Mona stopped in front of it. Stood there for a moment, her usual energy gone quiet.
"You’re different," she said.
"Different how?"
"You used to make a face whenever Mom brought up grandchildren. Or relationships. Or anything involving another human body within arm’s reach of yours. Like someone had waved something rotten under your nose." She looked at me. "Tonight you just sat there. Normal. You didn’t flinch. You didn’t shut down. You just let her talk."
"She’s ill. I wasn’t going to make it about me."
"That’s not what I’m saying and you know it." She folded her arms. "Miles told me you went shopping. With a woman. And nobody died."
"Miles talks too much."
"Miles tells me exactly as much as he should and I’m still the last to know everything important." She bumped her shoulder against my arm. "Who is she?"
"My assistant."
"Since when do you take assistants shopping?"
"Since she destroyed my suit with vomit and insisted on replacing it."
Mona’s eyebrows went up. Then she grinned. The grin that meant I’d just handed her ammunition that would last for months.
"There’s nothing to see, Mona."
"There’s always something to see. You’re the best show running, Jace. I want front-row seats."
I told her goodnight. She gave me the look that said she wasn’t done pestering me.
"Later, Jace. I’ll have to meet this assistant of yours soon." She winked.
My voice came out low. "Don’t even think about it."
The next day, in the office, I could hear her laugh from my room.
I looked up from my laptop. Through the glass, Miles was leaning against her desk, saying something with that practiced charm of his. Anna’s head was thrown back, her hair falling loose behind her shoulders, and the laugh coming out of her was relaxed. Happy.
Something moved through me that I didn’t recognize.
Hot. Fast. Entirely irrational.
It settled in my chest and wouldn’t leave. I watched my brother lean closer to say something else and I watched her break into another easy laugh. Something unreasonable inside me wanted to walk out there and stand between them.
This wasn’tjealousy.Can't be.
I didn't get jealous. That would require attachment, and attachment wasn't something I allowed myself.
Except I was sitting behind my desk watching my brother make my assistant laugh and I wanted to break something. Preferably Miles.
I pressed the intercom. "Ms. Wilson. My office."
She came in, still smiling from whatever Miles had said. The smile faded when she saw my face, replaced by the careful professionalism she wore around me.
She was wearing the indoor flats. The ones she changed into forme. Her blouse was tucked in and her curls were loose and when she stopped in front of my desk my eyes dropped to her mouth for half a second before I caught myself and dragged them back up.
For fuck’s sake.
The curse sat behind my teeth. I swallowed it back.
