Page 107 of Nothing More

And for Toly’s part…well, he was clearly far afield.

His lashes flickered, a fine tremor dancing along the edge of his jaw when she reached to smooth his hair back off his face and behind his ear. His chest swelled on a deep inhale.

“What?”

The twitch of his lips wasn’t a smile, but a wry ghost of one. An attempt, dashed away as quick as it had come. “I wanted to do that to you last night.”

“What?” She was going to need to go on some sort of medication if her heartbeat kept skipping and swerving like this. “This?” She slipped her fingers through his hair again, following past the shell of his ear to its jagged ends. This was not the haircut of a man who’d hacked at the ends himself with a pair of kitchen scissors; no, it had been cut this way on purpose, by someone who knew what they were doing, knew how to make him look rockstar broody, and the idea warmed her. He had a little bit of vanity after all, wanted to look cool.

He swallowed audibly. “Yeah.”

Not so cool now. As caught-up and twisted and unsure of the next steps as her.

He said, “Everyone’s going to know, now.”

“Let them know.”

He arched a brow. “Your sister?”

She sighed, because it did smart a little, the idea of having to do the walk of shame in front of Cass – but she was determined to be an adult about it. Abouthim. “She’s seventeen, not four. She has to understand that I have–”A love life, she almost said.A boyfriend. “You,” she finished, instead, and something shivered across his face, impossible to parse, before he went grim and nodded. Puffed on his smoke.

“Fine.”

She went to the ensuite to brush her teeth and check that the collar of her gown covered any love bites. He joined her, stony-faced and composed once more, hair tied back in a low knot, wearing last night’s clothes, since his bag was presumably elsewhere in the flat. Raven debated going out ahead of him, providing at least the semblance of having slept separately – but dashed the thought. If everyone was going to know, she might as well leave little doubt.

“Ready?” she asked him.

He made a face. “You sound like we’re going to war.”

“Darling, with my family, war is always a distinct possibility.”

He followed a step behind her down the hall, and just before she turned the corner into the living room, she straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and schooled her features into the same cool, imperious mask she wore to every investor meeting. Toly snorted behind her. “Hush,” she murmured, and strode into the room.

Outwardly, her mask stayed fixed – she would have felt it slip – but inwardly, she wilted. Everyone was in attendance. Her gaze went straight to the big, squashy chair, where Cassandra sat tall, long legs crossed, Tenny perched on the arm of the chair, arm draped across the back of it, like her own personal vulture.

Cass’s gaze was accusatory, and it put a stutter in Raven’s next step, before she composed herself, crossed the rug, and dropped down to sit on a smaller, daintier chair across from her sister. The size difference in the chairs, the position, Tenny looming…she felt like a girl called into the headmistress’s office after being caught smoking in the bathroom.

“Good morning, all,” she greeted. “I’m told there’s news?”

The light scuff of bare feet on the rug and a prickle up the back of her neck told her Toly had taken up a position behind her somewhere, most likely leaning against the sofa table there.

Cass’s gaze flicked up over her shoulder, to where Toly stood, and then back, narrowing, the bright Devin blue of her eyes far-too-focused for this early hour. “I can’t believe you’re shagging,” she said, trace of bitterness in her voice.

“Well, Cassandra,” Raven said, calmly, “people shag. It’s natural.”

Cass pulled a disgusted face. “Yeah, but he’scute. And you’re–”

Raven lifted her brows. “I’m what?”

From the corner of his mouth, Tenny stage-whispered, “Thin ice, thin ice.”

“I’ll thank you to shut your hole, Tennyson,” Raven snapped.

“You’re stuck up!” Cassandra blurted, throwing up her hands, the brief glimmer of headmistress bleeding into teenage indignation. “You treat him like he’ssobeneath you. Why would he shag you when you’re not evenniceto him?”

“Niceisn’t a perquisite for shagging,” Tenny said.

“Ten,no,” Reese said, and spared Raven the trouble.

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