“No problem,” floated through the door, sounding both baffled, understandably, and also relieved, probably to be getting away from the crazy, half-naked alpha werewolf.
I hung the garment bag in my room, put on some underwear, and went back to the kitchen, wrinkling my nose at the lingering smell. Maybe Declan needed to have a word with his staff about their hygiene.
Coffee finally achieved, I grabbed my phone and went back to face the weird smell and whatever was in the garment bag.
It turned out to be a brand-new tuxedo. A nice one, too: obviously custom-tailored and from a designer I recognized as one of the best. I had the feeling it was going to fit like a glove. How had…and then I remembered that I’d been coming to the Morrigan for so long that the hosts had all my measurements and clothing preferences on file. Declan—and it had to have been Declan who sent this—had clearly consulted the experts. More obnoxious than asking me, or thoughtful?
Obnoxious, definitely, especially since he hadn’t even deigned to tell me I’d need a tux in the first place.
I tugged my phone out of my pocket, too annoyed to bother worrying about whether he’d gone and knotted Walter stupid the night before.
Why do I have a tux?
A moment later my phone buzzed.
Because we’re going out tonight. Be ready at 7. Best behavior, or else.
I typed outNice of you to give me advance notice, the fuck?And then I thought better of it and hit the back button…except that my finger slipped and I hit send instead.
Gods damn it, today just couldn’t go any more sideways—and then the screen lit up again. I stared down at it.
And stared some more.
You were too drunk last night to talk about it. Sorry. I meant to leave you a note this morning.
Declan had to be fucking with me. He’d say something scathing any second: about my behavior last night, about how useless I’d been. But no more messages appeared.
Damn it all to hell. Now I had no idea what to think.
I hung the tux right in front of the air conditioning vent to hopefully blow some of the smell off of it, and I settled in for a day of eating, mainlining coffee, and watching bad TV.
Hopefully that’d keep me from being too jittery about the night before, about tonight, about literally everything.
***
When Declan finally slammed into the suite at a quarter to seven, I’d been ready to go for a full hour. I tried to tell myself it was because I was afraid of what he might do if I delayed him; I knew, deep down, that I simply couldn’t wait to have him see me in it, or wait to see him in his, or wait to find out what he had in mind for the night.
Maybe he’d be taking me on a real date. Maybe he wasn’t angry about last night, or about the whole Walter thing.
Maybe he’d realized Walter was a snake and had fired him and thrown him out of the Morrigan with extreme prejudice.
Hope, it turned out, really did spring eternal.
Hope could kiss my lily-white ass.
Still. That didn’t stop my heart from fluttering, lurching, and then dropping all the way down to my feet when Declan bypassed my room completely, ignoring me in favor of stomping down the hall to his own room. A moment later, I distantly heard the shower come on.
Standing around my room until he deigned to come and get me smacked of insecurity and of being his second-choice high-school prom date.
A drink. Several. Fuck it, I wouldn’t have time to get sloppy drunk again.
Declan emerged into the living area of the suite ten minutes later looking like he’d stepped out of the pages of a magazine dedicated to the rich, gorgeous, and dangerous, and I nearly spilled my second martini all over myself. My fingers clenched around the glass a little too hard.
And my heart gave another treacherous flutter as he stood stock-still, staring at me with his mouth open, as if he’d started to speak and then…gotten overwhelmed by how handsome I was? I did look amazing, the bathroom mirror had told me as much. But I hadn’t expected him to notice or to acknowledge it, even involuntarily.
“You look like you’ve recovered well from last night,” he said at last. “And the tux fits.” He cleared his throat.
Another flutter. I had to get it together.
