Page 104 of Cozen

Silas cocked a brow. “Quite aware, yeah. Shame, too, that he had to pick some woman from a gutter—basically. My father could have his pick of women, and yet he found some strange interest in you. Who are you even, Cozen? Where do you come from that you think you’re not reaching way out of your league when it comes to my father?”

Wow.

He wasn’t hiding a damn thing. He was so entirely unashamed about his delivery, too.

She respected it.

A little.

It didn’t even bother her.

“Maybe you should ask your father that,” Cozen returned.

“Oh, I have,” Silas grumbled as he fixed the gold cufflink on his shirt sleeve. “And I get told to mind my own business. He forgets that our fortune and family name is my business just as much as it is his. What are you going to give him other than a good fuck, and a pretty wife that’ll outlive him by a good twenty or thirty years?”

“Not very much,” Marsha put in, passing Cozen a stinging look, “other than another name in the Will to take a share.”

Silas looked Cozen over again before adding, “Maybe a child or two—boys if you’re lucky, or spoiled little girls if the rest of us get to be unlucky.”

Okay.

This had gone way too far.

“If there’s nothing I can make for you,” Cozen said, forcing her tone to remain polite, “then I’m going to have to take my break.”

So fuck off.

Silas smiled thinly. “No, you can’t make my drink. It’s the Griffin, by the way. Named for our family.”

Cozen widened her gaze in false amazement. “Fascinating, Silas.”

“I do look forward to seeing how you do at the party Dad is having soon. You certainly do okay in a small group of his people—what about a larger group? A whole mass of rich people that will remind you of how far you’re actually reaching here?”

A party?

What party?

Silas must have seen the question in Cozen’s eyes because he chuckled and asked, “Oh, you didn’t know about that? Maybe you’re not invited after all.”

All right.

Cozen had enough.

She tossed the rag to the bar, and brought up the little sign from underneath that said We’ll be back to serve you soon.

“We can wait,” Silas murmured, looking over the sign.

Cozen smiled. “I’ll serve you when hell freezes over, Silas. Have a good night.”

Jett was standing in front of Cozen’s apartment door when she finally got home. She almost thought about turning around when he hadn’t seen her come through the hallway door, but decided against it when the man standing at the other end of the hall caught her eye.

Sargon.

He stood in all black guarding the door. His hands were folded at his front, and his gaze never left hers from the second she stepped into the hallway. It was her first glimpse of him in two weeks, and it left her just as confused as ever.

Before she could think about anything else, Jett finally saw her standing there, and offered Cozen one of his wide, charming smiles.

“Cozen, sweetheart,” he said with arms already opening. “I thought you were never getting home.”