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“But why?” I mumble into the cashmere fabric of his sweater.
His body stiffens against my chest. “You only had one question,” he says stiffly. “Don’t push your luck.”
“No. I have one more.”
A heavy sigh presses against me. “Go on.”
“Cedric. Whatever happened to him? Is he still on the run?”
“You know what happened to him.”
I twist around, meeting his gaze with a frown. “Why would I?”
Lorcan eyes me, unsure. “You saw your father slit his throat in his study.”
Numb, I fall back against him, overwhelmed with information. The biggest mystery of my childhood answered in half a second.
He lets me stay in his arms a little longer, falling into the rhythm of rubbing my back and leaving gentle kisses on the top of my head. “I almost forgot,” he says eventually, shifting me in his arms to retrieve something from his pocket. “I have something for you.”
I look up through bleary eyes to see a small cell phone in his hand. It’s a flip phone that’s probably older than me, with a small screen and definitely no 4G network.
“You got me a phone?” I say in disbelief.
“I can’t say it’s out of the goodness of my own heart,” he replies softly, flipping it open and powering it on. “Mondez’s daughter took a liking to you, and it seems like she has daddy wrapped around her little finger. He said our deal was off unless I gave you a way to reach his precious daughter.”
I’ll get a phone to you, promise.
Despite everything, I have to bite back a laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. I only met Nova for that one night, but I can definitely imagine her throwing a tantrum until she gets what she wants.
“I’m trusting you, Poppy,” he says, eyes darkening. “I know you won’t call your…ex-boyfriend—”
I cringe at the thought of that asshole. “Hell no.”
“And I trust that you won’t call anyone else you shouldn’t, either.”
“I won’t, I promise,” I whisper, curling my hands around the phone. It feels like the most precious artifact in this entire room.
Lorcan plants a small kiss on my nose, “Good girl,” he says with a sultry tone that makes me forget all of my life’s problems. The kiss on the nose turns into a bite on my neck, and his hand snakes from my back to my chest…
And then his cell buzzes.
“Fuck’s sake,” he growls, pulling out a small black phone that’s almost identical to mine. “Speak.”
The second whoever is on the line begins to talk, his body tenses and he pushes me off of his lap.
“I’ll be right there.”
When I look up at him, his face is strangled and pale. “What’s wrong?” I say, panic rising in my throat.
“Stay here,” he says sternly.
“Lorcan!” I shout desperately, but he’s already halfway across the room. He stops, turns back and pulls me in for a rough kiss. It’s desperate and raw and makes me want to rip his fucking clothes off. Then, he clamps his hands over my cheeks and tilts my face up to his. “If anything happens to me, China Doll. Go with Orna. You can trust her.”
One last lingering kiss, even hungrier than the one before, before he tears away from me and stalks down the stairs. He leaves me in the silence of the Museum, his name still tumbling from my lips and echoing off the walls.
Lorcan
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
