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“Not too tight?” I ask, tracing the vintage, heirloom choker with my thumbs from the clasp to the front.
“No.”
“Good.” Turning her to face me, I can’t resist the urge to bracket both of the Vs of my hands around the necklace. “Now you look perfect.”
“A perfectly nervous wreck.” The remark is a bluster of sweet breath that I suck into my lungs greedily.
“No,” I correct her, hardly able to muster the words properly with the way my chest is squeezing my lungs and my stomach is twisting at the sight of her.
There are really no words to express how she looks or what she is. In fact, that says it all. There is nothing, nor has there ever been anything like her. Eve is the set precedent. Whether she knows it or not, she’s a goddess. A fucking saint with the smile of a sinner and the lure of a devil. Eve’s everything I never knew I needed and everything I’ve ever wanted.
“You look perfectly beautiful, my darling Eve.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
EVE
Lights, camera, action, and everything in between. I’m sandwiched between the Princess Royal, Madeline Dorchester, and Henry. It feels odd sitting with all these people that have known each other from childhood, yet here I am, holding a constant smile because I’m a stranger. Even in expensive clothes and glittering jewels, I’m nothing like them.
“Henry said you like music,” the Princess says, leaning into the space between us so that she doesn’t have to raise her voice over the cacophony of the chatter around us. “My uncle used to like music too.”
Returning her smile, I nod. It’s hard to think straight when Henry’s hand is on my thigh. My pulse refuses to settle, and when he squeezes my flesh, it’s impossible not to squirm on my chair.
“Someone somewhere once said that music is the food of the soul,” I say after a beat. It takes more effort than it should to keep my voice level.
“Yes, the language of feeling and passion,” she sighs with a dreamy sway. “I’ve never been one for words and reason.” With an affectionate grin, she adds, “I leave that to the buttoned-up types.”
“It’s a luxury only the baby can afford,” Henry retorts, giving her a mock glare across me.
If he believes that gentleness isn’t in his capacity, he doesn’t know himself. Not one bit. Especially with the way he looks at her. His affection for her is overwhelmingly palpable, something that strikes an odd chord with me as I look between them. The jealousy of his care for her comes from nowhere, but I can’t bring myself to feel bad for it. If anything, I want to steal all of that affection he holds for his cousin to myself.
“I’m not a bloody baby,” Madeline huffs with a defiant roll of her eyes at him. “I’m twenty-three in thirty-four days.”
She’s four years older than me, and he calls her a baby.
“Stop being agist,” I remind Henry quietly, stealing his attention back to me when Princess Madeline focuses on Julian. He’s so morose that glancing at him from across the table feels like an intrusion.
Moulding his hand to my face, Henry leans closer, guiding me the rest of the way until his lips meet my ear. “I believe that in our earlier discussion, we ascertained that I am most certainly not agist. In the slightest.” He punctuates the last statement with a rough stroke of his other hand up my thigh.
When he pulls back, his stare locks on mine, so dark that the whole world comes alive in their depths. I’m bewitched by the magic in his eyes. Lurid. Volatile. So fucking beautiful that I can’t catch my breath. My chest squeezes so tight that my heart threatens to explode with the overwhelming emotion pulsing through it.
I don’t know what he is, but what I know is that Henry Sloane isn’t the sun, the moon, or the stars. He’s everything. And there’s nothing I can do to contain the way I feel about him as it sparks and flames through every nook and cranny of my existence.
“It’s time, darling,” he says, stroking over the bejewelled choker around my throat with his thumb.
“Time?”
A molten grin pulls at one side of his lips. “To go, Eve.”
“Do you have to?” Madeline asks with an over-the-top whine as Henry stands and offers me his hand.
“Yes, do you have to?” The Prince echoes her words in more of a grumble. Blue eyes narrow on mine with a cocky grin. “You’re welcome to stay with the fun people.”
“Thank you, Your Highness, but too much of a good thing is bad for you.”
Which is just as well that Henry is bad and dirty through and through because I can’t get enough of him.
“Stay out of trouble,” Henry tells his cousin before he has a chance to reply to my remark.
