Christmas Griffin - Zoe Chant Page 0,58
to the twins, tell them to say sorry, we can’t make it. No one will think any less of you.”
“On Christmas?”
“Your family seems… traditional. Can’t see them complaining about your spending time with your new-found mate on Christmas morning.”
Heat rushed through her at the claim in his words. Your new-found mate. That was what this should be like. Simple and perfect. But—
“You cannot say that to my brothers,” she warned him. “I’ll never hear the end of it.”
She hesitated. There was a look on Hardwick’s face like he wasn’t saying something.
Her shoulders slumped. “Which would make a nice change from my relationship with them so far, which has been me not hearing… anything. I can’t believe they figured me out.”
“You okay?”
She shook her head slowly. “Yes? I am. I think. I feel awful that they thought I didn’t care about them. But them knowing? If only I wasn’t worried about them telling anyone, I would be… fine.” Her lips twitched. “Maybe even better than fine. Maybe even good. Though that might be going too far.”
Hardwick swept her hair behind one ear. “I don’t think it would be going too far,” he said gently. He pulled her into his arms, and his strength and careful, loving kisses did a better job of convincing her she might just be okay than her own heart did.
“Tell them,” she decided at last. “We’ll stay up here and get room service.”
Someone knocked on the door. The back of Delphine’s mind itched. She touched her head, frowning. “Do you hear that? Someone speaking telepathically?”
Hardwick shook his head and she sighed. That meant someone was speaking to her privately. But she couldn’t know who without looking on the other side of the door, and without knowing who it was, she didn’t know how to present herself when she opened the door…
The itch started up again. She motioned for Hardwick to stay where he was and cracked the door open, just a few inches. Enough so that she could glimpse who was behind it and arrange her face to be angry or bored or sleepily surprised, or—
“Mum?”
“Happy Christmas, sweetheart,” Sara Belgrave said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Are you almost ready to go down?”
Delphine wiped any trace of annoyance off her face and opened the door further. Her mother looked tired. She always looked tired when they were around the rest of the family—and she’d just had several days straight of them, in a town which the year before had been a relaxing sanctuary away.
“Ready? Hardly. We’ve just had the twins in here.”
Her mother winced. “Oh dear. I’m sorry about that.”
“They’re too old and ugly now for you to take responsibility for everything they do, Mum.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Belgrave.” Hardwick came over to shake her hand, but Delphine’s mother pulled him into a hug.
“Just ‘Sara,’ please.”
“About breakfast—”
In the time it took Hardwick to work his way up to find a way to explain their plans to her mother that didn’t suggest too strongly that they were going to stay in their room and bang, Delphine made a decision.
“We’ll be right down,” she said. “We just need to scrub up a bit first.”
Was it her imagination, or did her mother look relieved? “I’ll see you down there,” she said. “I look forward to getting to know you better now that you’re not under the weather, Hardwick.”
“Likewise,” Hardwick told her.
When her mother closed the door after herself, he turned to Delphine. “You changed your mind?”
“And I’m already wondering if it was the wrong decision.” She shook her arms out, trying to relieve some of the nervous tension in her shoulders. And her neck. And her spine. And—
Hardwick’s fingers pressed into her shoulders. He worked out the knots, his touch sure.
“I’m supposed to do this for you,” she complained half-heartedly. “For your head.”
“So, I don’t just get treated that way when you’re trying to find out my secrets?”
“Not only.” Which she still felt bad about, but his voice was a warm purr, so she added: “I’d say it worked quite well, didn’t it?”
He laughed into her hair. “Time for me to find out more of your secrets, then.”
From the way his fingers trailed down her back—just firm enough to keep up the idea that this was a massage, just soft enough to hint at something else—the secrets he was referring to were not of the deep, psychological kind. She took a step backwards. He followed, his thumbs slipping down to rub teasing circles around her tailbone; she stepped again, he followed