Page 20 of A Vicious Love

I laughed too quickly. “Maybe a little of both.”

“That sounds more honest.”

I looked down at the coffee. “My driver isn’t here, and the signal is being dramatic.”

“Bellweather does love drama.”

“It suits the building.”

“It does. These walls were designed to make people confess things near fireplaces.”

I smiled again. Another pause. I didn’t know what to do with open.

Usually pauses around me were things I rushed to fill before someone got annoyed. With Jamison, silence felt like a test I was always failing. With my parents, silence meant I had said something wrong. In Harlan rooms, silence could be social calculation.

Alistair’s silence felt as if he was simply waiting.

“Were you enjoying the event?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s lovely. The flowers are beautiful, and the auction pieces looked wonderful.”

He watched me for a second.

“Were you enjoying it?”

I stared at him. My fingers tightened around the cup.

“I…” I started, then stopped.

He waited.

“I liked the flowers,” I said, too fast. “I did. I know that sounds shallow, but I did. They used winter roses and those little white berries, and it made the room feel less severe. Bellweather can feel severe, don’t you think? It’s beautiful, but in a way that makes you sit straighter. I liked the coffee service too, but dinner was tense because everyone kept talking about conservation while half the people in that room probably own enough private land to make the concept a bit ridiculous.”

Alistair’s smile grew.

I took that as permission and kept going.

“And there was this woman in gold who kept saying charity should be elegant, which is such a Harlan thing to say. Charity doesn’t need to be elegant. It needs to be useful. But if you say that, people look at you as if you’ve spilled soup on the family crest.”

He laughed.

I stopped, mortified. “Sorry. I talk a lot.”

“I noticed.”

My face burned. “Right. Sorry.”

“That wasn’t a complaint. I asked.” He took a sip of his coffee.

“You did,” I said, still suspicious of kindness. “But people ask things all the time.”

“Do they?”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“And then they usually wait for the smallest possible answer so they can talk again.”