Lyla kept her heartbeat regulated, or at least tried to. Her eyes went to Zephyr who mouthed'hot'while fanning herself, making a chuckle burst out of her.
His hand came to rest on her thigh, his possessive grip burning through the fabric at the sound, strangling it in her throat. She wished she'd picked a dress with a slit so she could have felt the leather on her skin instead.
The catering staff came around and took their orders. Many guests took to the dance floor, the kids all having left the party.
His hand stayed still, not moving, not doing anything as he talked about anything and everything with everyone, motsly asking questions he already knew the answers to—Morana about some codes he'd heard rumors of, Alpha about the underground fighting circuit, Zephyr about her pregnancy, Dante about Lorenzo Maroni's old businesses. Through some feminine intuition, Lyla was suddenly aware of Amara watching her man with focus, a focus she didn't understand and didn't like.
"Have we met before?" Amara asked suddenly, interrupting the conversation he'd been having with Dante. The table stopped, looking at Amara, then collectively at Dainn, who sat with a puzzled expression on his face. Fake puzzlement because Lyla remembered him telling her that he'd met Amara years ago once.
"Have we?" he asked, as any normal person would if they met someone once years ago. God, he was so good at how convincing he was, the reminder of how real he was with Lyla warmed her.
Amara frowned. "I don't know. I feel like we've met before."
Yes, at a conference where he'd asked about coping with child loss for his wife, who hadn't been his wife then but was now legally.
Amara shook her head, trying to place him but failing to. He played along. Everything continued.
And then her brother came back.
At first, he didn't clock the stranger sitting at the table, his focus on Morana as he took the seat next to her. But then his eyes landed on Dainn, his face tightening when he saw him.
"Blackthorne."
"Caine."
Fuck.
Did they know each other?
Lyla's eyes wandered between them, and she realized that Dante's business associate would be known to her brother. In the real world, they knew each other; in the dark world, they didn't.
And sitting next to her lover, whom no one knew, opposite her brother, whom she was just getting to know, Lyla realized that things were getting a whole lot more complicated.