Todos os capítulos de I Signed a Marriage Contract, Not a Love Triangle: Capítulo 21 - Capítulo 30

“Lady Valcieri?”Irene looked over her shoulder before remembering that was her now.A woman in a dark green dress waited with an expectant smile.“Yes?”“I wanted to congratulate you.”“Thank you.”“And ask how you and Lord Valcieri met.”There it was. The question Dorian had warned her about had taken less than three minutes.“We were introduced through a mutual contact,” Irene said. “How do you know Lord Valcieri?”The woman immediately started talking about her family’s connection to the coven.Irene listened, nodded in the right places, and let her do most of the work.That was the easiest way to survive a conversation with someone who wanted information. Ask them one question about themselves, and most people would forgot they had ever been interested in you.The reception filled the estate’s main hall.There were more guests than Irene had expected, though Dorian had probably told her the exact number somewhere between smiling and the warning about being overfriendly.She shook

“You’re in my section.”Kael looked up from his coffee. Irene stood beside his table with her bag still over one shoulder.She had decided on Saturday that she wasn’t going to talk to him. On Sunday, she had decided it again, only more firmly.Then she walked into the coffee shop at nine and found him waiting for her.Same table.Same black coffee.Except someone else had served him this time, which meant he had arrived before her shift started. He wasn’t watching the street either.He had been watching the door…watching for her.Irene set her bag behind the counter, tied on her apron, and came straight back before she could talk herself into ignoring him.In daylight, with only a table between them, she could see him properly.His dark sleeves were pushed up to his elbows. Black ink covered his right arm from wrist to where it disappeared beneath the fabric; heavy lines and shapes fitted close together.Today, his eyes were lighter than they had looked at the reception. Golden brown,

“This cannot be a real website.”Irene leaned closer to the laptop.The page had a black background, red text, and a badly cropped picture of a wolf howling at the moon. Across the top, in letters large enough to count as shouting, it read:SEVEN SIGNS YOUR NEIGHBOR IS A LYCANSign number one was excessive body hair.Sign number two was buying meat in bulk.Sign number three was avoiding silver cutlery.By that logic, Irene had dated two lycans and worked with at least six.She scrolled farther.The website claimed lycans could hear a human heartbeat through concrete, smell lies, and become aggressive around lavender-scented soap.There was also an entire paragraph warning women not to make eye contact with an Alpha during a full moon because it could “activate dormant fertility.”Irene closed the tab.“No.”Mr. Mustard watched from his tank.“That is not how pregnancy works.”He blinked.“At least, I hope not.”Irene opened another search result.She had been home for less than an ho

“Oh, my god,” Irene said quietly.She stood in front of the painting and looked more closely.From the hallway, the woman had only seemed familiar. Up close, the resemblance was impossible to miss.They weren’t identical. The woman’s mouth was fuller, and her face was softer around the cheeks. She looked healthy and as though she slept.But the eyes were close. So was the jaw. Even the shape of the eyebrows.Anyone who knew Irene would have looked at the painting twice.Irene had now looked at it for several minutes and was starting to regret every second.The woman wore an older style of dress, dark and fitted through the waist. One hand rested at her side while the other held something Irene couldn’t make out clearly. Her expression was calm, but not stiff.The same woman had been in the photograph at the tailor’s studio. That meant she had known the tailor. She had also known Ares. Enough for her portrait to hang in a private wing of his estate.Irene leaned closer to the small pla

Irene had spent most of the afternoon thinking about what he’d said in the library.He obviously meant Kael.She knew that. Ares probably knew she knew it too. They had simply decided to walk away from the conversation and let it bother her for several hours first.Now Ares stood outside in the last light of the day, wearing another dark coat while the wind moved his silver hair. The effect was dramatic enough to look planned.“Does the sun actually hurt you?”Ares turned from the terrace railing.“It does,” he said. “Though perhaps not in the way you mean.”“So you don’t catch fire?”“No.”“Good. That would make this conversation difficult.”Ares looked at her with quiet amusement. “Vampires have existed openly throughout your lifetime.”“So have lycans. I didn’t study them either.”“You were not curious?”Irene shrugged. “Not enough to do homework.”She joined him at the railing, leaving a reasonable amount of space between them.“I went to human schools. My friends were human. The