Yes. Yes, thank you, I did.
I swallowed, as embarrassed as I was intoxicated by his touch. The ballroom was crowded, and as the ball was being thrown in our honor, I doubted very much that no one was paying us attention.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“Okay.” He bit his lip. Fates above, why did he have to grin like that?
A moment later, he’d led me to the balcony and shut the glass doors behind us. Instinctively, I made my way to the railing, but Evander didn’t follow. “Wrong way,” he said.
I wasn’t sure how there could be any wrong way on a balcony, other than down, but I humored him anyway.
With about as much effort as driftwood employs to float, he jumped onto the roof overhang and extended his arm. “You coming?”
I bit my lip, then took a glance through the balcony windows, but no one was looking in our direction. I grabbed his hand, and he pulled me up with one arm.
“That’s really not fair,” I huffed as he steadied me on the roof by placing his warm palm between my shoulder blades. Rather gentlemanly for a male who’d courted so many females.
His sea-green eyes twinkled playfully in the moonlight. “What’s not?”
“How you even have the core strength to do that,” I said, rolling my eyes.
He sank to the tiled roof and sat with his legs dangling off the castle roof. “Are you complaining?”
He extended yet another hand, as if I needed help lowering myself a couple of feet. I brushed his hand away and kneeled by myself. Unfortunately, the white stiletto heels that had gone so perfectly with the dress didn’t seem taken with the uneven roof. I stumbled right onto Evander, who reached up and grabbed my waist to steady me.
Before I had the chance to consider whether I’d rather plummet to my death or fall onto the balcony for every ruler in Alondria to witness, Evander pulled me into his lap, wrapping his arms around my waist as he tucked me into his chest.
“I’m glad you didn’t take my hand,” he whispered into my ear.
The feel of his breath on my ear had me squirming, which I ran with and disguised by wriggling out of his arms and plopping down next to him.
I topped it off with a roll of my eyes, but my agitation with embarrassing myself could only last so long as I looked out over the city.
Candles and torchlight flickered like lightning bugs across Othian, acting as reflections for the stars above them. It was as if we were gazing upon a massive lake. I truly wouldn’t have known the difference. Above us the full moon watched over the city, looking especially large tonight without the clouds to obscure it.
“How many females have you brought up here?” I asked, trying my utmost to disguise the blatant jealousy wrapped within that question with a teasing lilt in my voice.
“Just the one.” Just three words, and my heart skipped. When I turned to look at him to check his face for honesty, his eyes were skyward, and his constantly sneering mask had melted off. His sea-green eyes widened in the starlight, and the tension at his jaw softened.
He turned to find me examining him. “When are you going to learn that I can’t lie to you?”
I shot my gaze away and went back to pretending to admire the city, but I could feel his stare boring into my face. My throat went dry. “Would you, if you could?”
“What, lie? About what? Why would I lie to the one person I never have to tiptoe around, waltz these stupid verbal dances with?”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Everything you say is cloaked in flirtation or insult.”
He smiled weakly, and it caught me off guard. When he smiled like that, with such sincerity, his charm took on a boyish quality, quite the contrast to his usual mask of seduction. “I know it seems that way to you, but you should see how I talk with everyone else. Besides, I never would have told anyone else what I told you about Jerad.”
“You told her,” I said, the contents of my stomach wilting as I imagined Evander and my almost-murderer dancing the night away, him entrusting her with his worst nightmares.
He smiled. “She asked.”
“You mean to tell me you didn’t bring her up here the night of the ball?”
He shook his head. “She left too early. If she’d stayed longer, I would have. Besides, all eyes were on us the entire night.”
A thorn pricked at my heart, which irritated me. He’d said it before, that he loved her and not me, despite the horrible things he now knew about her. Despite the fact she wasn’t as she’d seemed. But here I was, still waiting for the moment the veil over his love-struck eyes would be lifted. When he would finally realize she wasn’t the type of person worth wasting his love on.
That I was?
I shuffled uncomfortably.
“Are you cold?” he asked. Before I could answer, he was unbuttoning his coat and draping it over me. His fingers lingered on the curve of my exposed shoulder just a tad longer than necessary.
I hadn’t been cold; the weather tonight had been strangely mild for early spring, but the gesture made me glad I hadn’t admitted to as much.
He pulled his hand away, waving it out into the starlight. “So, what do you think?”
“Think of what?” I asked.
He shrugged and avoided looking at me. “Of the kingdom you’re about to be a princess over. Of this new life my stupidity forced you into. Of knowing that in less than a week’s time, you’ll be my wife.”
My wife. Lightning bugs flickered in my belly at the sound of it. He turned his gaze to me on that word, his eyes wide. Vulnerable.
“That’s only if we pass the trial tomorrow.” I shuddered at the thought, which Evander must have misinterpreted as me being cold, because he wrapped his arm around me and pulled me in close to his side. I shivered at the heat emanating from him, at the closeness I’d never shared with a male.
“We’ll pass. I’ll make sure of it. Not that you need my help. You’ve proved that much.” He craned his head downward so I could see his teasing smile.
