Page 20 of House of Hearts
I watch, captivated, as the fox mask slips off the boy’s face.
Calvin Lockwell.
I don’t know how I didn’t sense it before. I feel like the hairs on the back of my neck should’ve tingled or I should’ve caught a whiff of his signature cologne, a spiced floral blend of ginger and lavender.
He’s drenched from the storm. My eyes rake down his body, the wet shirt clinging to his chest, the rain tracing a lover’s path from his temple down his cheek before dripping off his jaw.
All at once, the world comes back to full sounds. The torrential pour of rain slapping against the hard ground, the roar of the wind, the labored sound of Calvin’s ragged breathing as we lie there, staring at each other.
“This is becoming a bad habit,” he muses when he rediscovers his voice. It’s pitched higher in his throat. “How many times are we going to keep falling for each other?”
I don’t have it in me to summon a clever retort to that. “You don’t understand,” I insist instead, and maybe I don’t understand either. None of what happened is possible, and yet reason and logic don’t seem to matter.
“You’re right. I don’t,” he echoes tersely. His voice is wound taut inhis throat, and his attention narrows to my collarbone—on the pendant swinging between us. Recognition flares hot. “But I think I’m starting to.”
He pulls me closer with a hook of his finger and a tug of the chain. We’re a whisper apart, but his focus is solely on the cool metal in his fingertips. If anyone saw us like this, they might think it romantic. The two of us, rain drenched and pressed into each other on a hidden balcony, our breath clouded together in a shared fog, his lashes tickling my cheeks.
But there’s no misreading this situation. Especially not when his glare cuts sharply back up my face. “This doesn’t belong to you.”
“Doesn’t it?” I counter, ripping myself from his embrace and staggering to my feet. “It’s on my neck, isn’t it? Wouldn’t that constitute some form of ownership?”
He squints at me for a minute, his expression difficult to read, before he finally turns and grabs one of the kitten heels on the ground. He toys with my shoe in his hand, brushing a thumb against the sequins before holding the shoe out of reach.
“Give me my shoe, Lockwell.” I utter his surname like the curse it is and extend an impatient hand his way.
His gaze slants downward, his expression smug beneath the blond sweep of his lashes. “It’s in my hand, isn’t it? Wouldn’t that constitute some form of ownership?”
You’ve got to be kidding me.
“Hysterical.” I’ve got him against the French doors, my one hand holding a fistful of his tie and the other grappling while I’m on my tiptoes to reach. “I’m not playing this game with you. Give it back.”
“That’s what this night is about,” he reminds me. Rainwater sluices down the arch of his brow, and I watch a droplet disappear between his parted lips. “Or have you forgotten?”
I flex my toes against the cold tile, and I don’t miss how surreal this situation is. The horrors I witnessed minutes ago are eclipsed by this irritating human in front of me. “Whatever, keep my shoe. Maybe it’ll fit you.”
He scoffs down at me. “Games are only fun when two people are playing.”
I lift my chin to meet his eyes. “Have you considered I don’t want to play a game with you?”
Calvin swallows, his throat bobbing with the action. “You’ve been playing one from the very start,” he corrects. “I’ll give it back if you answer my question. Who gave you that necklace?”
I toy with the silver chain, looping it anxiously around my finger. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because I know it doesn’t belong to you.”
I grapple for the right answer to give him—whatever half truth I can offer that doesn’t get me immediately kicked out of this manor and expelled from Hart. “Emoree, when she insinuated your brother killed her” won’t get my shoe back.
“It was a gift.”
“From who?” he presses, but instead of answering him, I slip out of my left shoe and offer it up to him as a matching set.
“The same girl I followed out here,” I say, injecting the truth with enough syrupy sweetness that it rolls off smoother than any lie. “Or didn’t you see her? I swear she was just here. Weird, maybe she disappeared.”
He studies my expression, his brows set in a harsh line. “Has anyone told you how aggravating you are?”
“Once or twice,” I retort with a defiant jut of my chin. “Thoughthey typically haven’t also chased me onto deserted balconies.”
His ears tickle a flustered shade of pink. “You’re lucky I did.”
