Page 15 of Twisting Beauty

I could feel Lorcan’s eyes on me, cataloging every micro-expression, filing it away for later examination. He’d seen the flinch. He’d seen me clock the ring. And I had no idea what he was going to do with any of it.

“There’s no Dr. Fenton at Magdalene,” Alistair said pleasantly.

The panic rose fast, hot behind my sternum. I pressed it down flat.

“Maybe he was a consultant,” I said, keeping my voice level by main force. “I don’t… my memories of that time are hazy.”

“Convenient,” Lorcan said, his tone mild as water, not looking up from where he was cutting his lamb. Dark juice ran from the slice, spreading slowly across the white plate.

Alistair reached across and patted my hand. His fingers were cold as they settled there. “Well, I for one am very glad you’re home, my unlucky girl.”

Every instinct I had screamed at me to pull away. I didn’t manage it cleanly. My hand moved before I’d decided to move it, pulling back under the guise of reaching for more lamb I didn’t want and couldn’t have eaten if my life depended on it. I put the serving tongs down and kept my eyes on my plate.

His signet ring caught the light again as he withdrew his hand.

What the hell was this house?

Footsteps sounded in the hallway and Mervyn appeared in the doorway. “Sire. I’m sorry to interrupt. You have a phone call. A buyer from Moscow.”

Something lit in Alistair’s eyes. He rose from the table, brushed past my chair, and his hand came down on my shoulder as he passed. “Don’t let the lamb get cold, pet.” His fingers pressed and held for one moment too long before releasing.

My fork hit the plate with a sound like a shot.

He was already moving into the hall, too absorbed to look back, and I sat in the wreckage of my own composure, trying to get my breathing under control.

Across the table, Lorcan’s jaw flexed. His fingers had curled around his knife handle hard enough to whiten the knuckles as he glared between me and the empty doorway where his father had been. I couldn’t tell whether the fury that burned in him was for his father, for me, or for the fact that his father had touched me like a claim.

He blinked, and it was gone.

Silence settled between us. Just the scrape of cutlery and the draft moving through the old vents. Somewhere deeper in the house a clock ticked.

Dread settled cold beneath my ribs as I thought about the word buyer. About Moscow. About what that might mean to a man like Alistair Lasair.

“So,” I said, keeping my voice light, cutting into my lamb as if the sight of the pink flesh wasn’t making my stomach turn. “A buyer. Didn’t think he wanted to sell Magdalene.”

Lorcan’s eyes flashed. “He doesn’t. Not the building.”

My knife stilled against the plate. “Then what’s he selling?”

“Since when have you cared about the business?”

“Since I was locked up in it,” I said, and the words came out sharper than I’d meant them, more honest than was safe.

His jaw tightened. “Don’t play games, Rua.”

“I’m not.” The words barely made it above the ticking clock. “But you are.”

We both reached for the wine bottle at the same moment.

Our fingers touched. The heat of it ran up my arm, and for one dizzy, stupid moment, I didn’t pull away.

Neither did he.

He pulled his hand back first.

I yanked my hand back as well, too fast and not fast enough. My fingertips clipped the bottle, sending it tipping.

He caught it, his hand moving so fast it was a blur. He righted the bottle and shot me a look.