Iris had scolded her for inviting a stranger over to her house for their first date instead of choosing a public location. Her paranoid sister had insisted on waiting in the park at the end of the block and had given Lily strict instructions to text her immediately if anything seemed off.
Lily wasn’t worried. Mist had known where she lived for a week. If he’d had nefarious intent, he would have acted on it already. Still, there was no dissuading her stubborn sister when she made up her mind about something.
Iris’s protectiveness, while often overbearing, was her way of expressing affection, since she wasn’t usually comfortable with it in other forms. The things they’d been through had changed them both, and Lily couldn’t fault her for that.
“I’ll text you. Now, I gotta go!”
She hung up, heart in her throat as she hurried down the hall to answer the door. She paused in front of the mirror on the way to fiddle with her hair and check her teeth for the tenth time. She’d taken a risk and worn a low-cut summer dress that showed a little cleavage and fell to just above her knees. It was one of her new designs and she was proud of it.
Stomach somersaulting, she soldiered on from the mirror, flipped the lock, and opened the door.
Mist stood outside with a bottle of wine in his hand. He was twice as gorgeous as she remembered, which was crazy because every time she saw him, she swore he got better looking.
He wore a black t-shirt that accentuated his eyes and matched his messy hair, the upper half tamed in an unruly knot while the lower fell onto his shoulders. It also drew attention to the intricate tribal-style tattoo collaring his neck, standing out against his deeply tanned skin. It seemed even more noticeable now than the first time she’d met him.
“Hi,” she said, blushing down to her toes just looking at him.
And feeling him look at her. Because he was really looking.
Inexperienced as she was, she wasn’t oblivious enough to miss when a man was checking her out. And Mist was definitely checking her out. It half made her want to rip her dress off and parade around naked, half made her want to do the melt-through-the-floor thing again.
“Hello.” His growly voice sent shivers down her spine.
She smoothed her hands down her dress.
“I was told it was customary to bring an offering.” He held up the wine, and her eyes got momentarily stuck on the veins in his forearm.
She laughed despite her nervousness. He had such a strange way of speaking. “Thank you. Come in.” Taking the proffered bottle, she stepped back and gestured for him to enter.
The minute he did, it felt like her flat shrank by half. The already crowded entrance was like a broom closet, and the way he towered over her made it seem like the ceiling was coming down on their heads.
She moved into the hallway, but it didn’t help. A tiny voice whispered that Iris was right, and she shouldn’t have invited him over on their first date. It was too intimate, and nothing magical or romantic ever happened to her, so why would she think—
Shut up.She shoved Negative Lily back into her requisite box and closed the lid. It was the voice of her insecurities, and she refused to let it ruin her enjoyment of tonight. She was going to be Confident Lily and no one else.
As Mist moved past her into the hall, her eyes traveled by chance to the wall above the door. Perhaps it was a fluke, or perhaps they were led there by the sudden change she may have been imagining.
A year ago, when she’d first moved into this apartment, Iris had drawn some type of protection ward above the front exit, a sigil about a foot in diameter. Lily had scoffed, writing it off as her twin being her usual paranoid self, and ignored it. When it came to reminders of her heritage, she was good at ignoring things.
She frowned at the ward now.
It was red. But she could have sworn it had always been black.
With a shrug, she turned away and met Mist’s gaze. He had a very direct stare that would have been unnerving if she wasn’t so attracted to him. He didn’t appear to have noticed the ward, thankfully.
She lifted the wine bottle and smiled. “Let me just put this in the kitchen, and then I’ll give you the tour. Dinner’s ready, so we can eat whenever.”
On her way, she shot a quick text to Iris.He’s here and everything’s fine. You don’t have to wait around if you don’t want to.
After deliberating for a minute, she typed a second text on a whim.Btw, what’s the ward you put above my door supposed to do?
Tucking her phone in her dress pocket—all her dresses had them, and it was one of their best-selling features—she hurried back down the hall to find Mist already exploring the living room.
He bypassed the bookshelf and sofa beside the window and headed straight to the back of the room where her workspace was. Through a stranger’s eyes, she saw the table covered in cloth and the half-finished pieces pinned to the mannequins, and she wished she’d had more time to tidy up.
Mist had frozen in front of the row of mannequins with his head cocked. She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. Instead, he stalked over to the sewing machine, bent down, and sniffed it.
He actuallysniffedit. Like an animal. A tingle of wariness rose, and she recognized it as the same gut feeling she’d had when she first saw him in the depanneur.
