Page 17 of Thief of Hearts

Maybe Lia had been right and I shouldn’t have been so resistant to learning to read. This was the second time in as many days that I was embarrassed that I couldn’t.

He reached for my vouchers, knocking them out of my hands. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

Yes, he had. Why?

He bent down to pick up my vouchers and pulled out the one I needed, handing it to the worker. “There you are.”

She looked at my voucher and said to him, “We don’t have anything in stock for women. We’ll have to special order something for her.”

Still without making eye contact with me.

“That’s fine,” he responded. He told the woman what dormitory we were staying in and our room number.

Was that solely for the clothes, or was he hoping she would pay him a visit later?

The expression on her face told me she planned for the latter.

As we walked out of the laundry, he started handing me my vouchers back. “This one is so they can add you to the dining hall, this one gives you access to the gymnasium for training, and this one will get you into the games. Where I’m fairly certain you will be the only woman in attendance.”

“Women don’t watch the tournament?”

“No.”

“Why?”

He grinned. “You’ll see.”

I glanced down at the vouchers in my hand, keeping them in the order he’d handed them to me. He’d been talking this whole time, so it hadn’t registered until now why he’d done what he did—he had realized that I couldn’t read. He’d deliberately knocked them out of my hand.

He hadn’t mentioned it, hadn’t drawn attention to it, hadn’t asked me about it. He had simply moved to help and cover for me so that I wouldn’t be embarrassed. I had always had a great deal of pride, probably more than I should, and he’d made it possible for me to keep it.

So the other competitors wouldn’t know.

My chest felt warm and I didn’t know what that meant. I decided to change the subject. “How do you know where everything is? Didn’t you just arrive as well?” Why else would he have been in the registration area?

“Before I go anywhere, I always get the lay of the land.”

There was something in the way he said it, as if there was much more behind his words.

Who was he?

I came to a stop. “Why did you help me earlier?”

“I despise men who are cruel to women.” He reached into his tunic and pulled out something gold. After a moment I realized it was the pin the registrar had been wearing.

“You stole that? Why? It can’t be worth very much.” When had he done it? I had been there the whole time, watching them both. I hadn’t seen anything.

He placed it in a potted plant. “It isn’t valuable. I just like the idea of him spending hours looking for it.”

Laughter bubbled up out of my throat, and he looked awfully pleased with himself.

“Aiming for a smile and got a laugh. I am good.” He waited for a few beats and then said, “Are you really not going to ask me who I am? Especially after that? I spend a lot of time projecting an air of mystery so that women will be intrigued and ask me questions.”

“That is an asinine way to get women to talk to you.”

“It’s always worked until now.”

Did he want it to work on me? That shouldn’t have made my heart beat a bit faster. “Sorry for being the exception.”