“Isabelle.” There’s a strange soberness to Gaeton’s voice that brings me around to face him again. “If we choose to have you naked, that’s how you’ll be.” Before I can argue, he raises a hand, dangling a length of fabric from it. “Come here.”
Even as I cross to him, recognition slams in to me. I know this fabric. It’s a black silk robe that I bought him years ago, because I wanted to see his big, rough body clothed in a decadent fabric that I could open like the best kind of present. I still remember how hard we laughed when he put it on, and how much I enjoyed the sex that came after.
I reach out a shaking hand and touch it. “You kept it.” I would have thought he took everything connected with me, dumped it in the nearest trash can, and doused it in gasoline for good measure. I certainly hadn’t left the things that reminded me of him lying around.
But I hadn’t had the heart to destroy them, either.
Every one of the little rose trinkets he bought me over the two years we dated currently occupies a carefully packed box in the back of my massive closet back home. I look up into his dark eyes, trying to find answers to questions I can’t begin to voice. “You kept it,” I repeat.
“I kept it.” Nothing more, but what more answer do I need? He could have a thousand reasons for hanging onto it, and none of them might mean what I hope they mean.
That he still loves me. That maybe he never stopped.
He holds it open so I can step into it. The robe dwarfs me, pooling at my feet and gaping at my chest despite my attempts to tie it firmly. It’s hardly a good option for meeting strangers, but they would have to pry it off me to make me change at this point. I can’t stop stroking the fabric, can’t stop remembering all the times I lay sprawled across his chest and did the same.
There are so many things to say, and I can’t find the words to even begin. Before I have a chance to, the buzzer announces the arrival of Beast’s guests. I take a seat on the chair facing the door and don’t miss the way Gaeton leans against the wall at my back while Beast goes to answer the door despite it being Gaeton’s apartment. Do they even notice how they’ve shifted their relationship since my father’s death?
I rub my hand against my chest. Maybe there will come a time when the reality of my father being gone forever doesn’t hit me with an almost-physical blow. When the loss of him doesn’t rise like a rogue wave to drown me when I least expect it. Maybe.
I tense as the door opens, but the woman who walks through isn’t the stranger I expect. I blink. “Tink?”
Tink stops short and narrows her eyes. She’s a pretty, plus-sized white woman with a mass of blond hair and the personality of a honey badger. She’s also a brilliant designer and responsible for most of the formal clothing in my closet right now. The man at her back is tall with medium-brown skin, a close-cropped beard and black hair that falls to his shoulders. Hook, the leader of one of the smaller territories in Carver City.
Tink looks at me for a long moment and then turns and levels a glare at both Beast and Gaeton. “What. The. Fuck.” She points at me. “What the fuck is going on here?”
“Um,” I say.
“No, they get to speak for themselves.” She talks over me like I’m not even here and turns to point that accusing finger at Hook. “Did you know about this?”
He raises his hands. “I know as much as you.”
“Good, because we would be having words.” She spins back to Gaeton and Beast. “We’re friends. I consider us friends.”
I have to twist to see Gaeton and he looks like he’s facing down the honey badger I compared Tink to. “We are friends, Tink.”
“That’s good. Then you won’t mind explaining why Isabelle Belmonte is sitting here in your robe, looking like she’s been run over by a truck.” She spares me the briefest glance. “No offense.”
“None taken,” I say faintly.
“There’s a simple explanation,” Beast interjects. He doesn’t look ruffled, but Beast always shuts down his reactions in stressful moments.
“That’s good. Because from what people are saying, it sure as fuck sounds like you hauled Isabelle out of the Underworld by her hair and have kept her locked up here as some kind of sex slave and, friends or not, I will castrate you right fucking now if that’s the case.” She’s wearing a pair of jeans that look painted on and a cute flouncy crop top, so I don’t think she has a weapon hidden anywhere, but both men tense up as if she just pulled out a gun and pointed it at them.