Chapter Twenty-five

We claimed our personal spaces right away. Skyla and I shared a bedroom, and the guys spread out among the other three. Thorin pulled out his laptop and cell phone and went to work the moment after the last bellhop left. Baldur disappeared behind closed doors, and Val said something about checking out the blackjack tables but elicited a promise from me to meet him later at Coquette, the Bellestrella’s French restaurant.

Though she acted as if I had asked her to go with me to forage through the city dump, Skyla agreed to accompany me shopping so long as I didn’t make her go farther than the boutiques in the hotel.

“I need another girl’s opinion,” I told her.

“I’m not a regular girl. I hate getting dressed up.”

“You’re not the one getting dressed up. I am. But you are perfectly capable of telling me whether I look like a hooker or not.”

“Is that the effect you’re going for? Because Val strikes me as a fan of the trampy look.”

I rolled my eyes and tugged Skyla’s hand so she would follow me out the door.

“So, this is like a date, huh?” Skyla said as she trailed me into a store filled with designer brands I had only read about in magazines.

“Who, me and Val?” I fingered the first price tag I walked past and blanched—my whole month’s salary to pay for a jacket. “I’m trying not to think of it that way.”

“Why not?”

“Because it insinuates something more between us than what’s really there.”

Skyla lifted a hanger holding a sequined denim jacket, scrunched her nose, and stuffed it back onto the rack. “I told you from the beginning that he was a player.”

I found a rack of cocktail dresses and flipped through several before realizing I had focused on the red ones, just as Val suggested. “And I’m saying you might be right. But it’s also a lot more complicated than that.”

Skyla’s brows drew down, and she glowered at me. “You think letting him buy you expensive dresses and take you to dinner isn’t encouraging him to have expectations?”

“He doesn’t understand ‘no’ very well, does he?”

Skyla smirked. “He’s a cocky bastard.”

“Val has been good to me and Mani.”

“So that’s enough reason to go to bed with him?”

The saleslady restocking the racks near us jerked her head and stared at us. I slipped closer to Skyla and lowered my voice. “I didn’t say I would sleep with him.”

Skyla shook her head, and her expression said she thought I was the stupidest thing to ever manage walking on two legs. “Girlfriend. What do you think can ever come of letting a man buy expensive clothes for you and take you to a fancy dinner?”

“What I think will come from this is obligation and attachment. Regardless of your opinion of Val, I’m not going to throw him away. He’s useful, and I believe his desire to keep me safe is sincere.”

Skyla arched a brow. “Sincere? Val?”

“He sincerely wants to keep his own ass covered, and if he thinks keeping me alive will do that, then why shouldn’t I benefit from it?”

Skyla’s mouth fell open. Her brows rose high on her forehead. “Well, aren’t you a sly little schemer?”

“I’m a little hurt that you underestimated me so easily,” I said and winked to show I understood she hadn’t meant to insult me. “I think it’s the blond hair. People make assumptions. Usually they’re wrong.”

“You don’t have to tell me about assumptions. I was a female of mixed ethnicity in the Marines. Sometimes military bigotry and misogyny were bigger enemies than the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.”

I looked away from the dress rack and studied Skyla.

She scowled. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m trying to imagine you in uniform.”

She waggled her eyebrows. “How’s that working for you?”

“I bet you looked totally kickass.”

Skyla giggled. “You’re right. I totally did.”

“I wish I could wear a uniform tonight instead of one of these.” I lifted a dress from the rack and held it to my chest. The fabric cascaded over my thighs, stopping several inches above my knees. The deep V-neck plunged to a ruched waistline. The design was daring and unlike anything I had ever worn. I hated it, but Val would love it, which was the point—that whole exploiting weaknesses thing. “I want to find my brother’s killer and stay alive until I do. If Val can help me do that, then I’ll wear a slutty dress once in a while if it keeps him on my team. I don’t intend to get hung up on romance… or sex.”

“For Val that’s all it would be, but Thorin?” Skyla shook her head and leaned closer. She took on a serious expression. “I think Thorin has deeper feelings for you. If you want to spend your time getting close to someone, I think you’d do better with him.”

I almost dropped the dress before I recovered and brought the hanger up under my chin. The nosey saleswoman noticed my fumble and rushed over before I caused permanent damage. “Can I start a dressing room for you?” she asked.

“Yes, please,” I said, handing her the dress. “I’ll need shoes and a bag, too.” A greedy gleam filled her eyes as the chime of cash register bells rang in her head. I gave her my sizes, and she went to work.

“Thorin has feelings?” I said. “Other than an urge to strangle me? I don’t think so.”

“I’ve been watching him since the two of you came back from Juneau. You know what I see?”

“No, I don’t. I don’t want to know. I have bigger things to worry about. Metaphysical, life-changing things.”

Skyla ignored my protests. “I see him watching you. Always, watching you.”

“Sure he is—to see if I’m going to set him on fire again.”

Skyla huffed but let the disagreement go. “Whatever.”

After completing her accessory-hunting assignment, the saleswoman came over and led me to the dressing room, eager to make a sale.

“No matter what you think,” I said to Skyla after we left the store carrying, among other things, the new red dress and its various accoutrements, “I promised Val I’d go to dinner with him, and there’s no getting out of it now. Besides, I don’t want to get out of it. I want Val close. Keep him in my pocket, so to speak.”

“I’m pretty sure that dress doesn’t have any pockets,” Skyla said, eyeing my shopping bags.

I groaned. I was already uncomfortable, and I hadn’t even worn the thing in public yet. If Skyla kept rubbing it in, I might turn around, return the dress, and ask the saleslady if she had any burlap sacks in my size. But no, I had made up my mind. No going back now. “That’s sort of the point.”

“Aren’t you afraid it’s going to cause more problems than it’s worth?”

I sighed and pushed a loose strand of hair out of my face. “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably.”

Skyla put her finger to her lip and tapped it several times as she thought. “I think I can help you out.”