“Miss Laurent,” he said, stopping just at the threshold.
“Lucien,” I replied, voice clipped.
His eyes flicked to the bystanders behind me, then back to me. “Let’s take this inside, shall we?”
“By all means,” I retorted.
Lucien turned without another word, and together we walked inside, though we avoided the main lounge and instead veered to a nearby staircase. I followed him up to a dark-paneled hallway with a terrace on one side and an office on the other. Lucien held the door open for me and gestured for me to enter with the barest tilt of his head.
The office was exactly what I would have pictured for a man like him. It was dark, moody, and insufferably elegant. On one side sat an enormous desk, backed by a set of bookshelves filled to the brim. Next to the desk was a bar cart topped with glass decanters and a bottle of what I guessed was bloodwine. On the other side of the room was a wall of tall windows. No balcony, but the glass panes were large enough to oversee what looked like the heart of Eternity Falls.
Lucien’s office door clicked behind me, so I turned to face him.
He didn’t say anything, just strode to his desk and leaned against the edge. “So, what can I do for you, Miss Laurent? My doorman said you were incensed.”
“Incensed,” I said, laughing. I bit my lip to keep myself from calling him every name in the book. “Yeah, I suppose that’s one word for it. Look, no more games. You damn well know why I’m here. And I’d appreciate it if we can just get to the issue, no grandstanding.”
He frowned. “I’m afraid I actually don’t know why you’re here. Unless you’ve here to tell me you’d like to reconsider my earlier offer?”
I gave another haughty laugh. Fine. If he didn’t want to own up to his actions, then I would lay it out for him.
“You broke into my bar,” I snapped. “Or sent someone to do it for you—because let’s be honest, you’d never sully your manicure with something so menial. You destroyed everything I own, Lucien! Are you so vindictive that you’d stoop to petty sabotage? I didn’t think highly of you to start with, but even this is low.”
Lucien didn’t so much as move. He just stared at me. Then, after a long pause, he said, “Are you telling me someone broke into your bar?”
“Seriously?” I scoffed. “I just said that, did I not? And I know it was you, because who else would it have been?”
Lucien pushed off the edge of his desk and walked toward me. I instinctively edged backward, eyeing the distance between us. His eyes darkened, as though my retreating steps upset him.
“You think I’d do that to you?” he asked, his tone dark. “Violate your home? Destroy your things?”
He dragged his gaze over me, and when his eyes met mine, I swear the temperature in the room rose.
“I—I,” I stuttered, not sure what to say anymore. I’d stormed in here, so sure he was responsible. But looking at him now, seeing his reaction, I…wasn’t so sure anymore.
“You’re certain someone broke in?” he asked, voice like steel.
I rolled my eyes. “Well, I didn’t vandalize my own place!”
“Vandalize?” he repeated, his eyes still boring into mine. “You said they destroyed your things. Not vandalize. What, exactly, did they do?”
“Lucien, what are you doing? Why are you pretending you had nothing to do with this?”
“Because I didn’t,” he said. “Now, I’m only going to ask once more. What all did they do?”
I froze. He wasn’t responsible? Then…who?
My gaze dropped and I stared at his floor as I tried to puzzle out this riddle. I wasn’t a trusting person—at least not anymore, thanks to Trystan. Could Lucien be lying? But why would he lie? What would he gain from that? If he broke into my bar, he would have done so to scare me. Was lying part of his game?
“Isadora,” he said.
I jumped. That was the first time he’d used my first name, and the sound of it on his lips startled me. My eyes locked with his and he held my stare, as though trying to pull the answers out of my head.
“What did they do to your bar?”
“They broke my barstools, all my bottles—though, to be fair, the ghosts might have done that in retaliation for them breaking in. Up in my loft, they ruined all my clothes, broke my mirror, slashed my bed, destroyed the…” My throat clogged with emotion. “Destroyed the watch my mother had given me.”
Lucien’s jaw flexed once. Just once. The kind of movement most people wouldn’t even register—but I did. Because it was the only break in his otherwise perfect stillness.
