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I swear his lip quirks, and if Oliver were in a five-foot radius, he’d be swinging at him—again. I’m certainly not touching that subject. “I’m staying out of it,” I tell him. “You two fight over it.”
“We already have…multiple times.”
I quirk a brow at his careless remark. Leo doesn’t get why Oliver is so pissed, and I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that no one has ever given the black sheep of the Jarvis family anything special. Nothing that he covets like Oliver coveted that teapot. “You know, it would be a lot easier for me if you two got along.”
“I’m getting along,” he argues, gesturing into thin air like Oliver is standing right next to him and being difficult, even though Oliver has been keeping his distance from him. Maybe all the unrest is why these thoughts are plaguing me. “I apologized.”
“Sometimes ‘I’m sorry’ just isn’t enough.”
Leo’s jaw clicks, almost as if what I’ve said has resonated, but in the next instant, that damn stubborn mouth of his ruins it all. “I’ll call the queen then. Get her to send another one.”
“Yeah, I’m sure she’ll get right on that. What are you going to say? Hi, this is Leonardo Jarvis. Your grandson and I are fucking the same girl, and I—”
The stare he levels at me makes me stop making syllables with my mouth. My gaze trails to his taut muscles and the way his tattoos mark his skin.
My brain screams danger.
My heart cries broken one.
My pussy says a ride on that will be a good fucking time.
He leans back into the leather high-back chair. No one has the right to look that damn sexy in a public place. Picking at the arm of the chair, he mocks, “Then he should just call her and get a replacement. I’m sure there are other royal teapots.”
“What if it was an heirloom?”
“Was it?”
Shit, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, anyway. What matters is that it was Oliver’s and now it’s gone. “Ask him.”
“He’s not talking to me.”
I send Leo a glare that sayssoon, I won’t be talking to you. He must understand it because his gaze narrows, watching me as I pick up my coffee and take a sip. The liquid scalds my tongue, like a warning that I’m stepping into shit I know nothing about. I take a moment to watch the man in front of me. For all the fucks he doesn’t give, he knew I would be here. It wasn’t Alaric who came to me. Or Oliver. It was him.
The man in question taps his fingers against the arm of the expensive, high-back leather armchair. He looks like a man sitting on his throne. He has an air of superiority that screams importance and indifference. Sitting in this campus café, Leo is supposedly just another college kid, surrounded by other rich college kids who would complain to their daddies if they didn’t have stupidly expensive chairs like that to sit in.
Some days, I miss my little college on the West coast where the kids walked around with tans and beach attire. No one was trying to be important. We were just trying to get by. We didn’t care about fortunes or other people’s last names and allegiances, and we certainly weren’t trying to catch my sister’s killer.
A warm body moves in next to me, and again, I expect it to be Oliver, but it isn’t. Leo’s managed to squeeze in next to me on the oversized chair I claimed as mine an hour ago. He rests his arm across my back, his fingers playing with the ends of my hair. When I peer up at him, he says, “You went somewhere again.” When I don’t respond, he sighs. “I really am sorry about Oliver’s stupid teapot.”
This time, I can’t help but smile. “Even when you’re apologizing, you don’t sound sincere. That’s probably why Oliver hasn’t forgiven you yet.”
He leans in close, and I stiffen for a brief moment, gaze darting at our surroundings. His lips frown against my cheek. “I don’t care who sees us together. If you’re worried about my grandfather, don’t be. If you’re worried about anything, just don’t.We’rehere now.”
I relax, my body melding into his. He shifts, and I find my head coming to rest on his shoulder, his arm wrapped tightly around me. In his other hand, his fingers wrap around his to-go cup, using the armrest as support.
What he means by not worrying about Franklin Jarvis is that Leo’s supposed to be with me anyway. If word gets back to his grandfather that we were looking cozy on campus, it’s all a part of the plan. Leo will probably even be praised for luring me in, just like the devil he is.
I run my fingers up and down his tattooed forearm, tracing the lines of thick, dark tribal marks and skirting the pinched scars he now wears. On the underside of his arm, in a place free from inflicted blemishes, is a sentence written in typewriter font.Strength through fire.
His tattoos are like windows to his mind. I never thought to pick them apart before, but as I slowly unravel whatever this is between Leo and me, it’s easier to see him. Therealhim.
“He’s not coming back here,” Leo whispers.
All the feeling drains from my body until I’m a cavernous hole. Next to me, Mr. Dream Stealer takes a slow sip of his coffee as if he didn’t just crush all of my hopes. My hand falls to his thigh.
Tim, the barista, hasn’t been back to the café. Not before classes. Not in the middle of classes. And not at the end of the night either. We’ve staked this place out for the last week, and there’s been no sign of him whatsoever.
We haven’t asked—even though I’m getting to that point—because we didn’t want to tip him off but goddamnit, why can’t one thing just be easy? Where is that fucker? And why was he arguing with my sister a mere hour before she died? And why in the ever-loving-fuck has he disappeared now? Poof. Just like that.