Page 23 of Twisting Beauty

His gaze dropped to the streak of red bleeding over the egg. “I thought, and I quote, ‘spice made things unpalatable.’”

My grip tightened around the bottle before I set it down, trying to act like I hadn’t just fucked up.

Denial would make me look guiltier. Backtracking would be worse. My only option was to go with it.

I lifted my eyes to his and let my voice cool. “Maybe I developed a tolerance for unpleasant things.”

His gaze dropped a fraction, staying on my mouth for a moment too long. The look was assessing, intrusive, and interested in a way that made my pulse give a hard, traitorous kick. Heat moved low through me, unwelcome and immediate. I hated that he could do that to me with nothing but a look.

I reached for my coffee because I needed something to do with my hands. I threw in three cubes of sugar before I realized this was also wrong. I was rattled and fucking up. I stirred my cup and took a big gulp, trying to steady my hands, hoping he’d not notice.

“Sugar as well,” he said.

Fuck.

I smiled sweetly at him and pushed the cup his way as if this was always my plan. “This isn’t for me. You need to balance out the bitterness coming off you.”

The cup sat on the white linen between us like a dare.

Lorcan set his cup down and lifted my offering, turning it slightly and inspecting it before he drank. Then he took a slow sip while holding my gaze over the rim.

He raised the cup to my eye level, to the gloss smudge my mouth had left there.

“You forgot your lipstick.”

Shit. An icy wave washed over me. I’d hated the dark lipsticks Rua usually wore underneath her gloss and just put on the gloss instead, never thinking he’d notice something that small.

That was my mistake. Lorcan noticed everything. He noticed whatever could be filed away, turned over, and used later. He remembered tiny things because tiny things were how he mapped people, how he sorted them, how he kept them where he wanted them.

And he was intent on doing this with me.

He set the cup down between us with maddening care. “You should wear that lipstick shade that I actually liked. What was the name again?”

For one ugly second, all I could do was scramble.

I clawed through my memory of rummaging through Rua’s makeup bag earlier. Her lipsticks had names like Black Dahlia. Widow’s Kiss. Funeral Rose.

But which one had been his favorite? Which one had she worn for him? Rua would have known.

My mouth went dry. This wasn’t in my memories.

Lorcan just watched me, a sparkle of victory in his eyes. The silence did exactly what he wanted it to do. It gave me enough space to hang myself with the wrong answer.

If I guessed wrong, I was caught. If I claimed not to remember, I was caught differently.

He wasn’t asking because he cared about lipstick. He was asking because this was the perfect trap.

The only way I’d get out of it was by not playing.

I rolled my eyes as I turned back to my breakfast. “News flash, I don’t wear lipstick anymore. And more importantly, even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t be picking out a shade just because it was your favorite.”

“Really? Gosh, it’s like—” he leaned in and pinned me with a look—“you’re not even the same person.”

There it was. His suspicion laid out between us. He knew I wasn’t Rua.

But as of right now, he had no real proof. Not unless I cracked and gave it to him.

I would not let him break me.