Page 74 of Violet

“I know nothing about you,” she counters.

Well, fuck. She got me there.

I take a sip of the wine, wishing I had ordered myself something stronger. “What do you want to know?”

She rubs her lips together and looks over to where her sister sits eating an assortment of mini quiches. When her gaze comes back to mine, she says, “Did you always want to be an actor?”

Standard interview question. One I’ve answered thousands of times before. But the question now is do I give her my rehearsed interview answer or the truth?

The truth is more boring, but…

“No. I wanted to be a writer,” I say.

“Like writing books?”

I shake my head. “Not specifically books, no. I always liked plays, scripts, that sort of thing. But apparently my face is meant to be in front of the camera. Not behind it. So I took the opportunity and ran with it.”

She perks up, sitting up in her chair. “Do you still write?”

“Not as much as I used to,” I confess. “It’s hard to when shooting days are so long, and then there’s rehearsals, and public appearances.”

“I would have never guessed a writer. And are these scripts romances like your movies?”

“The complete opposite, actually. Dramas.”

“Like…soap operas?” She laughs, trying to conceal it by covering her mouth.

“Hey. Nothing wrong with soap operas. I co-starred in a couple of them.” When she continues to laugh, a light-hearted, airy sound, I take her hand away from her mouth and place it on the table between us.

“You really don’t watch TV much, do you?”

“Sorry.” Her gaze drops to my hand covering hers, and we both pause. A single touch. The one thing I told myself I wouldn’t do, and here we are.

And as expected, the simple connection is like a zap right to my cock, my body instantly being able to sense her heat and wanting to rut.

“I hate to break up this little love-fest.” Iris is there beside our table suddenly, looking grim. “But the Monarch has just entered the building and is about to sit just a stone’s throw away. I suggest we cut this short.”

A quick glimpse around Iris to the large round table on the opposite side of the room confirms what she said. Sophine, dressed in a navy pantsuit and matching hair brooch, walks over to it, with Fredrick and two security guards in tow. When she sits, her gaze fixes on me, and she presses two fingers to her neck then taps her wrist.

It’s a warning.

I don’t have much time to give Violet a mark.

Bitch.

I stand. “Yeah. It’s time to go.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

Violet

Iris sneaks into my room later that night.

We’re past the age of sneaking about when everyone’s asleep, but she’s in silly pajamas in bright pink—the only pink I ever really see her wear—holding milk in an old-fashioned white glass bottle and a tray heaped with chocolate chip cookies.

It makes me smile.

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