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“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” she said, laughing it off. “You’re just like my brothers. You worry too much about me.”
He held her hand in his, looking down at her fingers as he smoothed them between his. “We worry an appropriate amount,” he said, joking at first, but his expression darkened again.
She frowned at that, wondering what he knew that she didn’t, until she saw Abbe and Rafe joining them at their table.
“Did you see Cassiel talking to that reporter?” Abbe asked, her eyes flashing with intrigue.
“Talk,” Bianca said, pulling Abbe down in the seat next to her and leaving her brother to stand with Elias.
Abbe grinned mischievously. “Sparks like you wouldn’t believe!”
Bianca’s jaw dropped. “With the reporter? No,” she said, shaking her head immediately. “Cat is like Cassiel’s arch nemesis.”
“Uh-huh,” Abbe said, her face pixie-naughty as she took a sip of champagne. “Sparks are sparks, and the heart wants what the heart wants.”
“I don’t think what we saw had anything to do with Cass’ heart,” Rafe commented. “Aim a little lower, Hon.”
Bianca snickered and spotted Cassiel coming toward their table, looking impeccable if a bit standoffish. His cheeks did look a little flushed, but whether from anger or attraction, it was impossible to say.
“Here he comes, here he comes,” she said, rearranging her face so she was gaping like a bumpkin, but she was a bit shocked.
In typical Loring style, Cassiel was always in and out of relationships, usually with model-types that were as easy for him to put down as they had been to pick up. It wasn’t unheard of that he could start to show interest in someone in particular—her brother Rafe had been the same. But Abbe was squeaky clean, and in fact, she did more to brush up his reputation than endanger it. For Cassiel, who was always so concerned with maintaining the Loring family’s mystique, to show interest in someone who was an actual threat to their family’s privacy was something she couldn’t imagine him doing in earnest.
By the time Cassiel had made it across the room and joined them, she could tell he was still a little angry, but he seemed like he was more outwardly composed, if not inwardly. His hand shook a bit when he unbuttoned the front of his dinner jacket to sit down.
Rafe studied his younger brother for a moment with half of his face cocked in a teasing smile. “How did the rest of your interview go with Cat?” he asked.
“Great,” Cassiel replied. He looked at the champagne waiting for him. “That’s not going to get it done,” he said and waved a server over. “Lagavulin on the rocks,” he ordered. When the server left, he looked up at everyone staring at him. “What?” he asked, tugging down the cuffs of his shirt under her jacket.
“You seem a little riled,” Bianca noticed. “Did Cat say something to you?”
“Say that word again in relation to anything but a feline, and I’m leaving,” he said with a smug smile on his face. “Anything else you want to ask about her?”
Bianca held up her hands, laughing. “Nope!”
The tables filled up fast, and Bianca was busy catching up with other families and bringing Elias to neighboring tables to introduce him, when she heard a voice behind her.
“And of course, Bianca Loring is here, sitting at the very best table,” Ben Goh said in a bombastic voice as he emerged from the crowd with his black tie slightly askew. “And who isthiswith her?”
He eyed Elias, looking almost offended, and then faced Bianca.
“Noway. Asian?” he said, like he couldn’t believe it.
“You got a problem?” Elias asked, his posture stiffening as he positioned himself between Bianca and Ben.
He was about three inches taller than Ben, and he had a least thirty pounds of muscle on him as well. And Bianca knew he was wearing his gun under his jacket, not that he needed it. Even if he hadn’t been armed, physically it wasn’t a fair fight.
Elias said something to Ben that Bianca didn’t understand.
“And he speaksMandarin,” Ben said. “Well, now I’m just insulted.” He finally looked at Elias and said something back to him in Mandarin.
Bianca could feel anger mounting in Elias, and she put her hand on his arm. “Just ignore him,” she said, trying to pull Elias away.
“She’s fire, right? Always was, even all the way back in sixth grade,” Ben said. “Do you have any idea how many times I jerked off to that ass—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish what he was going to say because Elias grabbed him by the front of his shirt.
Suddenly, Cassiel was on one side of Elias, and Rafe was on his other side.
