Page 10 of The Alpha's Mail Order Bride

Darion just looked at her, steady as granite. He wasn’t an easy man to read, that much was certain. People like that usually made her feel anxious, but for some reason that didn’t seem to be the case here. Maybe it was the extreme horror of the entire situation drowning out the more subtle nuances of social anxiety. Or maybe it was just how nice he was to look at, even if she couldn’t ascertain the first thing about what he was thinking or feeling. She’d been deceived about a lot of the details of this situation, but one thing that Reeve hadn’t misrepresented was just how handsome his brother was. If anything, the photos didn’t do him justice. Focus, she reminded herself firmly as she reached down for her suitcase. This isn’t a date.

She was on her feet and already planning her confrontation with Reeve when she heard Darion clear his throat behind her. “No need. Sunset is soon, you’ve got your things—you could stay here, if you’d like.” Claire was surprised by the offer, and something about a brief flicker in Darion’s eyes made her wonder whether he hadn’t surprised himself, too. “We can speak to Reeve together, in the morning.”

“Are you sure?” An automatic gesture. Claire had been raised around the kind of people whose automatic gestures of hospitality weren’t always intended to be taken up—one or two polite refusals were needed to confirm whether the offer was actually genuine. Suzanne, who never made an offer she didn’t mean, found the concept utterly maddening. From the look of puzzlement on Darion’s face, Claire surmised that he belonged to a similar school of thought to her best friend. “I mean, I’ve already imposed on you so much—”

“Exactly,” Darion said with a shrug. “You’re here anyway. Might as well stay. There are two spare rooms upstairs,” he added, gesturing over his shoulder toward the end of the hallway, where she could see varnished wooden steps disappearing to an upper landing. “One’s a nursery, but there’s a bed made up in the other.”

“Oh?” A sudden flutter in her chest as she remembered the photo of Darion cradling a baby in his enormous hands. It suddenly felt wrong that she’d seen that side of him, now that she knew the profile hadn’t been posted with his approval. “Do you have children?”

“No.” His voice was gruff as ever, but she didn’t miss the slight softening of his expression as he continued. “But my niece comes to stay, sometimes.”

Claire couldn’t help herself. “That’s lovely. What’s her name?”

“Ilya.” He seemed a little surprised by her interest. “She isn’t here,” he clarified. “You won’t be disturbed by crying, if that’s what you’re worried about—”

“No, I was just curious,” she said, flushing a little. “I’d—that’s very kind of you, to let me stay. Thanks.”

“The least I can do,” he said, his expression darkening. “Given the way you’ve been treated.”

“It’s not your fault. Your brother—”

“—is my brother, and I bear his responsibilities alongside my own.” He spoke the words with an odd finality, as though drawing an argument to a close. “We’ll eat. You can tell me more about what my brother did. We’ll make a plan to reverse his actions and get you back to where you belong.”

Where she belonged, she thought, fighting a strange sense of disappointment as Darion took her suitcase and headed for the stairs. And where, exactly, was that? She didn’t have a new place lined up back home—she’d left most of her belongings in the storage locker, save for the precious essentials she’d packed in the suitcase Darion was currently holding as though it weighed less than a pound. And now that she’d actually left the city, it felt strangely arbitrary to go back.

But she couldn’t stay with Darion, no matter what his brother had promised her. The situation was bad enough already without adding an extended stay with an unwilling stranger to the mix. It was kind of him to invite her to stay this one night, she told herself firmly as Darion left her and her suitcase in the guest bedroom. Gratitude for what she had, not desire for what she didn’t, that had always been her motto. And what she had right now was a very comfortable-looking bed in a sweet little cottage in a tropical paradise. Sure, she wouldn’t be staying nearly as long as she’d hoped…but she may as well enjoy what time she had here. Sure, the conversation she’d just been through had been just about the most humiliating experience of her life, but it wasn’t every day that she got to visit a tropical island. At the very least she’d have a hell of a story to tell Suzanne.

Which reminded her—she frowned down at her phone. No service on the island. Reeve had warned her that would be the case. Still, at least there was Wi-Fi. She’d gotten the impression from Reeve that this was a recent development, so she resisted the urge to groan when she realized just how slow it was. Claire tapped out a quick email to Suzanne, confirming that she was still alive and promising a longer update later, then headed back downstairs. Part of her was worried that Darion might have changed his mind about letting her stay. He’d made it clear that it was his brother he was angry with, not her, but she’d always had a habit of taking other people’s bad moods personally.

She lingered in the hallway for a moment, curious to observe Darion in his natural environment. He was in the kitchen, methodically cutting up onions with those fascinating silver eyes fixed in front of him. He hadn’t seen her, and Claire let her gaze roam across his body in a way she wouldn’t have dared to allow herself with him looking back at her. She lingered particularly on his shoulders, on the impossible lines of his broad, powerful frame. Had she ever actually met someone who was built like that? He seemed—unreal, somehow. Almost like a cartoon character, but that wasn’t quite right. Cartoon characters were unreal because they were shallow. Something about Darion feltdeeperthan the rest of the world. It was as though he had his own gravitational field, drawing everything inexorably toward him.

Claire realized, abruptly, that those silver eyes were no longer fixed away. He was looking straight back at her, his face open, one eyebrow quirked ever so slightly in something between a question and a challenge. For a moment, she froze solid, a strange lightning shooting down her spine the way it had when he’d reached out to catch her elbow on the doorstep earlier. For a moment, there wasn’t a single thought in her mind.

Then sound broke into the space between them, and the eerie paralysis was broken. Claire cleared her throat and ducked her head, letting her hair swing into her face in the vague hope that it might hide the blush rising to her cheeks. Darion had turned back to the stove, where something was beginning to sizzle, and when he turned back a few moments later his face was that same impassive mask again, leaving her wondering if she might have imagined that frozen moment they shared.

“What’s that?” he asked, nodding at her. Claire blinked in surprise, glancing down to realize she’d completely forgotten about the bottle of wine she was holding. She was grateful she’d at least hung onto it—she’d absent-mindedly dropped more than a few bottles in her time, and something told her this one was a little more expensive than her usual fare.

“Reeve sent it along with me,” she explained, setting it on the kitchen counter for Darion’s perusal. Darion’s expression darkened, and Claire decided against adding that his brother had described it as a wedding gift. “We don’t have to drink it, if—”

“Oh, we’ll be drinking it,” Darion said grimly, his expression foreboding, and Claire heard a giggle escape her before she could stop it. “What?”

“Sorry. You just—that was an incredibly threatening way to describe sharing a bottle of wine.”

A slight crease appeared between his brows. “Sorry.”

“No need.” She moved into the kitchen, glancing curiously at the pan of stir-fried vegetables that was sizzling on the stove. “Can I help with anything?”

“Don’t touch that,” Darion said sharply, his voice filling the space with an immediacy and a pressure that sent her body recoiling back from the pan she’d been reaching for before her mind could even process the order. “I have a certain way of doing things.”

“Understood,” Claire said, fighting another sudden and giddy urge to laugh. Maybe she was in shock, she thought faintly. Maybe it was all finally catching up with her. “I’ll stay out of the way, shall I?”

“I think that would be best.”

It had been a long time since anyone had cooked for her. Suzanne famously refused to make anything that required more preparation than a microwave, and none of the men she’d dated had ever considered putting in more effort than simply turning up for their dates. She watched the careful, fastidious way Darion cooked, ingredients added one by one to the pan with a machine-like precision. She was almost as fascinated by the way he moved as she was by the way he looked. If he was aware of the scrutiny he was under, he didn’t let on, but he did eventually make the concession of assigning her the task of retrieving two glasses and a corkscrew for the wine. Hoping she didn’t look quite as nervous as she felt—a curious Google search had told her the bottle she was holding had cost more than her last apartment’s security deposit—Claire poured them each a glass, then joined Darion at the dining table. He’d set their plates down and was waiting a little awkwardly by the table.

“I don’t think I’ve ever sat here,” he said as they settled in at the table. Claire blinked.

“Really?”

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