Chapter 2
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Family dinners are scary.
Clara
“Youmust be Morana,” Lukas purrs, planting a hand against the counter where a woman with long black hair is cutting a loaf of garlic bread. “What’s a beauty like you been doing hiding from me all my life?”
Morana cuts her gaze up and down Lukas before stating, “No.”
Immediately, Lukas pulls back, lifts his hands, and says, “Understood. Anything I can help with?”
“We’ve got it covered if you want to take a seat.”
“You got it.” He then rounds the island counter, approaches the long kitchen table, and takes the seat beside me.
Awed, I stare at the dark-haired woman while she—entirely unbothered—brings the basket of cut garlic bread to the table and sashays back to get more.
I’m sorry.What?What just happened? It’s that simple? I could have given Lukas a hefty once over, saidno, and been left in peace yesterday?
Morana must teach me these life skills.
I’ve never seen anything more beautiful, and I am seated at a table surrounded by ninemodels.
Everyone here is gorgeous, glowing, moisturized, in their lane! Probably. Allegedly.
Not Lukas, though.
Lukas swerved into my lane, cowboy lassoed my poor little junker car, and started off on a joyride with me in tow.
Buteveryone else? Everyone else seems like the kinds of people who stay in their lane in their armored, untouchable vehicles, cheerfully putting along.
Among the women, I only recognize Maelin from an article I saw about her and Zakery two and a half months ago. They attended the Creator’s Ball together, looking like a prince and princess. That royal air about them has not lifted. In perfect contrast to her twin sister Morana—the dark queen of sayingno—Maelin’s long white hair and gleaming green eyes make her look ethereal in ways that match Lukas’s imposing stature and chilling heterochromia.
She’s beauty. She’s grace—
She’s…just spilled water all down her shirt after failing to correctly drink it…
One second, her glass was at her lips; the next, water. Everywhere.
Fighting not to laugh beside her, Zakery shakes like a leaf while he helps clean her up. She keeps murmuring things likestop itandit’s not funnyandI just made this blouse.
I fix my attention on the damp blouse: a very pretty pink and white top, trimmed with much lace and princessness. It’s beautiful. Incredible. And shejustmade it? Herself? With her own two hands? Is that what she just said? Is that what she meant by that statement?
I…I’m very much out of my league, aren’t I?
I don’t even know where to begin in an effort to make friends with these beautiful, talented people.
Viktor doesn’t seem comfortable having me here, so talking to him is out. I’m not the most comfortable around men, period, so striking up a conversation with the other brothers is a nope. And the women…they’re angels. I don’t know how to talk to angels. It feels like they should be approaching me alldo not be afraidstyle at their own discretion.
My attention falls on the pretty brunette seated to the right of Viktor at one head of the table. She’s the one Viktor is going to be marrying in April, I think. Crisis. She’s the Canva Whiteboard mastermind—which means her skillset isn’t god-tier. Bless. If anyone here is accessible for befriending, it’s going to be either her or Morana, and I fear Morana is far too chillingly cool for me to so much as behold; therefore, it’s got to be Crisis.
I open my mouth to greet her when—suddenly—Crimson, the tall redhead seated across from me, beside Crisis, launches upright, throws her arm out, and intercepts a grape heading straight for Crisis’s face.
“Oops,” Kyran mutters, grimacing as he sets the fruit bowl he’s holding down. “Sorry.”
“You should be more careful,” Morana snaps.
