CHAPTER FIVE - TIME ON HIS TERMS

"No," I said.

He didn't move. That calm of his made my answer sound like a child stamping her foot.

"I'm not giving you time. I'm not giving you anything. I'm marrying your son."

"You said that already."

"Because it's true."

"Then it shouldn't be hard to say without shaking."

I looked down. My hand was trembling on my knee. I shoved it under my other arm like that would fix it.

I got out of the car because staying in there longer would give me away. I didn't slam the door, because slamming it would have meant he'd gotten to me.

"Evangeline."

I kept walking.

"The offer doesn't expire tonight."

I made it through the lobby, the elevator and my front door before my legs gave up. I slid down the wood until I was sitting on the floor in my coat, staring at nothing.

‘You told him you love Kieran. You can't even lie well when it matters.’

Something moved under my ribs. My wolf. Aurelia. The name came to me so suddenly I stopped breathing. She had a name and somehow, I'd always known it. She was pacing behind twelve years of locks, and I hated how badly I wanted to open the door for her.

“Stop it. He's your fiancé's father. He's twice your age. He wants us because you were easy once and men like him collect things.”

It sounded convincing. I said it to myself until I fell asleep on the floor.

~Next Day~

My mother knocked at eight, which meant she'd been awake since five.

"Alliance lunch at noon," she said, walking in without waiting. "Mirabelle's, the private room. Both families, two council members, and a photographer outside. Kieran's picking you up."

"I didn't agree to a lunch."

"The invitations went out Tuesday." She laid a cream dress across my bed. "Wear this. Hair down. Eva, look at me."

I looked.

"Whatever's going on in that head of yours, it stays there. The Council is watching. Your father has spent two years on this."

Two years. I've been alive twenty-two and nobody spent a single day on me.

"Fine," I said.

She smiled like I'd given her a gift, and left.

Kieran arrived early and kissed my cheek. He smelled like his usual cologne. It used to smell like safety. Now it smelled like a cover charge.

"You're quiet," he said in the car.

"I'm tired."

"You're still upset about the party, aren't you?" He glanced over, all patience. "I get it. I was a little short with you. But you can't say stuff like that in front of people, Evangeline. You made it awkward."

I made it awkward. He told a room full of people I was a statue and I made it awkward, how funny.

"I know," I said.

"Good." He squeezed my knee. "Dad's going to be there, so just be yourself. He likes you."

My stomach dropped through the floor of the car.

"Does he?"

"He doesn't say much, but he came to the party for you. That's something."

I turned toward the window so he couldn't see my face. I didn't even know what to feel at that moment.

The private room at Mirabelle's had a long table set for twelve and a ring of men in expensive suits already holding drinks. My father was at one end, glowing. My mother sat beside him with her hands folded. The photographer was outside the glass doors, and the whole thing looked exactly like what it was, a deal dressed up as lunch.

The seat at the head of the table was empty.

I hated the way my eyes went straight to it. I hated more what I felt when I saw it was empty, and I couldn't tell whether it was relief or something I wasn't going to name.

"Dad's finalizing the security arrangements for the Northern Council," Kieran told the table when someone asked. "He'll be late. He said to start."

Good. Late is good. Late means I eat a salad, smile twice, and leave immediately.

We started with soup, then wine, then a Council member named Hargrove telling a long story about his daughter's wedding. I laughed where I was supposed to. Kieran's hand stayed on the back of my chair, thumb tapping like he was keeping time with something.

Forty minutes in, the doors opened.

Nobody announced him. The room announced him. Conversations dipped and chairs shifted, and Hargrove sat up like a boy caught talking in class. Leviathan came in with his phone still at his ear and his beta Caleb two steps behind with a tablet.

"Then tell them the eastern checkpoint stays closed until the treaty's signed," he said into the phone. "I don't care what they prefer." He ended the call and looked up. "Apologies. Please, continue."

He took the head of the table and the room settled around him.

He didn't look at me. Not once, not through the entire first course. He turned straight to Hargrove and the other Council man and started talking numbers, patrol rotations, the new border corridor, the cost of rerouting supply lines. Caleb slid the tablet in front of him and he scrolled through it with one finger while still talking, like his mouth and his brain ran separate operations.

See? Nothing. He's done. He said it was an offer and I declined and he moved on. This is what you wanted Eva, be happy about it.

I picked up my fork and put it down. I wasn't hungry.

"Eva," Kieran murmured, "eat something."

Oh wow, everyone suddenly cares if I eat.

"I'm fine."

Leviathan was explaining something about night patrols to Hargrove. Then, mid sentence, his eyes came across the table and landed on me.

One second. Maybe less.

Then they were back on the tablet like nothing had happened.

My face went hot. I reached for my water glass and nearly knocked it over. I caught it and drank half of it while pretending to be fascinated by the centerpiece.

He looked. So what. People look. He was checking the room. I said this to assure myself.

Four minutes later he did it again. A glance, sharp and quick, as if checking that something was still in its place. I was staring at my plate by then. I felt it anyway, like a hand on the back of my neck.

Stop. Stop looking at me. Don't make me count this.

I counted it anyway. Three times in ten minutes, and each time his face did absolutely nothing. That was the worst of it. Not a smirk, not a warning, not a flicker. Just a man who knew exactly where I was sitting at all times.

"Evangeline, dear," my mother said brightly, "tell Councilman Hargrove about the florist."

I blinked twice then I told him about the florist. I don't know what I said. My voice came out smooth and my pulse was running a different conversation entirely.

The main course arrived. Leviathan took one bite of it and set his fork down to finish a point about the treaty, and when his gaze came up again it went to my hands. I'd been twisting the napkin in my lap into a rope. I let it go.

When I lifted my head his mouth hadn't moved, but his eyes said, quite clearly, ‘Breathe.’

I breathed. I hated that I did.

My father stood and tapped his glass.

"A toast," he said, beaming. "To our two families. And to my daughter, who will be a very fine Luna."

Glasses rose. Applause rippled down the table. I smiled and lifted mine and said thank you to nobody in particular.

At the head of the table, Leviathan's glass stopped halfway to his mouth.

It wasn't dramatic. Nobody else would have caught it. He held it there for the length of one breath and his eyes were on me, heavy and steady and absolutely unashamed, while forty people applauded his son's engagement.

Don't, not here and certainly not in front of everyone. Please.

He drank and set the glass down. He turned back to Hargrove.

Beside me, Kieran had gone still.

I felt it before I saw it. His thumb stopped tapping against my chair. I turned my head slowly.

He wasn't looking at me. He was looking at his father, and then, with that same careful, slow motion, he looked at me. Then back at his father. Then at me again, like a man doing sums in his head.

His smile was still on his face. It just stopped being a smile. For half a second it hung there, frozen and wrong, a mask with nobody behind it.

Then Kieran blinked, and it came back, bright and easy.

"Eva," he said softly, his hand sliding over mine on the table. "You've gone pale. Are you okay?"

I looked at his hand. Then at his eyes, which were not smiling at all.

"I'm fine," I said.

It was the worst lie I'd told all week.