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Eli’s carwas waiting for us. He opened the passenger door, and I slid into the little blue convertible. If my hand brushed his stomach as I did so, it was purely accidentally, as was the way I looked up at him.
“Temptress.”
I grinned. “Says the faery who just offered me my greatest desire.”
He closed the door and was silent as he entered the driver’s side of the car and eased us into the nighttime traffic.
Once we were zipping through the ever-busy night streets of New Orleans, Eli finally said, “If I could avoid the traditional presentation of the queen, I would.”
“I know.”
Eli added, “And if I wasn’t who I am—”
“A bar owner? A liar?”
“Geneviève, I do not lie,” he stated.
It was true in a manner of speaking. The fae never lie. Omit? Distract? Trick? Those are a kind of mistruth, too, but they are not what the fae consider a lie.
“A man who desperately wants to tell my world and yours to go burn while I lock us away and start to slake the needs we have,” he said, as casually as anything.
“Oh . . . So, this bargain--”
“I would have picked a fiancé from the women there if I could have,” Eli continued. “That was too much of a lie to do, though. I want none of them. No one inElphameor here. Just you.”
“So, we’re really discussing this, then?” I glanced over at him. “No longer avoiding it?”
Eli sighed. “The fae are not renowned for beingdirectwithout reason.”
“What’s your reason?”
“A bargain, love. I want to propose a deal with you.” His voice was somehow even more alluring here in the dark as we zipped through the city. “Are you clever enough to make a bargain with me, Geneviève?”
It would be wrong to throw caution away while he was driving, but his voice did things to my body that some men couldn’t accomplish with their mouths.
“I’m listening,” I said. It was the most I could offer without destroying the peace we were building.
Inside the car, this small bubble of safety where the monsters were unable to get to us, where our issues were tucked away as we rushed off to jobs or meetings, I felt like we could exist outside of time. I wanted that desperately, to ignore the reasons we couldn’t be more. I wanted a simple world. And I suspected I wasn’t alone in that.
The city was alive with too many decorations already. Oak trees draped in cheap balls and tinsel. Mardi Gras beads repurposed as Christmas beads. There was a defiance to the way the city approached festivity.
That defiance made sense to me.
Eli added, “We will go toElphame.We will present ourselves to my family and world. . . unless you can tell me you don’t feel the same. Do you care for me?”
“Obviously.” I sighed loudly. “But some people are not meant to have children. I am n--”
“Did I ask that of you?”
“No but—”
“So, shall I tell His Majesty that we will be there for Yule? Or am I wrong about your regard for me? I can sever our tie, return there, and allow my uncle to select my future bride.” He sounded calm, but I heard the trickle of fear in his voice. “Or you can make a bargain with me.”
The thought of it, of Eli bedding and wedding another person, made my jaw clench. I couldn’t, wouldn’t send him away. “We are a terrible idea, Eli.”
“Do I go home alone or do you feel as I do?”
“You’re . . . not wrong about my feelings,” I admitted. I was the least romantic, least appropriate choice for a man like Eli, but for reasons that I didn’t understand, helikedthat he had my heart. “A wiser man would leave me.”
