“There’s one more thing.” He waited until she held out her hand then dropped a wide leather bracelet onto it. The heft of it made it clear it was meant for a man. For him. “The sight is permanent, for both of us. Only the fae who gave it to us can take it back, and I’m done bargaining.”
“What is this?” She rubbed her thumb across the etched surface. “What does it do?”
“It’s a charm that’s spelled to blind me to the sight.”
“Why offer it to me?”
“You deserve to choose how I see you.” He folded her hand over it. “Amelie or Hadley, the decision is yours.”
“Thank you.” She clenched her fingers until they turned white. “Do I have to pick now?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Take all the time you need.”
“Okay.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll think it over then, if that’s all right with you.”
“You can always change your mind,” he reminded her. “The bracelet can be removed later.”
“Do you…?” She swept out her empty hand, inviting him in. “I have a new futon.”
“I haven’t earned that privilege yet, but I will.” He risked a kiss on her cheek. “Good night, Hadley.”
He shut the door, afraid if she offered a second time, that he would follow her. If she invited him to share her bed again, he wanted her to do it with clear eyes, not red-rimmed ones. He needed her to believe he was here, and there was no place he would rather be.
Twenty-Four
Smythe had two hours left on his deadline, and I had a decision to make before Bishop arrived to walk me to work. For what I had planned, I could use all the backup I could beg, borrow, or bribe. But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to drag Midas into my scheme. I didn’t want his standing in the pack to erode further, and then there was the issue of our relationship. I couldn’t risk being seen as the prop holding up the future alpha any more than he could afford to be viewed as the crutch for the future potentate.
Then there was the whole mate thing.
He kept saying it. Mate. Over and over. Not as in a hypothetical future but as in an incontrovertible truth. Like I had a clue what it meant when our courtship had sunk. We hadn’t crossed the finish line. No vows exchanged, no questions asked, no promises made. And yet…
Mate.
The kind of bond that would tie another person to me, through the good times and bad, gave me heart palpitations. I had weathered more bad times than good, and I wasn’t certain I wanted my escape route cut.
Like Mother’s.
Might as well say it. I was thinking it.
If she had been free to choose a man she loved instead of falling prey to an arranged marriage, would she have been happier? Kinder? Better? If she had been free to leave when she realized Dad wasn’t a man she could love, would it have made a difference? If she had been able to pursue her own happiness, without consequence, would she have loved me?
No matter the situation, the fact remained that no parent had any right, regardless of their own misery, to inflict suffering upon their child.
Midas wasn’t my father, though. And I prayed to the goddess I wasn’t my mother. We hadn’t been forced together. Quite the opposite. We had done our best to avoid one another, to ignore our mutual attraction, and then to figure out why we couldn’t quit the other so we could use what we learned to do that very thing.
And yet…
Despite how wrong we were for each other, how much we complicated each other’s lives, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Based on the night he spent outside my door, I was guessing the feeling was mutual. We made no sense. None. The timing? It couldn’t be worse. There was no good reason for us to keep fighting against the forces pushing us apart except…
To believe in fate was to accept my life was a set of predetermined choices I had yet to make. I wasn’t in a fated mates frame of mind. Midas could call me Empress of the Universe, but that didn’t make it true. I wanted a choice, and I wanted him to have a choice. Both halves of him. I didn’t want one to choose and the other to settle. I didn’t want to be a cause for more inner turmoil for him.
But I didn’t want to let him go either.
Ambrose had confirmed a bond between Midas and me, and it terrified me that it might grant Ambrose access to him. And, okay, it also freaked me out that I hadn’t signed off on it or even realized what it was for it to take root in me.
Breathe in, breathe out.
I would talk to Midas. I would get to the bottom of our situation. Then I would focus my panic where it would do the most good. Or maybe eat chocolate until I fell into a sugar coma after drafting a sternly worded DNR on a wrapper. I’m sure that would be legally binding.
“You ready or what?”
I whirled toward the voice to find Remy sitting on the counter in the kitchen with her legs swinging.
“What are you doing here?” I rubbed my temples. “Did we have a meeting scheduled I forgot?”
Asking how she got in would be a waste of breath. She was my spymaster for a reason.
“I heard you could use some extra hands.” She spread hers. “I have a few to spare.”
Six other Remys slid
