Page 9 of A Vicious Love

I kept going.

“It sold out in six minutes, apparently. The theatre added two more donor boxes, but they still couldn’t fit everyone. Madame Aveline said it’s because of the last performance clip that went around Veil.”

Jamison drank.

I watched his throat move and tried not to feel stupid.

“It was strange seeing myself like that,” I said. “On people’s pages, I mean. Someone slowed down the last turn and set it to music, and now people keep asking if I meant to look that sad. I didn’t. I was just concentrating.”

His phone buzzed.

He answered a message with one hand.

I smiled again even though he still wasn’t looking at me.

“I got offered a real opportunity. Not just a charity showcase. It’s with the Harlan Winter Ballet Society, but there’s a guest choreographer from St. Cross, and they want me for the lead variation in the gala piece.”

His thumb stopped for half a second.

Maybe I imagined it.

I brightened anyway.

“It’s a big thing. I think. Emmie said it’s big.”

Jamison finished his whiskey.

The glass hit the bar.

“Another,” he told the waiter.

The waiter moved fast. I adjusted one pearl earring and tried not to let the pause feel like rejection.

Maybe he had listened and simply didn’t know what to say. Jamison was not good with soft things. He had grown up inside Harlan’s coldest rooms and Crow men learned threat before affection.

That was what I told myself.

A kinder story.

I had a thousand of them.

The second whiskey arrived. Jamison took it, drank half, and turned toward the room.

“Table,” he said.

I followed quickly.

We moved through the ballroom, and conversation dipped around us. It always did when Jamison crossed a room. People watched without watching. Men adjusted their cuffs. Women looked away. No one wanted to be caught staring at a Crow, but everyone wanted to know what a Crow had brought into the room.

Tonight, he had brought me.

I reached for him before we got too far.

“Hand, please.”

Jamison looked down at me. “What?”

“Hand, please,” I repeated, offering mine.