Page 32 of Dragon King’s Duty Bride

There it was again. That faint edge of something sharper beneath his dry tone. She couldn’t tell if he was teasing or being serious. Maybe it was both.

She took a gulp of wine. Her hopes for a quick dinner and faster escape to avoid conversation seemed to be disintegrating.

The first glass of wine went down fast and she quickly refilled . They talked about nothing in particular at first but ended up agreeing on how exhausting weddings were and about how strange it felt watching people in their most vulnerable moment promise forever to each other like everything is within their control.

“Do you think they mean it?” she asked at one point.

Lucas leaned back in his chair. “I think they mean it at the moment. I did with Dian.”

Dian. Not her. She should have expected that and let the subject drop. The second glass of wine went down faster.

Somewhere between refilling their plates and arguing over whether Pavel’s wedding cake had been dry or too sweet, the air shifted.

She didn’t notice it at first but eventually realized that she had stopped thinking about her words before speaking or checking his expression after every sentence to see if she’d overstepped. The silence between them stopped feeling like a test she was failing. Or maybe it was because they started a second bottle of wine.

He told her about how, at Liam’s wedding, he’d almost tripped walking down the aisle because he’d been watching her instead of where he was going.

“You did not,” she said. Heat bloomed unexpectedly in her chest.

“I did. You were laughing at something Stella said.”

“I was laughing?”

“You were. You snorted.”

“I do not snort.” She was appalled.

“You absolutely snort.”

She stared at him in mock outrage, and he held her gaze. His grin was full and real, not the restrained half-smile he wore out of habit.

Realization dawned.

“Oh my God,” she breathed. “You were the one who stepped on my heel during the recessional.”

“That was an accident.”

“You nearly sent me face-first into the pew.”

“I saved you from falling,” he countered. “You’re welcome.”

She laughed and it echoed around the room. It almost startled her because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed like that with him.

Maybe she never had.

The third bottle of wine disappeared as they talked. She was pleasantly warm now and the tight coil in her shoulders had loosened. Lucas had rolled up his sleeves and was telling a story about his cousin’s disastrous proposal that involved a lake and an unfortunate mishap on a dock.

Sia leaned forward with her chin propped in her hand as she watched him. He became animated when he forgot himself. His hands moved and his eyebrows lifted. His voice lost his normal, careful cadence.

“You pushed him into the lake,” she said, delighted.

“I did not push him. I nudged him.”

“You nudged him into a body of water.”

“He needed perspective.”

She shook her head, smiling, and realized she wasn’t bracing for impact anymore. She wasn’t waiting for him to retreat or for the conversation to stall. It was flowing, as easy as the wine between them.