Truth be told, one of the reasons I loved to annoy him so much was because I loved to see the turquoise color spread, making his already beautiful eyes truly extraordinary. I’d thought about telling him that before but decided that if heknew just how much I adored his eyes, he’d find a way to deny me the pleasure of seeing them in their true glory.
So instead, I always kept my tone teasing. That way I could both annoy him and admire him at the same time.
“With that gorgeous face of yours, I think you’d be better suited to the title of House Harlot,” I drawled. “You’d just have to pull that stick out of your ass.” Turquoise fractures bled through the light green, and I snickered. So easy to rile. “Look, you know that I’m good at negotiations. The same ones I was working on for House Laurent would work for House Harker. We’ll just have to tweak them a little.”
“We?” He arched an eyebrow at me.
“I’m not trying to step on your toes or make your life harder,” I said quietly. “We had similar instruction, Alaric. You know what I’m capable of. I’m not asking you to be my best friend and dress in matching outfits every day. I’m just asking you to work with me.”
I kept silent while he stared at me and thought over my words. His eyes roamed over my dress, and I saw the disapproval in his face, but still, he said nothing. It was just a damn dress and had no bearing on my ability to think. It wasn’t any more scandalous than what most of the other Moroi in this House wore.
“You were raised and trained to be a wife. Nothing more. All those years of education were just so you wouldn’t make a fool of yourself,” he said matter-of-factly. “You were meant to serve House Harker by joining House Laurent and improving our strained relations, and you failed spectacularly.”
I stiffened, unable to keep the hurt from flashing across my face. He began pulling out scrolls and papers, setting them in organized little piles on his desk as he barreled on.
“You may have left that House, but they were probably close to throwing you out of it anyway. You still act like a spoiled little brat, Samara.”
“Don’t hold back.” My jaw flexed. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“I have no choice but to work with you because Carmilla requested this.” He raised his eyes to look at me, his expression cold and full of disdain. “It’s a waste of everyone’s time and this House’s resources, but congrats, you’ll get your way. For now. I’m sure you’ll fuck it up and even Carmilla will have to admit it was a mistake.”
I was practically vibrating with anger and the need to reach across the desk and slam Alaric’s head into it repeatedly, but I took a deep breath and swallowed down my rage.
He wanted a reaction out of me, something he could add to the list of why I was unsuited for this task, but I refused to give him that.
“Thank you for drawing up the first draft of the marriage dissolution.” I rose from my seat, my head held high. “I’ll make the corrections to it this afternoon and run them by you tomorrow morning before we send it off to House Laurent.”
“Fine.” He waved a hand in casual dismissal.
“Fine,” I echoed and left without another word.
I forcedmyself to take calm, measured steps as I left, even though I wanted to stomp out and toss some stuff on the floor for good measure.
But I wouldn’t give Alaric the satisfaction of knowing just how much he’d gotten to me.
Fucking prick.
Once I was down the hallway and around the corner, I stopped and leaned against the wall. I’d forgotten just how much Alaric got under my skin when he wanted to.
After a few deep breaths, I was settled enough to acknowledge that I had also behaved badly. I’d started needling himright away and pushing his buttons, which only encouraged him to do the same. It was an old habit that I’d fallen back into instinctively the same way I’d slipped back into my easy friendship with Kieran.
Nevertheless, I was older now, and I needed to do better. I couldn’t dictate how Alaric acted, only my own behavior and actions. He might still view me as a spoiled, privileged daughter of House Harker, but I wouldn’t make it easy for him.
In fact, I’d make him work for it. A devious smirk slowly spread across my lips. Nothing would annoy Alaric more than me succeeding and proving every insult he’d ever hurled at me wrong.
The game of annoying the hell out of each other would continue. I was just changing the rules.
With a new goal in mind, I continued down the hallway. I needed to find a space to work in.
Technically, my suite was more than big enough and had a large sitting area that I could use as a study, but I always preferred to keep a separate workspace so that my suite could be a place to relax and take a break from the pressures of work.
I walked past the closed doors of Carmilla’s study. I couldn’t hear any voices from within, so either she was deep in thought over some problem, or she had activated the silencer spell that was standard in all of our studies.
More closed doors lined the halls, and I kept walking.
At least whatever empty space I found would be far away from Alaric.
The hallway eventually ended, and my options were right or left, both of which were dead-ends with only a couple of rooms.
