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“Alright, enough. You want my help? Stop laughing and start talking,” I say with a glare and she composes herself, smoothing away a smile with her fingers over her lips.
“I think it’s sending a message. I mean, who are you? A nobody--“ For a moment I bristle, but she waves a hand at me. “I’m nobody too. Most of his staff are nobody’s. Ask Elenora about her story sometime. There’s a reason she’s deathly loyal to Hade, and it’s not the excellent pay or benefits. I think she’d die for him, if it came to that.”
My mouth goes dry.
“Die for him?” I swallow hard.
“He saved her life, and a lot of other people’s too,” she says. “That’s why, for as many rumors about him and what an asshole he is, and as crazy and dangerous as the place is, it’s worth it.” She looks away, her cheeks pinking, and she sighs. “It’s a family.”
“Are you family?” I ask, and she hesitates, her eyes sliding toward me. And says nothing. “Sorry.” She taps her fingers on the clipboard.
“Well, you’re going to be useless to me, but at least now I know what’s going on with him, since he’s been so secretive these last few weeks.” She gets to her feet, and offers me a hand up. I let her pull me. “Let’s go. Hadrion’s waiting.”
I don’t expecthim to come get me himself, but he’s at my door waiting on the upper landing, when I step out, wearing a sleek black suit, and a pair of aviator glasses tucked in the breast pocket.
“Get changed,”he’d told me after he was done conferring with Livvie about some detail about tonight’s event. Get changed, but no further instruction than that. I guessed that he meant, wear something a little upper class than jeans and a sweatshirt, but from the look in my wardrobe, I wasn’t sure what, precisely, that looked like. I picked out a silky cream blouse, and a pair of skinny jeans instead, pairing them with the riding boots that were sitting, glowing like two chestnuts, beside the dresser.
That, and a wool coat, seemed up to the task of fighting the cool breezy afternoon weather. I might look like I was going to an interview, but this was as fancy as I could figure out without getting one of those dresses that looked like they belonged to a red-carpet event, and not whatever he was taking me to do.
When I step out onto the landing, he is silent and still, and I hold my breath as he looks me up and down. His eyes, normally a light gold, are deep and dark, probably from the clouds shadowing the skylight above us.
“Good,” he’s brusque, and takes my arm, leading me out of the apartment, and down the stairs, out to the street. His car is idling at the curb, and the driver opens the door, helping me in. I shift over, holding my purse close to me. “You won’t need that where we’re going,” he says, gesturing to it, and my heart thuds in my throat for a minute until I swallow my pulse down.
“Oh. Okay,” I say softly, shrinking back into my seat. “Sorry.”
He frowns, glancing over at me, his gaze falling to where my hand is curled around the edge of the leather seat, hanging on to retain some grip on reality.
“You don’t need to apologize,” he murmurs, and then reaches out, putting his palm over the back of my hand. The warmth that sparks up my wrist, along my arm, has my lips parting in shock as a shudder racks my shoulders. “I’m throwing you in the deep end and expecting you to swim, Katy, and I know so much of this is beyond you. I hope you’re aware that I’m watching you carefully, and nothing you’ve done has made me unhappy.”
His words go right to my heart. How long has it been since anyone I’m close to has said anything like that to me? My face warms, cheeks tingling, and when he pulls away to clear histhroat, the words are rising up in my throat before I can stop them.
“Except for wanting to catch stray dogs.”
His jaw tenses, and he gives me a side-long, unamused glance, but I can see his eyes crinkling at the corners. He’s laughing! Silently, but laughing.
“That is perhaps one of your least charming traits. The dog fur would never get out of my rugs, and poor Elenora would have a time cleaning up after it,” he comments drily. “You wouldn’t want to make her job any harder, would you?”
I shake my head, no, and he nods, pleased at my answer, and we ride in silence for several more minutes, the city slipping by us. The large towering buildings, their art déco designs, sparkling glass and patina’d copper warp behind a sheet of rain as the storm that’s been threatening finally breaks over on us.
“It’s so pretty,” I breathe, staring up at the buildings, as we pass them by, and Hadrion snorts softly beside me.
“I didn’t pick it because it was pretty,” he says, so quietly I’m sure I’m mistaken, as the car pulls to a stop outside of a large, multi-story building, a mall. There’s a man waiting at a valet stand with a large umbrella, and as the car idles, Hadrion slips out of his side of it, coming around as the valet opens the door for me, holding the umbrella out.
“I’ll take it,” Hadrion says, holding the umbrella over me as I slip out, his hand closing around mine to help me up on to the sidewalk. I see a flash of green from Hadrion’s hand to the valet’s, and the door closes behind me, the car trundling off. “Let’s get you in out of the wet,” Hadrion murmurs to me, and I notice the valet’s eyes on me as we walk away. There’s threesets of double doors set below tall windows in the side of the building, and another man, in a mirror uniform to the valet, opens the door for us.
The first thing I notice is the smell and the temperature. The scent of delicate perfume wafts over me, and the air is warm over my cool cheeks, the sounds of a waterfall splashing somewhere nearby. We’re on the first floor of a department store, but it’s nothing like the low-end one I went to at the first exit off the highway from Lowtown. This place, for instance, isn’t decorated all over with buy-one-get-one yellow advertising posters. Instead, we’re in a women’s makeup and perfume section, clothing off to our left and right, mannequins displaying clothing I know has to cost a whole month’s taking at Hop’s.
“Welcome to Summerland,” Hadrion says, “one of my favorite places to spoil the people I care about, the few of them that there are.”
I’ve never even heard of a store like this, let alone this store in particular. My mouth goes dry as Hadrion passes off the umbrella, offering me his arm again. I take it, my grip on his inner bicep a little more frantic than I’d like, but I can’t help it. He’s solid and warm, and the heat that sparks through me from that contact is almost more than I can handle.
“I thought, for this event, a dress might be appropriate,” he says, his voice quiet. “And now that you’ve come to stay with me, I know none of the colors Elenora picked for you will suit.” He gazes down at me, assessing me, and apparently he likes what he says, because he says nothing else, but takes a right turn, and we start walking toward a glittering beacon of femininity. Up ahead is a section of the store that clearly caters to clientele so far above my own rank as busser and table-washer at our family dive bar that it may as well be on another plane of existence.
“Oh, I can’t,” I murmur, and Hadrion stops.
“Katy,” his voice is gentle. “Please don’t say no.” He pauses. “I have no interest in taking no for an answer.” His eyes gleam in the soft diffused overhead lighting. “I’ve chosen you, out of so many, to represent my brand, to represent Underworld. Yours is the face they will see tonight, and know that--“
“Hello sir, it’s so wonderful to welcome you back to Summerland,” a woman says, older from the threaded gray hairs in her red curls, the lines at the corners of her eyes doing nothing to diminish her own beauty. She’s dressed impeccably, a suit, a skirt, a crisp white blouse, and her smile is friendly and kindly when her eyes light on me, and my insides twist at her words.
