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I hurl those thoughts away, shaking my head.
I wish we had a stalker as attentive as the one who caught the photos in the airport right now. This moment would be picture perfect as I settle the coat on her shoulders and offer her my arm.
“It’s not far,” I say, as if she can’t see the Space Needle’s spire stabbing up into the night. “You’ll warm up soon. Can you tell me more about Aunt Clara? What did she say earlier?”
“Hmm, let me think . . .”
Elle slips her arm into mine and cocks her head thoughtfully.
I’m caught up in the way the soft light of the lamps falls against her hair. I half expect to see light pooling at the tips like golden raindrops waiting to fall.
“She had me help her start packing up her things,” Elle says finally. I don’t miss how she subtly leans into me as we make our way down the sidewalk. “The old clay penguin models, the first-run figurines, her old concept sketches and original storyboards.”
She stops me before I can open my mouth, her fingers squeezing my arm reassuringly.
“August, please don’t lose your shit. Honestly, I think she was doing it more to spite you than anything else.”
“She is my aunt,” I grind out.
“She is.” Elle’s laugh is whisper sweet. “But it felt like she didn’t really want to. The way she handled everything? She touched it all with love, August. Almost like she couldn’t stand to part with it. I don’t think she really wants to give up the Inky IP. And if she had lied, she’d be more angry, I think.”
“More of your impeccable insights into human nature?”
“Psssh, I wish.”
Sometimes, when Elle smiles, instead of seeming young and exuberant, she seems sad and ageless. Like she’s some strange spirit who’s only taken human form temporarily.
That melancholy timelessness is in her smile now as she lowers her lashes.
“You know, I don’t think I understand people that well. But I might understand her a little. If she’d stolen that work from Lester Sullivan, then in her mind, the theft had to feel justified for some weird reason. So now if someone wants to take it from her, she’d feel angry and guilty. She’d be giving up the IP to avoid having to openly admit her guilt, but she’d still be angry about having to do it. And thanks to you, now I know what Clara Marshall looks like when she’s angry.” Elle laughs again. “It’s a lot like you. And she definitely wasn’t angry earlier. She was grieving—but I don’t think she was just grieving Inky.”
Damn.
That’s a hell of a lot to think about.
I work through what’s happened so far and where we go from here—and how to stop Marissa Sullivan from pulling the floor out from under us.
I don’t want to think it’s even possible that Clara could be guilty of intellectual property theft. That she’s only faking her regret so people as trusting as Elle won’t doubt her or believe she could possibly do something so reprehensible.
A light play of fingers up my arm draws my attention, and I look down at her.
“What?”
She flashes me a wicked smile. “Have I done my job as your informant?”
“I didn’t mean—” I stop and sigh. “Fuck. I suppose I have put you in that position, haven’t I?”
“If you were anyone else ... I’d say something about you putting me in other positions.”
“Eleanor Lark. You’re really going to go there?” I growl—and she bursts into a laughing fit, the sound floating like fireflies over the night.
“My full name? I really scandalized His Lordship, huh?” Utterly shameless, she grins wider, looking up at me with her hazel eyes twinkling. The tilt of her head gives her lips a kissable pout, pink and plush. “I’m sorry. I only said it to see the look on your face. Totally worth it, by the way.”
“Incorrigible brat.”
I look away, glaring across the street instead.
Only because if I don’t scowl, my face might betray too much.
