I already knew that. I could’ve picked her seasoning out of a blind taste test. “How? Or why, rather?”
“What would you give to know?”
“Never mind.” Fae. Always a bargain.
I’d just corner Fatma and get the story out of her. The Prince looked entirely too pleased with himself. I’d enjoy changing that. I resumed eating.
“If you eat all of your vegetables, you may have dessert.”
I squinted at him. “Right, Dad.”
He gave me The Look, ignoring when I froze at my own inadvertent words. Hewasa father. But he hadn’t once mentioned his son. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve thought he’d forgotten Embry. I stared at my plate, nausea rolling in my gut as I wrangled my nerves under control. To not think about Embry. The reason for not thinking about Embry.
“I watched you dine,” Renaud said in an idle tone. “Even while ill, I had to force you to consume even just broth, but like every child anywhere, you didn’t refuse chocolate mousse.”
My bottom lip poked out. “Because mousse is easy on the stomach, you fiend.”
He gave the asparagus on my plate a pointed little glare. The Prince of Everenne, eldest among us, was a mother hen, as well as controlling.
For a time, we ate in disturbingly comfortable silence, though relaxation softened me more than I wanted, conflicting with my unease. The entire scenario was abnormally normal, and I kept waiting for the ax to fall.
I glanced at him under my lashes every once in a while.
He was an attractive, virile male, even if a bit loopy, the quintessential embodiment of Fae masculine beauty, as if his Line had bred him for just that purpose. Which I wouldn’t have put past them.
I felt alarmingly basic next to him. I stabbed a sliver of meat with my fork.
Compliments, gentle kisses, solicitousness, roping my aunt into making our dinner.
Next, he’d try to engage me in meaningful conversation.
I didn’t like being played.
There was no way this male had just woken up and decided I was the flower to pluck from all the females in the damn city.
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
He paused eating, looked at me. Looked around, absolutely slower than necessary, proving he had some understanding of my generation’s form of sarcasm. “We are dining, Lady.”
Right. Someone thought they had a sense of humor. A dry and sardonic sense of humor, almost playful.
Prince Renaud, playful?
His real version of playful probably involved blood sport. “Can you please be serious?”
The Prince set his fork down and gave me his full attention. Hadn’t I already learned that I didn’t want that?
The glint in his eyes hinted at a nature deeper, darker than I was ready to handle.
He regarded me with predatory focus that screamed of blood and sex and all the things I’d craved but denied myself over the years, pulling aside his urbane mask to offer me a glimpse. And a choice.
Participate in the illusion of him courting me like a—gag—gentleman, or face his true nature.
He stared like a male imagining what I tasted like, but I couldn’t figure out if it he wanted to eat me, or eat me.
Or both.
I said nothing, though I knew better than to lower my gaze. Not when the wrong flicker of a movement could trigger him.
