Page 10 of Accomplice to the Villain

She wasn’t sure if she’d even know how.

When a childhood was ruled by the patterns of others, that child learned as an adult to heed them. And as was her pattern, anytime Evie’s mother had a good day, it was always followed by several bad ones.

“I would love to, Mama,” Evie started, feeling a little like a rabbit caught in a snare. “But I’m working. Perhaps another day? The week’s end, maybe?”

Nura’s smile faltered, a sadness Evie recognized behind her warm brown eyes. “Oh. Of course, how silly. I shouldn’t have assumed—”

“I have no work to do,” Trystan said, folding his hands in front of him expectantly.

Evie and her mother stared at him, awaiting an explanation. “Are you bragging?” Evie angled her head as she took him in. Had the two weeks apart completely undone her ability to read him? What on earth was he doing?

He raised a brow at her before turning to address her mother. “I’m attempting to say that I would be happy to help you bake if you need a steady set of hands.”

Oh.

No cause for alarm.

He was merely attempting to turn her heart inside out.

That terribly warm feeling spreading through her chest only worsened when her mother’s face brightened and her eyes softened, hopeful. “Oh, Trystan, dear, I could not ask you to do that. I’m sure there’s much business you need to attend to.”

Her boss began rolling up his sleeves until they were tucked neatly at his elbows. Forearms—which she was sure weren’t meant to be a sensual part of the body, but at which Evie found herself staring anyway—were revealed, and she felt her face flush.

“No business,” Trystan said, sauntering toward the dough and looking at it like it might detonate. “The boon of being the boss is deciding my own schedule without complaint from my subordinates.”

Evie grumbled, “I wasn’t going to complain.”

The Villain gave her a pointed look as he pulled a significantly shorter apron from the small closet and handed it wordlessly to Nura, who smiled, busying herself with it in the corner of the room. “‘Subordinate’ implies I have some sort of control over you, Sage,” he said quietly, turning away to cinch the ties of his own apron at his back. “And I would say, by all accounts, you’re hardly below me.”

“Even if he’d really like you to be.” Blade grinned, appearing at Evie’s shoulder. At her eye roll, he slung a muscular arm around her, his green sleeves billowing from his copper vest all the way to his wrists.

A metal spoon soared through the air and knocked Blade square between the eyes. “Ow!” the dragon trainer yelped, releasing Evie as he rubbed at the spot with an accusatory look in his amber eyes.

“Evie’s mother is present, you disrespectful lout.” The Villain took a threatening step toward the dragon trainer.

Blade rubbed his forehead, glaring. “I’m not the one undressing her daughter with my eyes.”

The Villain’s nostrils flared, and Evie was between the two before her boss could take another step, holding a hand out, halting him. “I’m almost certain my mother would find violent murder more offensive than innuendo.”

“It doesn’t have to be violent,” her boss said dryly before turning to attend to the bowl of mangled dough. “Although this…”

Nura stepped forward, her bemused grin at the display fading into a wince when she looked upon her creation. “I know it’s hopeless. I thought it would help if I added that strange pink flour, but it seemed to only make the texture worse.”

“You used my pink flour?”

Lyssa stood in the doorway, her black hair now in two braids adorned with red ribbons, her dark eyes round and glistening with unshed tears and her fingers clenched into tight fists. “That was for my and Edwin’s tea scones.”

Their mother seemed to be unsure of what to do with her hands as she tried to grasp for something to say to the daughter who had been ignoring her almost entirely since her return. Lyssa had refused nearly every attempt at Nura’s attention, and Nura, for all her faults, had taken it in stride.

Until now.

“Lyssa.” Nura reached out for her youngest daughter and flinched when Lyssa stepped farther into Evie’s side. “I—I’m so sorry; I had no idea. Can you forgive me?”

Lyssa’s dark brows turned to a downward slant, and Evie felt her sister’s hands shaking against her waist. “No. That was mine, and you ruined it. You ruinedeverything.”

“Lyssa,” Evie said carefully, reaching for her little sister but catching only air when Lyssa stepped away and bolted from the room.

A long pause settled over the kitchen, no one moving an inch until Gideon poked his head in, his sandy-brown hair slicked back away from his face. “Everything okay in here? I ran into Lyssa, and she seemed upset.”