He was no longer in this process.
Indeed, I didn’t think he even knew he held a
menu in his hand.
Indeed, I didn’t think he even knew he was
seated at a table in an eating establishment with company.
His eyes were locked at a point across the
room.
And his expression was…
Well it was…
Savage.
I felt another tingle as I tore my gaze from
him and looked across the room.
At what I saw, I nearly crowed aloud with
delight.
Circe was wearing a champagne-colored dress
with a tiered skirt made of the most extraordinary lace, an unusual
embroidered bodice and very thin straps. It was delicate, chic, but
flirty.
And obviously expensive.
Someone had been using their treasure well
and it wasn’t just me.
Her hair was down in a tousled riot of curls
that fell over her shoulders and even in her face.
Which was what she was seeing to as she moved
toward our table, flipping her hair out of her eyes in a manner I’d
seen several times from women espousing hair products during what
Noc explained were “commercials” on the television.
Her makeup glinted with peachy-bronze
beauty.
She was
divine
.
That was, she was divine until she got her
hair out of her face, started to drop her hand, looked fully at our
table with a smile, and obviously just then noticed one particular
member of our party.
Thus she tripped.
Badly.
Her bag held in one hand went flying, her
other hand went out to find purchase to save herself from falling
and caught on a seated, elderly man’s shoulder.
He cried out in surprise as he took some of
her weight.
Noc grunted, “Shit,
fuck
,” and I felt
his movements.
I looked his way to see he was pushing his
chair back, preparing to go in aid of Circe.
He was too late.
Dax was out of his seat and charging in her
direction.
He didn’t even know she was coming in
ours.
I looked to Josette.
She felt my regard and looked to me.
I smiled.
She let out a giggle.
“Are you all right?”
At his rumble, my attention returned to five
feet away where Dax had one hand (now unnecessarily) on her waist
steadying her, the other one held her clutch, which he’d clearly
collected on his way.
Circe had her head tipped back, staring up at
him, wide-eyed with lips parted, taking the clutch from him and
doing this like her hand was moving through molasses.
Enchanting.
However, in his care, Dax misinterpreted her
look for he moved into her protectively, bent his neck and cast his
concerned gaze down to her feet, asking, “Did you twist an ankle?
Are you hurt?”
Circe stared mutely at his profile.
He looked again to her.
“Do you need some ice?” he queried.
She remained silent, staring at him.
Then, suddenly, she appeared to get visibly
woozy, her torso swaying gracefully (if a bit drunkenly) and in
order not to collapse at his feet, she lifted a hand and placed it
on his biceps.
At her touch, they both froze.
In fact, it felt like the entirety of the
room froze.
I held my breath.
They gazed into each other’s eyes.
Circe started swaying again.
This time…
Forward.
I felt my lips curl up in what I knew was
undisguised glee.
I barely heard Dax’s next.
But I heard it.
“Honey,” he whispered, a teasing lilt to his
deep voice, most assuredly a man who knew his effect on women, and
right then most assuredly pleased he was having that effect on
Circe. “You need to speak.”
“You’re…” Circe trailed off but began again.
“You are…”
Not taking his one hand from her waist, Dax
lifted his other in the (minimal) space between them, an offer for
her to take it in greeting.
“Dax Lahn,” he introduced at the same exact
time she breathed, “
Mine
.”
I saw his very broad shoulders straighten
with surprise at her assertion.
Then I saw the color drain from her face.
“Shit, fuck,
fuck
,” Noc bit out low,
the vicinity of his voice telling me he was standing behind my
chair.
“I’m sorry,” Circe said, swaying again.
This time back.
Drat!
“So, so sorry. So…very…
sorry
,” she
chanted, her cheeks now flaming.
She took a hasty step away out of Dax’s hold,
glanced at our table and then turned on her attractive
champagne-colored, spike-heeled sandal and dashed gracefully (thank
the Goddess Adele, no trips, or worse, falls) out of the
restaurant.
Drat!
I quickly pushed back my chair, aiming it
away from Noc who was still standing behind me. I rose and darted
after her.
“Frannie,” Noc called on a clip.
“Do you know her?” Dax asked as I passed
him.
I kept darting even as I looked over my
shoulder and assured, “Give me but a moment. We’ll be back.”
I only caught half a glance at Noc, and
seeing in that scant second his expression, I had a feeling he
might also offer spankings for other reasons.
I couldn’t think of that.
I had to get to Circe, calm her down and then
get her to our table, smooth things out and do what clearly would
be minimal work at finishing making a match.
I made it through the seating area, the bar,
the reception and out the front door.
I looked right.
No Circe.
I looked left and saw her rolling up on her
toes with impatience as she shouted after the
black-short-pants-white-shirt-wearing fellow who took Noc’s SUV
when we’d arrived and drove it away (Noc’s explanation: a
“valet”).
“Please hurry!” I heard her cry after him.
“It’s an emergency!”
Blast!
“Circe,” I called.
She whipped my way, looking at me, beyond me
fearfully, then at me, all in a blink of an eye.
And then her beautiful face grew hard.
I hurried to her (as much as I hurried, it
was undignified to do thus so I didn’t do it, shall we say,
noticeably
) and I was three feet away when she lifted a
hand, jabbed a pointed finger at the restaurant and accused, “This
is what Valentine was up to and I can see she roped you into it
too.”
I stopped walking and started speaking,
“Circe, we—”
She leaned toward me, jabbing her hand again
at the building, and hissed, “I made a fool of myself in
there.”
Ah.
That was her concern.
I smiled at her. “You absolutely did not. You
couldn’t have made a more effective entrance if we’d practiced
it.”
She leaned back, her face still set. “Yes.
However, we
didn’t
practice it because I had no idea what I
was walking into.”
“I think it’s pretty clear it went better
this way,” I shared as if I was a teacher instructing a
student.
“You do?” she asked, but she didn’t wish an
answer for she immediately did that herself. “Well I don’t.”
I didn’t understand.
“He’s clearly taken with you,” I noted. “And
he’s thus and you barely spoke a word.”
“Has it occurred to you I don’t
want
him to be taken with me?” she shot back.
How absurd.
I’d simply witnessed what had happened in
there.
She felt it.
“Circe, you may try to convince
yourself—”
I only got half of that out and stopped
talking altogether for she was talking over me.
“No. It hasn’t occurred to you, or Valentine.
If it had, you wouldn’t have orchestrated that debacle I was just
forced to perpetrate.”
It was then I felt the tickle of unease in my
belly.
“My dear, that was not a debacle. It
was—”
“
Humiliating
,” she spat.
I swung back at the emotion in her tone then
took a step forward, lifting a hand her way.
“Please, let me expla—”
She didn’t even allow me to finish that.
“No explanation needed,” she snapped, looked
high above my shoulder and a change came over her face that cut
straight through to the bone. “Did you know?” she asked, her voice
no longer angry, but broken.
Oh no.
“Circe,” Noc said gently.
“You knew,” she whispered, the expression on
her face now one of a woman betrayed.
Bloody hell.
Keeping my focus on Circe and not looking at
Noc, who I felt now at my back, I shook my still-lifted hand,
stating swiftly, “He tried to talk me out of it.”
Her attention sliced to me, she hid the hurt
and her face twisted. “Of course he did. He’s not that kind of man.
But you’re just that kind of woman, aren’t you?”
The verbal strike came so unexpected I
couldn’t stop myself from reacting physically, doing this like I’d
been slapped.
“Circe.” Her name from Noc’s lips now came as
a growl.
A disappointed one.
And a warning one.
She turned her gaze to him. “She is,” she bit
off. “And you should know that.” She looked to me. “I know all
about you. Baldur used to talk about you. He thought you were
magnificent. Any time he mentioned you it seemed he was half in
love with you.”
This was not a compliment.
Far from it.
And the idea of King Baldur, the
Loathsome-But-Thankfully-Now-Dead finding me magnificent turned my
stomach nauseatingly.
“I see you think what happened in there was
not what actually happened in there,” Noc returned, “seeing as Lahn
is right now prowling the foyer like a caged animal, looking for
any excuse to march out here to check on you.”
Her pallor rose instantly as her eyes darted
toward the doors to the restaurant.
This was not the right thing to say.
I stepped closer to her and immediately tried
to soothe her fears. “He won’t. Noc will go to him.” I looked up at
him. “And now might be a good time to do that, darling,” I
suggested.
“No fuckin’ way,” he denied.
“I’ll be all right,” I assured him.
“You always are,” Circe cut in. “Wreaking
havoc then blithely going on your way.”
I looked to her.
“My intention tonight was—” I began to
explain.
“Your usual,” she intervened. “Malice.
Wickedness. Toying with human beings just for sport.”
Without telling my feet to do so, at the
force of her vitriol, I took a step back and ran into Noc.
His hand fell warm and reassuring on my
waist.
I did not feel reassured.
“Your car, ma’am,” the valet said.
Circe turned to him and didn’t hesitate
marching to her car where another
black-short-pants-white-shirt-wearing young man was holding open
her door.
“Circe, let me drive you home,” Noc called.
“You’re upset. I’ll get you home safe and we can talk while I do.”
His voice dipped and his fingers on me squeezed as he said, “We’ll
call you and Josette a taxi.”
“Absolutely not,” Circe refused, swinging
around the opened door to her car.
“It’s not smart to drive in your state,” Noc
told her.
“I die in a fiery crash, that’s on her too,”
she retorted, jerking her glorious head of hair my way before she
folded into her car and slammed the door.
Noc pulled me out of the way even if we were
of a safe distance, not to mention on the pavement, as she raced
off in her vehicle starting fast and going faster.
I stared after her.
“You wanna tell me what
in the fuck
is
going on?”
Still unrecovered from the altercation with
Circe, I did not want to turn at Dax’s angry voice.
I had no choice but to turn at Dax’s angry
voice.
Noc turned with me.
And oh yes.
Dax was angry.
My.
“Didn’t take a mind reader to see she was
distraught and you let her get in her car and drive away?” Dax
asked Noc incredulously and more than a little hostilely.
“She wasn’t in the mood to let cooler heads
prevail,” Noc returned, doing this bitingly. “And now I gotta get
my girls, my car and go after her to make sure she gets home
okay.”
“Yeah, you do that, but do it knowing I’ll be
wanting an explanation about why I feel like I’ve just been played
and worse,” he lifted a long arm and stabbed a strong finger in the
direction Circe roared off, “
she
was.”
“Fuck, shit,
fuck
,” Noc swore.
“You standing there being pissed is not
making sure she gets home okay,” Dax informed him impatiently.
“Go get Josette,” Noc ordered to me.
Oh no.
I looked up at him. “I think I’d rather not
leave you two alone.”
“Go get Jo, Frannie.”
And let the man I love get torn apart by a
savage in front of an elegant other-world restaurant (or, he could
try, Noc could likely defend himself quite well, still, they both
could get hurt in the process)?
Categorically…
No.
I stared up at him and didn’t move.
He growled, no words, just the noise.
It was attractive.
But the look on his face meant this mingled
with not a small amount of downright terrifying.
He turned back to Dax.
“Circe is a friend of ours. Frannie met you.
Liked your manner. Liked the look of you. Liked your involvement
with First Mother House. I’ll say no more about that, but I’m
thinkin’ you’re a bright guy and you can put two and two together
to understand why she orchestrated a fixup between the two of you
at the same time you can put it together why Circe reacted
violently to that, especially when it’s clear she took one look at
you and was into you.”
“Are you…fucking…
shitting me
?”
As this ominous rumble came from Dax, I took
a step back, my hands on Noc to try to make him take a step back
with me, but he didn’t budge.
“So now you know what that was all about,”
Noc went on. “And we’ll be sorting that out. You can tell me how
pissed you are right now after you name your first son after me,”
Noc stated audaciously and again looked at me. “Now, baby,” he
dipped his face to mine, “go…get…
Jo
.”