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“She stopped packing up the studio,” Elle answers. “Progress—I think? Though I bet she realizes I’m stalling for time by getting her to teach me how to draw Inky.” Elle sighs. “Today she suggested I’m getting good enough to take over the line. I don’t want that. It would be an honor, yeah, but it would just feel ... wrong.”
I glance at her, my chest going tight.
She doesn’t just admire my aunt, does she?
Elle genuinely cares about her, and what’s best for her.
She wouldn’t even dream of accepting what could be a career-making opportunity, if it means taking anything away from Aunt Clara.
“The fact that you have her drawing again, even if it’s only to teach you, is something no one else has managed. You’re goddamned brilliant,” I tell her.
Blinking, she casts me a startled glance before looking away with a blush that’s so enticing I want to shove her against the nearest wall and kiss her breathless.
For someone so brazen, she can be surprisingly soft.
“It’s nothing,” Elle whispers. “If anything, I’m getting the good end of this. She seems to enjoy drawing again, but I know I’m a pest.”
“You’re no such thing,” I toss back firmly. “She’s not faking it, Elle. It’s easy to tell she enjoys your company.”
I don’t expect the frank question that follows.
“Do you?”
“I—”
Fuck.
I certainly don’t mind it.
How could I? I’m paying you well enough to not be too disagreeable.
But the way she looks at me—the near innocence with which she asked that question, that strange childlike wisdom that demands honesty—has only one answer.
“Yes,” I say firmly.
Of course, she lights up like Christmas.
For such a complex, intelligent young woman, she’s remarkably easy to please at times.
“Why the pause, Gruffykins?”
“Don’t start.” I roll my eyes. She hasn’t let up on that Gruffykins crap at all. “I had to stop myself from demurring, if you must know. Honesty is the best policy with you.”
“With me? Not with others?”
“Not for a long time.” I sigh. The damnable thing about being honest is that once you start, you have to continue. “I don’t outright lie if I can help it, obviously.”
“But you deflect and close off,” she finishes with a small smile like she plucked the words right from my mind.
“Guess those were the words I was looking for. Damn.” I eye her. “You’re starting to get me a little too well, Miss Lark.”
Her lips shine with a mischievous grin. “You mean like how you only call me Miss Lark when you’re trying to create distance.”
“Not this time.”
“Huh? Then were you”—she mock-gasps, fluttering her fingertips to her lips—“teasing me?”
“Now she catches on.” I smirk.
