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I try not to think about that as the maître d’ leads me through the dimly lit main floor, to a round banquette of soft ivory leather. Ashton waits there, his coppery hair combed back and brushing the collar of his expensive suit jacket. He rises with a broad smile, takes my hands and kisses my cheek. “I almost gave up on you.”
I wish you would. I physically bite my tongue to keep from saying it. “I’m sorry. I got turned around on the way here.”
He frowns as we slide into our seats. “You drove yourself?”
“Mmhm,” I affirm through my closed lip smile.
“You shouldn’t have.” His concern is infantilizing and infuriating.
“Why not?” I tilt my head and pick up the wine list that was left for us on the table. There’s a reason I drove myself tonight: the car is a good excuse not to go home with him. After all, I can’t just leave a Bentley in a parking garage overnight, even at a pack-owned establishment.
“Toronto is a dangerous city,” he says, as if I didn’t live in London for five years on my own.
“I know,” I say, practically gritting my back teeth.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. You won’t drive yourself when we’re married.” He pauses as the waiter stops at our table and, without asking my preference at all, orders us a bottle of Pinot Grigio and an antipasto platter.
It annoys me so much that I can’t help but tell him, “I don’t care for olives,” in my iciest tone.
“Oh?” He’s completely nonchalant about it, the same way he was about the driving ban he just announced. “I’ll note that for next time.”
There won’t be a next time. I want to shout it in his smug face. My only regret about this situation with Nathan is that I won’t see Ashton’s face when he learns that he’s lost me.
Not that he’s ever truly had me. Even if we did end up mates—and I will leave the pack before that can happen—he will never know me and he damned sure won’t own me.
“Bailey,” Ashton begins with an embarrassed little chuckle. “Please, don’t think me jealous or possessive, but I must know what happened at Aconitum Hall, between you and the king.”
For a moment, my heart stops. Every clink of silverware and whisper of conversation in the restaurant is deafening. It’s just two rapid blinks before I realize he’s talking about the dinner and not the part where I almost fucked Nathan on his couch.
“Now that I’ve said it out loud, it does sound jealous. But how could I be jealous if I didn’t truly care about you?” His eyes widen and for a moment I actually feel bad for him. “Indulge me?”
“It was nothing,” I reassure him. Because that night, it really wasn’t. “It was about a strange coincidence. And he wanted to apologize about the ball. He didn’t realize that dancing with me would be such a big deal.”
Ashton seizes on the first part. “What coincidence?”
I wave a hand. “It’s just weird. He invoked the Right of Accord when he was young and he’d never met anyone else who had.”
This doesn’t seem to minimize the event at all for Ashton. “He invoked the Right of Accord?”
“Yeah. Isn’t it weird that he knew about it?” I force a laugh. “I found it accidentally because I’m a book nerd. I guess he must be, too.”
“There are better hobbies than reading,” Ashton observes. “I’m sure you’ll find one.”
My face flushes with anger. “I hope you don’t expect that I’ll just stop doing the things I like to do because we’re married.” I know it doesn’t matter, because I won’t be married to him, but it infuriates me that he would even think he had the right—
“Of course, I do.” He’s so chipper about it, I have a sudden urge to lunge across the table and stab him. “Not everything. But you’re not going to have time to comb through dusty old history books at the library for hours and still have time to be a good mate to me.”
“Have you considered how you’re going to be a good mate to me?” I ask, propping my elbows on the table and resting my chin on the back of my stacked hands.
That makes him laugh. “Do you think I don’t intend to provide for you?”
“That’s not what I’m asking.” I bat my eyelashes and feign innocence.
He’s taken aback, judging by the way he shifts in his seat. “Well… Earlier this year, I bought a vacation home in Negril. That’s in—”
“Jamaica. I know geography.”
“Of course.” He flashes me his dazzling smile. “There’s the family yacht, and I’ve recently put my apartment on the market. I thought we could buy something nearer to your parents. I know you won’t want to be far from them.”
“I don’t even like my parents,” I blurt.
