Page 79 of Twisting Beauty

For a moment, outrage flashed across her face, tightening her jaw and sharpening her eyes, before she forced a smile and she laughed softly. “You’re so cute when you try to be all cruel.”

She reached for his chest. But he caught her hand from the air, his gaze as cold as the lake outside. “Don’t want you. Not sure how much clearer I can be.”

Something in me loosened in a warm, shameful rush. A small, terrible satisfaction, guilt hard on its heels.

I shouldn’t care. I didn’t.

Something in Aoife’s face shifted, the sweetness dropping away as she snatched her hand away.

Lorcan strode across the room to his door, her on his heels.

“This is her fault, isn’t it?” Her voice sharpened, each word laced with venom. “Rua’s done something to you. Got into your head, made you all fucked up over her.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” His jaw flexed, but his voice stayed even as he opened his door and held it open. “Get out of my fucking room before you embarrass yourself any further.”

Aoife’s hands curled at her side into manicured fists before her heels clacked on the floorboards as she stalked out, her voice low and seething. “This isn’t over.”

“Yeah. It is.” Lorcan pushed the door closed behind her. Then his gaze flashed to the vent with a smirk.

I ducked, climbing down off my desk as quietly as I could, unsure if he saw me peeking through.

Or perhaps he knew all along I was there.

By the time I made it down to where the party was being held, the bonfire had already been lit, the smoke causing a faint shrill noise in the back of my head like it was screaming for me to stay away. The flame punched up into the dark and made the nearby Blackwood Lake shimmer and threw long, lurching shadows across the Lasair grounds.

I walked through the slender gravel paths between the black rosebushes, so dense they looked like walls, and broke out into the clearing.

Silver trays glittered on the surrounding tables. Somewhere behind the costumed and masked crowd stood a champagne waterfall. The whole thing had the quality of a beautiful dream.

I hung by the edge, scanning for Nuala.

Lorcan stood near Rafe and Breezy at the far edge of the firelight, dark shirt open at the collar, his piercing blue eyes set in a black feathered raven mask that covered the top half of his face, revealing his strong jaw. The cigarette between his fingers had burned down to nothing. He looked like something out of a myth, a medieval fairy king who’d wandered into the wrong realm.

Something in my chest pulled taut, and I tore my eyes away.

Finally, I found Nuala, wearing a simple pale-blue off-the-shoulder dress, nothing designer, but it sat well on her delicate frame, and it matched the small silver mask she wore, making her look like an ethereal nymph.

She was standing with Finn, easy to spot because he was the kind of large that rearranged your sense of scale. Broad through the shoulder, dark-haired, with easy good looks.

I noticed how close he was standing to Nuala.

My stomach flipped over a little, hoping it was genuine, hoping he wasn’t there to satisfy one of Lorcan’s twisted little machinations.

Finn nodded at me when I walked over, a single dip of his chin.

“Nu, you look savage,” I said to her.

Nuala pulled me into a hug. “You look unreal, too,” she said against my shoulder. “Genuinely, what even is that dress?”

I pulled back. “Oh. Er.” I could not make myself admit that it was Lorcan’s gift. “This old thing.”

Her brows shot up. “This old thing?” She looked at me like I’d personally offended her. “It has to be couture, right? It fits you like it was sown on ye.”

My skin prickled, because the dress did fit. It fit the way something made specifically for a body fits, every seam sitting where it should.

Somehow, Lorcan had studied me closely enough to know my measurements. The shiver moved down my arms before I could stop it.

I glanced up without meaning to.