and the man standing beside it, and I felt almost ridiculously relieved.
The gate opened slowly, and I slipped through the gap sideways, too impatient to wait. Connor pushed off the car, frowned at my expression.
“What?” he asked.
“First, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said and brushed a thumb across my cheek. “Even the aches are mostly gone. What happened?”
“The AAM showed up.”
His eyes fired, and he cast a hard look toward the grounds, the street. “They didn’t stay long.”
“Didn’t make it past the gate. Either because Clive was afraid of my parents, which wasn’t unwise, or he knew he didn’t have the authority to actually fight Cadogan House.” I paused. “So, to put an end to it, I agreed to meet the AAM in forty-eight hours.”
Connor went very quiet, and very still. But the magic around him, around both of us, roiled like a storm-tossed sea. I could hear the guards come to attention behind us, wary of the power that now permeated the air.
“Am I losing my mind,” he asked, voice dangerously low, “because I think you just told me you agreed to meet the AAM?”
“I did agree,” I said, standing a little straighter. “And it was the right thing to do.”
“It gives them an excuse—”
But I held up a hand, cut him off. “It doesn’t. It gives me two days without running—at least from them—to find a way out. I’m not actually going to give myself up.” And I hoped my father and I had worded our acceptance carefully enough for that. “But they were threatening the gates, and my parents were threatening them. It was . . .”
“A de-escalation?”
I nodded, watched him.
“You should have talked to me,” he said, and looked amused to be parroting back my words. And I got to use the same tactic.
“I knew you’d tell me not to do it,” I said. “And I’m not used to getting permission just to do the right thing.”
Connor snorted. “Lis, even the AAM is aware of that. And I’m not in a position to offer you permission to do anything. You’re your own person, and I’m not your keeper. But.” He stepped closer, tugged a long lock of my hair. “I worry about you. Keeping me in the loop makes me worry a little less.”
“I’d have called you if I had time,” I said. “And I’ll . . . try to do that in the future.”
His smile warmed. “Maybe we could both do better on that end.”
“Apology accepted.”
Connor rolled his eyes.
“Speaking of checking in, I am in need of some ideas to avoid having to surrender to the AAM, so I think we need to have a team meeting.”
“Do we have a team?” he asked, opening the passenger door for me.
“Right now, we have a Lulu and an Alexei. So we’ll make do.”
* * *
* * *
We went back to the town house and found Lulu at the round table in the dining nook in the bay window, picking vegetables from a take-out box with a pair of tear-apart chopsticks. The house smelled like pork and pepper, and my stomach rumbled.
“Team meeting,” I called out. “I don’t suppose you ordered extra?”
She just grunted, dug in the box for more. And I saw the mountain of take-out boxes and bags on the kitchen island.
“Uh-oh,” I said.
“Jackpot,” Connor said, then looked at me. “What? Why?”
“I’m pretty sure this is a breakup binge.” I unfolded the box tops, found half a dozen different dishes that ran the gamut from fried pork to wobbling tofu in spicy sauce. “Damn.”
“What should we do?” Connor’s words were garbled, and I looked back to find him chewing pork. “What? I was hungry and it’s here. And it’s my house.” He swallowed. “I can’t help having a shifter appetite.”
I rolled my eyes, walked to the dining area, sat down at the table beside her. “What happened?”
“I was at Mateo’s.” She speared what looked like peppered beef with a chopstick. Aggressively. “He said I had too much drama. It was messing up his artistic juju. He decided Nadya would be a better match.”
“Prick,” I said, but felt a wave of guilt. I was certainly the reason for some of that drama. “How can I help?”
She slumped a little as she looked back at the take-out containers. “I might have ordered too much food.”
“Fortunately,” Connor said, joining us with a container and fork, “you’ve brought it to the right house.”
“Thank you,” Lulu said, tears brimming.
“You’re welcome. Want to throw darts at a picture of his head later?”