Page 87 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

And because that felt suddenly too close to both of us, I looked down at Max and cleared my throat. Rafe was still looking at me, and for once his attention didn’t feel like assessment. It felt like recognition.

“I wanted it to work,” I said quietly. “For you.”

His expression changed.

“It did,” he said. “Because of you.”

12

RAFE

THE YMCA INTERVENTION

Even after Georgiana Sorel agreed to review the full provenance packet herself, I stayed braced for a refusal that did not come. The tension had been part of me too long to release on command. My jaw hurt. My fingers had gone stiff. Even my breathing felt too measured.

The quartet continued playing. Guests drifted between tables and the silent auction displays, laughing over glasses of champagne. The last ten minutes had shifted the axis of my life, and no one had noticed.

The necklace was home. The sword wasn’t yet in my hands, but it was no longer trapped behind polite refusal and administrative delay. Georgiana had suspended third-party discussions. She’d agreed to review the claim personally. She’d given me a timeline.

It was close enough to a victory that my body hadn’t yet decided what to do with the sensation.

Quinn stood beside me, one hand resting lightly on Max’s head while he sat at attention, his tie perfectly centered. She’d handled Georgiana with care I hadn’t expected and precision I should’ve.

It was a rare and uncomfortable thing, to have one’s own ache translated so cleanly by someone else.

“You’re doing the thing again,” Quinn said.

“What thing?”

“The very intense thinking face.”

“I am thinking.”

“I know. That’s why I named it.”

I glanced toward Georgiana and Miriam, who were still dancing. Georgiana held herself with her usual composure, but Miriam was laughing, cobalt sleeves bright beneath the ballroom lights, and Georgiana’s attention was fixed on her as if the rest of the event had become background noise.

“I was thinking,” I said, “that you were very effective.”

Quinn’s mouth softened before she tried to hide it. “That almost sounded like a compliment.”

“It was.”

She looked down at Max, then back at me, likely waiting for a correction, perhaps, or a more precise term that would turn praise into a report.

I could have done that. It would have been easier.

“You were exceptional,” I said instead.

Her expression changed. Not dramatically. Quinn was too practiced for that. But the quick humor paused, and she simply looked at me, eyes warm and startled, as if praise had touched some bruise she hadn’t expected me to find.

“Thank you.” Then, because she was Quinn, she added, “I’m going to pretend I handled that gracefully.”

“You did.”

“That’s generous of you, but no.”

I let myself smile, and she caught it. She always caught it. At first, that had irritated me. Now I found myself offering the smallest ones on purpose, which was idiotic.