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I turn, slightly alarmed. “Which one?”
“You’ve introduced me to your mum,” Willow says, “you might as well introduce me to your friends.”
But I’ve spotted the couple in question. Zachary Blackwood and Theodora Dorokhova are difficult to miss: they radiate beauty and elegance like they’re emissaries from heaven itself.
Theodora, in celestial blue silk and a thin crownlet of pearls, has her cheek resting lightly on Zachary’s shoulder as they stand by the foot of an enormous painting. Knowing them, they’re probably deep in some intellectual debate about the painting’s subject or discussing the history of Coram Ridge Manor.
I take Willow by her waist and drag her to me. “Trust me, Lynch, we’re better off keeping as far away from them as possible.”
But just as I finish the sentence, Zach turns his head to deposit a kiss on top of Theodora’s golden head, and his eyes meet mine. His mouth tilts into a solemn smile.
“Don’t be a killjoy, Luca,” Willow says and drops a heavy peck on my cheek, like she’s trying to make sure she leaves a lipstick print behind. “Let me meet your hot friends.”
“These are not my hot friends, these are my deplorably dull fr—”
Zachary and Theodora, turning as a unit and gliding over the green tiling, reach us before I can complete my sentence.
“Fletch.” Zachary greets me with a frosty smile.
“Bishop.” I turn to Theodora. “Theodora—you look beautiful.”
Zachary’s arm tightens ever so slightly around Theodora’s waist. He never liked me much to begin with, but Zachary hashatedme ever since I claimed to have kissed his Theodora. He poisoned me for it, and I have no doubt Zachary could have killed me had I lied about doing anything further.
Willow watches this short exchange with barely disguised glee. She greets Theodora with a kiss on the cheek, like a long-lost friend or a sister-in-law, and gives Zachary her hand.
“Willow Lynch. Charmed.”
Zachary, ever the gentleman, kisses the air right above her knuckle. “Zachary Blackwood.” He looks from Willow to me with a slight curl of his lips. “I see the rumours are true, then. Have you finally been struck by Cupid’s arrow, Luca?”
He doesn’t even bother concealing his sarcasm. Theodora, with a little tap of her graceful hand on his shoulder, says, “Pleasure to meet you, Willow.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Willow retorts, ignoring my hand on her waist as I subtly try to tug her away. “It’s an honour to meet Luca’s closest friends—I’ve heard so much about you two, I feel as though we’ve already known each other for years.”
I dig my fingers into her ribs, but she doesn’t so much as flinch. Even Zachary isn’t as composed as she is; he frowns slightly beneath the frames of his glasses.
“Closest friends?”
“And how did you two meet, then?” Theodora hastens to ask Willow. “We’re all dying to know the story of how Luca Fletcher-Lowe finally met his match.”
“CHOKE,” I answer for Willow.
My response is quick and calculated. Zachary and Theodora are both well aware of my club’s reputation: it’ll help them form a specific opinion of Willow. Whatever game that poisonous witch is playing, I can play better.
But Willow, utterly unfazed, flutters her eyelashes at Theodora like she’s pathos personified.
“Oh, it’s rather a sad story,” she says in querulous tones. “I’m not sure you would care to hear it.”
“I would love nothing more than to hear it,” Theodora says, exchanging a half-smile with Zachary.
“Well.” Willow lowers her voice like she’s sharing an intimate secret. “Imagine a dark bar, a hopeless girl who has recently losther mother, and a young man drinking alone on Halloween. A pitiful scene for a love story to begin with, isn’t it?”
Willow using her own mother’s suicide to garner sympathy from my aristocratic friends is just the kind of thing that ought not to shock me any longer, and yet it still does.
I watch her with narrowed eyes, and a muscle twitches in my jaw. It took her months, not to mention me saving her literal life, to mention her mother’s death to me—but she tells Zachary and Theo after barely knowing them a minute?
“Oh,” Theo says, covering her mouth, genuinely touched. “I’m sorry for your loss, Willow.”
Willow reaches out a hand to squeeze her arm. “You’re too kind—please, don’t feel so sorry for me. Life often takes from us before it grants us gifts.” She plasters the length of her body against the side of mine, gazes soulfully up into my eyes, then looks back at Theo with a playful smile. “Sometimes, I’m not sure who’s luckier: me for having found Luca or Luca for having found me.”
