toned, maybe?”

“Are you suggesting you’d like to see me naked, Mr. Hastings?” she asked, smiling over her shoulder. She’d already found another rack of gowns, but her attention had shifted completely. To him. With a gratifying splash of desire, thankfully enough. And he hadn’t even needed to employ the slightest bit of encouragement to get her there.