“Do I meet with your approval?” he asked, as he resumed his seat.
“Oh, this dress up thing is for approval then?”
Wariness entered his eyes, causing them to crinkle at the corners. He’d realized his misstep.
“No, of course not. Thank you for the thoughtful gift. How did you know my size?”
I sat the wine glass on the table. “I’m observant.”
He adjusted in his seat a few times and I could tell he wasn’t sure how to take me dressing him for a change. “It’s actually impressive how well it fits. Did you steal one of my other suits?”
I cocked my head and narrowed my eyes. “I don’t have to steal your suits when I know the name of your tailor.”
Thankfully, Holly arrived with dinner before he could dig himself into more of a hole.
As usual, the spread was huge and delicious. I ate as much as I could and watched Fin from the corner of my eyes. He settled about a minute into the meal and stopped fidgeting so much. His willingness to wear what I brought him thawed something in my chest that had frozen over since the night at Esteban’s ball when I was almost killed. I did like Fin. I liked him a lot. As dangerous as that prospect would be for me, I decided to enjoy it while it lasted.
Fin refilled my wine glass and settled back into his seat while I dug into the cheesecake Holly brought for dessert.
“You look better today,” he said. “I’m glad you came.”
I shrugged. “I had a million reasons to be here.”
His gaze racked over me, the crystal shards scoring my flesh and leaving fire behind. I ignored my reaction to him and focused on my dessert.
“Is that all I am to you? Money?”
It was my turn to rake him with my gaze. “What am I to you, Fin? Your friend? Your employee? There is nothing wrong with a relationship built on financial gain. It’s called working. You should try it sometime.”
Now I didn’t even want the damn cheesecake.
I sat back and crossed my arms. “Why do you ask? I want to be your friend, I think, but a tiny part of me still has a hard time trusting you.”
He tucked his chin. “That is understandable, given our past. I want to work on repairing that trust.”
“To be fair, I never completely trusted you. What happened at the party just steamrolled over the bridge we’d started to build.”
Why did I care so much? As I’d said, he was a job. It wasn’t like I’d been daydreaming about his lips, or what his hair felt like between my fingers. He was fae, some kind of royalty of his kind, and I was apparently some kind of half-breed mage. Above anything else I knew about Fin, I knew he hated mages.
By their definition, mages absorbed magic by killing or destroying people with magic. The fae had magic and a mage could take it.
His fingers curled gently around the stem of his wine glass. “Why are all your metaphors so violent?”
A chuckle burst out of me against my will. “I don’t know if you realized this, but I’m kind of a violent person.”
Thankfully, he let that one go without a colorful comment. He stood and held out his hand. “Should we discuss where we are in the investigation and how we should proceed?”
As it turned out, he hadn’t put me completely off the cheesecake. I shoved the last bite in my mouth and stood. But I didn’t take his hand. I refilled my wine and headed toward his office. He trailed behind me with a quiet chuckle.
His office had heavy dark wood walls, with books lining both sides of the room, and an enormous window the backdrop to his desk. I turned one of the leather chairs in front of his desk to face the other, plopped into the opposite one, and slung my feet up on the other.
“Please, make yourself at home,” he said.
I saluted him with the wine and flipped my shoes off at the heel with my toes.
He took the seat behind the desk. “Have you seen any activity from your sources on the Black Mage?”
I turned my face so I could peer over the desk at him. “Nothing on my front, but I wasn’t exactly digging.”