“Probably,” he agreed.
“It goes against everything I believe in to ask you this question, but what would you have me wear?”
He perched one elbow on the bureau, then linked his fingers together. “They want us to see them in their natural habitat, so to speak. I assume they’d ask the same of us.”
“Armani for you?”
He gestured at his suit pants and button-up. “And jeans, I assume, for you?”
“But of course. Opportunities to wear denim to the office don’t come along very often in Cadogan House.”
Ethan chuckled, then pushed off the bureau and pulled a black suit coat from a valet stand. “I hear the Master can be such a pain in the ass.”
He definitely had his moments.
CHAPTER NINE WILLINGLY INTO THE DEN I was on my way back down to the foyer—cleaned and redressed in jeans and a black short-sleeved button-up top with a chic Mandarin collar, my ensemble complete with katana and Cadogan medal—when my cell phone beeped. I immediately pulled it out, hoping it might be a text message from Mallory.
It was a message, but not from an old friend—from a would-be new one. Noah had sent a simple question: “STILL DECIDING?”
Since I very definitely was, I erased the message—and the evidence.
“Good evening, sunshine.”
I glanced behind me at the main staircase as I slid my phone back into my pocket. Lindsey was bounding downstairs, her blond ponytail bouncing as she moved. She was on duty today and clearly prepped for a day in the House’s Operations Room, clad in Cadogan black, her katana belted at her side.
She reached the foyer, then walked toward me and propped her hands on her hips. “You don’t look nearly as tired as I expected. Maybe he was the cure for what ails you.”
I stared at her. “Excuse me?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Mer. We all heard you two at it last night, and some of today, actually. But thank Christ, I say. About time you two did the deed.”
Her approval notwithstanding, a blush powered by profound mortification crept up my face. “You heard us?”
She grinned. “You shook the foundations. You threw a lot of magic in the air.”
I was too stunned to speak. It had occurred to me that word might slip out, from Margot or otherwise, that I’d been in Ethan’s apartments. It hadn’t occurred to me that people could have heard us, or felt the magic we’d spilled.
“Dear God,” I murmured.
Lindsey patted my arm. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s about time you two made the beast with two backs.”
I had to work to form words. “There are so many things wrong with that statement, I don’t know where to start.”
“Start with the details, Sister Sledge. How was it? How was he? Was he as phenomenal as we’ve all imagined him to be? Seriously. Spare no details, anatomical or otherwise.”
“I’m not giving you any details. Anatomical or otherwise,” I added, before she could amend her request.
There was disgust in her expression. “I can’t believe you. You make it with the Master and you’re being tight-lipped?” She clucked her tongue. “That is weak.
At least give me the goods on the evening-after talk. Are you two official now? Dating? Relationshipping? What?”
“Well, we didn’t really get into the details, but he was still there when I woke up this evening. No evening-after regrets, as far as I know. And he knows I’m not interested in a fling. I’ve made that abundantly clear.” I grinned a little.
She grinned back. “That’s my girl. Way to show him who’s boss.”
“Are we actually debating who’s boss of this House?”
We glanced over simultaneously. Ethan stood at the bottom of the stairs, golden hair around his face, hands in his pockets, newspaper under his arm.
“Good evening, Liege o’ mine. How was your day?”
Ethan arched an imperious eyebrow at Lindsey, then glanced at me. “Nice shirt. We need to make a brief detour before we take on the shifters.”
“Oh,” Lindsey knowingly intoned. “You’re going to Navarre House?”
“We’re going to Navarre House,” Ethan confirmed.
I blinked. When he’d said “detour,” I’d immediately imagined grabbing a hostess gift; a trip to Navarre House wasn’t on the list. I’d never been there before, and the idea of going now didn’t thrill me. And why not, you ask? Brief review: I’d be facing down an ex-boyfriend for the first time since our official breakup, while on the arm of the boy he’d thought I’d been cheating with, and only hours after I’d actually had sex with him.
Fabulous.
“Does she know?” Lindsey asked, bobbing her head toward me.
“Standing right here. Do I know what?”
“I’m going to tell her,” Ethan said. “But we’re short on time. I forgot to call Luc—please tell him I want to talk before dawn to review plans for the convocation.”
“Aye, aye, Liege,” she said, but leaned in to me before she walked away. “Seriously, well done. And I mean that.”
I grinned after her and raised a quizzical gaze to Ethan. “What do I need to know? And why are we going to Navarre?”
He gestured for me to follow him, then headed toward the basement stairs. When I fell in line beside him, he pulled the paper out from under his arm. It was a copy of the day’s Chicago Sun-Times. He flipped it open, then turned it my way.
“Oh, my God,” I murmured, pulling the paper from his hands.
The headline on the front page—the front page—read, PONYTAILED AVENGER SAVES PATRONS IN SHOOT-OUT. A picture of me helping Berna into the ambulance was set below the headline. And there was one more surprise—the byline. Nick Breckenridge was listed as the author of the article.
As I carefully took the basement stairs behind him, I read through the first part of the story, which discussed the shooting and my emergency work. So far, so good. But I had no idea why Nick Breckenridge, of all people, had written it. It wasn’t that writing a front-page story wasn’t his thing; he was an investigative journalist with an impeccable reputation. He just didn’t like me very much.
“How—why?”
“Perhaps you turned the Breckenridge tide—from animosity to a cover story.”
We stopped beside the basement door. “This can’t be hero worship. You know how Nick feels about me.”
“You heard Gabriel’s hesitation when he mentioned the Breckenridge House. Maybe, like, Nick and Gabriel are still on the outs. Gabriel did apologize, after all. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about Nick’s pissing off vampires.”