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How do you show affection?”
What do you wear to bed?
Now that last one would make her blush if he asked her.
Adina stood up and swept around the desk. “If you’re ready, I’ll take you into the meeting room.”
They were ushered into an attractive room with a French door into a small garden. “It’s a lovely day, would you like to sit outside?” Adina asked.
Min looked at Ethan, who raised a brow. “Your call.”
“That would be lovely, thank you.”
When they were alone, Ethan cleared his throat. “Perhaps we’ll leave Adina’s questions for last,” he said, folding his piece of paper in half, then again. Min noted that his hands shook slightly, and a rush of sympathy filled her chest.
He was nervous.
Clearing his throat, he glanced at her. “So, you own the Westerly Bookshop?”
“You know it?” She was certain she’d remember him if he’d ever been there.
“I haven’t been there personally, but I’ve heard good things about it. The Westerly is really quite an icon nowadays.”
“That’s good to know. It’s only been the past few years that monsters have more openly frequented the shop.”
“Yes. Well, we wouldn’t have been discussing this… arrangement, a few years back,” he said. “It would have been considered ludicrous for me to be dating a human, let alone a Westwind. That’s a very influential name in the human world.”
“It’s a double-edged sword.” His intense blue eyes encouraged her to continue. “My father was always ashamed of our name, and I second that. Colonel Westwind, he… he was no hero as far as monsters were concerned. You’d know, obviously, about his…”
“His role in The Great War? Yes. Though we only studied that period briefly at school.”
“I guess it’s something Motham residents would rather forget.” She hung her head a little. “Nowadays, I hope our name has redeemed itself through the bookshop. My father studied monster history at university, and of course he was totally sympathetic to monster causes. He was something of an embarrassment to his family, and for a while they disowned him, but with Dad being an only child, they relented in the end, and made up before my grandparents died.”
“I noted in your profile that your parents are deceased, your father only last year, I understand,” he said softly.
She nodded, feeling tears prick her eyelids.
“I’m sorry for your loss. That’s something we have in common. I lost my father in recent years.”
“Yes, my commiserations also,” Min said softly.
“Do you mind me asking what happened—to your father? It seems important I should know.”
Min gulped. It was still hard to talk about. “He was killed on one of his book-hunting jaunts into Motham. He’d gone to the Wasteland—which was really foolish—on a tip-off about an exciting find, and on his way home his vehicle was hit by a weremonkey in a stolen car.”
“I’m so… sorry.” He really did sound it.
“And your father?” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat. “H-how did he pass?”
“Also a sad accident. In aviation. The wings fell off a prototype and he didn’t have time to eject. The irony is that if he hadn’t been strapped into the vessel, he could have flown to safety. Innovation, eh? Not always a good thing.” His mouth tightened. “Mother has never recovered; she’s still grieving.”
“You must miss him too.”
“Yes. But I had to take over the business straight away, and all the projects he had in the pipeline—one of which, his biggest dream, was to build an airport on human-owned lands. I guess my way of grieving is to try and bring his dream to fruition. It helps me make sense of him dying, I guess.”
“Finding new meaning after someone we love dies, that’s important,” Min said.
There was a moment’s silence. From under her lashes, she watched his knuckles paling as he clasped his fingers tightly together in his lap.
