Christmas Griffin - Zoe Chant Page 0,29

intense energy that was strangely compelling. Hell, he was a griffin shifter who could literally sense lies. She should have been doing everything she could to keep out of his way. Instead, she wanted… she wanted…

She shook her head. What she wanted, as usual, didn’t matter. What she should do was what she always did: keep the peace. Usually she kept the peace between her boss and his colleagues, or her family and other members of her family, but she could keep the peace between herself and Hardwick, too. Surely.

That plan felt like solid ground.

All she needed to do was figure out what would make him the least upset that she was stuck here with him and bend herself into shape until she could make it happen.

She wished she could bend herself around—

Nope. Thinking like that wasn’t going to help anything. Not that, she discovered with a thrill of surprise, she was averse to a holiday hook-up. At least not when it came to Hardwick. But the way he’d glared at her through all of their conversations so far didn’t exactly suggest he would be interested in that.

“Pity,” she murmured.

Or maybe not. Getting involved with a man who could sense lies, even temporarily, was probably a bad idea.

Something in her chest fluttered and she rubbed it absently.

First things first, she should probably not look like a total nutcase when she went back out there. She checked herself in the tiny mirror again.

“Like a half-drowned rat,” she muttered to herself, and combed her fingers through her hair. With her hair tucked neatly behind her ears and her face patted dry, she looked almost presentable.

She placed her hands either side of the sink and stared hard at herself. “You can do this,” she told herself, keeping her voice low enough that she hoped Hardwick wouldn’t be able to hear her, even with his super-sensitive shifter hearing. “It’s only for a few days. Just until the weather clears.”

Was that a lie, she wondered? Did it count as a lie if she couldn’t look into the future and know if she was right or not?

She’d never asked herself this sort of question before. There was a sort of sinking feeling in her stomach when she realized she’d never really considered whether anything she did or said was a lie or not. All that had mattered was whether it would help her keep up her pretense that she was a shifter like the rest of her family.

Her shoulders tightened. Only long years of experience stopped them from hunching up defensively.

Irritated, Delphine took a deep breath and looked herself in the eye. The only person that looked back was herself. Human, tired, and frustrated.

Those last two sounded a lot like Hardwick.

Her frown deepened as she thought about him. She forced her mind away from the parts of him it had been focusing on the most, and concentrated on the—

The tells, she realized with a start. Those little, unconscious tics that she’d tried so hard to iron out from her own expressions and reactions.

His grim, set expression. The lines that sat so deeply around his mouth and between his eyebrows they might have been carved there. The way his eyelid flickered sometimes, or he pulled back, a movement that might have looked like a flinch if it wasn’t so… slow, and controlled… as though it was something he was used to. Something that happened all the time. Like watching a ball come towards you and knowing you weren’t going to be able to get out of the way in time, so you just watch it coming and think, Shit, this is going to hurt.

All the little things she’d observed about him bumped together in her head, forming a whole that made her eyes widen. If she was right…

She wasn’t Hardwick’s mate. She knew that. But maybe, if she was right about this, she could make herself useful. Make him a bit less miserable, since it was her fault she was stuck here, ruining his solo trip.

And the first step of that was going out and facing him. Or at least being in the same room as him, which was just as nerve-wracking.

She glared at herself in the mirror.

“Come on,” she urged herself. “You can do this. You’re a real Belgrave, damn it!”

In the next room, something crashed to the floor.

Delphine yanked the bathroom door open. Hardwick was still over by the stove. He was leaning over, one hand clutching his head. A baking tray was lying on