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He’d said at dinner that he still intended to marry me, but I now had to doubt the things he promised.
“It’s not,” Eleni said, her eyes turning toward pity. “I’m sure he’ll tell you in his own time. Just not now.”
I knew it was probably private. I knew it probably didn’t have anything to do with me. But I wanted answers now. “He’s in the formal meeting room, isn’t he?”
Lukas hated holding meetings there, which meant it was a good place to go if he didn’t want to be found. Especially by someone who knew him as well as I did.
Eleni’s smirk reappeared. She always used to say that she wished she could peek at the wheels turning in my brain. “You didn’t hear it from me.”
With a quick hug and a promise to catch up further, I all but sprinted to the far end of the house. I only slowed when there were other people in the hallway, passing with a calm smile and politely fielding their welcome back.
When I spotted the brass inlays of the door, reflecting the streaks of sun beaming through the water, I took off again. I didn’t slow down, not until I burst through the door.
Dread pooled heavy in my stomach at what I saw.
Zale, Lukas’s head guard and friend from his days as a soldier, was seated, his demeanor always imposing even though I knew him to be almost diabolical with his humor. Lukas, meanwhile, was pacing behind his desk, his body vibrating with tension.
When Lukas raised his head and saw it was me, he let out a bitter, disbelieving laugh. “If this was a meeting that you were meant to be in, I would have told you.”
Of course, he cut right to the core of my anger. It sliced through my stomach, reminding me how much it hurt when someone who knew you turned that knowledge into a weapon.
My way of triaging the situation was to fight back. “And I’m supposed to trust that?”
Lukas’s eyes flashed with something dangerous. His jaw hardened, his next words barely escaping. “I don’t have the energy to carry you out kicking and screaming.”
With a sharp jerk of his chin, Lukas motioned for me to take the free chair next to Zale. In a way that clearly communicated he was telling me to sit the fuck down. I clenched my fist at my side lest it found its way into his stomach.
Apparently, if I couldn’t touch him the way I wanted to, my body’s next solution was violence.
Stomping over to the seat, I dropped into it and promptly crossed my arms. Zale leaned over and whispered, “Welcome back,” and I almost pushed him out of his chair.
Lukas was staring at me, jaw still hard. Like he was waiting to see if I had anything else to say.
“Go on,” I grumbled, motioning with my hand. Lukas looked like he wanted to grab it. And not in aplease touch meway, but aI’ll rip it offway.
Good look on him.
Lukas stared at me, nostrils flaring as he took in deep, try-not-to-throttle-Daphne breaths before turning his head back to Zale. “I want him under control. If he has a problem, throw his ass in rehab. If he’s just being an asshole then I don’t give a fuck what you do, so long as this shit stops.”
Zale leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “It’s probably the latter. He only seems to be doing this on nights and weekends.”
I sunk down a little in my chair. If this was about who I thought it was, I was wrong. I had no business being here.
I might have, before. If it was to offer comfort and then remind Lukas that he was doing all he could.
“It’s gotten worse?” I asked, my voice coming out soft. I’d seen it in the papers, but something bad must have happened in the past day or two.
Lukas laughed darkly, then reached for a paper on his desk and tossed it toward me.
I sucked in a gasp before I could catch it.
Nikolas, his brother and the former god of the fucking sea, was on the cover. Stumbling out of a nightclub looking green in the gills.
For the love of Zeus.
“Want to admit you were wrong now?” Lukas said, voice biting with sarcasm.
My eyes shot up to meet his, trying to fight the growl building in my throat. He had a unique way of bothering me. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”
