The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(23)

Except . . .

Cleopatra paused, leaving that candle lit, and adjusted her path.

She crossed to the cluttered pedestal desk. The green-leather top peeked out from under stacks of papers and ledgers, bringing her to another stop. Only this time it was not fear that compelled her . . . but rather, intrigue.

She wetted her lips and took another swift glance about. The shadows serving as her only company, she wandered closer. Sifting through the pile, she took in drawing after drawing. Some copies had been marked with an X, and others, a question mark. Her earlier reservations gone, Cleopatra dropped her palms on the available space on the desk and evaluated the numbered sheets. Then it hit her what she was looking at. “They’re plans for their club,” she breathed into the quiet.

It was the kind of information Diggory or Killoran would have used to their advantage to destroy their competition—decisions she once would have wholeheartedly supported. Never, however, would she have urged ruination by fire. There was too much that could go wrong from the flicker of a flame: lives lost, excruciating suffering, expansive damage. No, what held her rooted to her examination was a genuine intrigue.

It was a glimpse into the gaming hell world that she so loved, and in this instance, it didn’t matter that this was Adair Thorne’s club, a rival establishment whose failure she should be more fixed on. Instead, it was an essential thread connecting her to the familiar. Now damning the fact that she’d snuffed one of those candles, Cleopatra leaned over the sheet, squinting at the meticulous drawings.

She trailed her fingertip over the charcoal markings where the faro and hazard tables were arranged. Wrinkling her brow, she compared the plans drafted here to another, laying them side by side. Why in blazes would—

The faint click of a pistol screeched across the quiet.

“Drop the page.”

Adair’s low baritone emerged coated in ice. She swallowed hard, damning herself for making a faulty misstep. Her fascination with the Hell and Sin’s building plans had compromised her focus. Her fingers trembled slightly, and she now gave thanks for the cover of dark that hopefully concealed that faint quavering.

“I said, drop the—”

“I heard you clearly, Adair,” she said in forced bored tones, laying possession to his name in a bid to assert herself in the precarious situation.

“If you heard me, hellion, then do as I said,” he commanded on a steely whisper.

Cleopatra released those plans, as instructed.

“Now turn and face me, Cleopatra.”

Not Cleo . . . Cleopatra. She’d always adored the name chosen by Broderick for her, for the power it implied. And yet, she hated that her brother and those in their employ insisted on shortening it as they did, lessening its relevance. Not Adair. His whispered mastery of those four syllables was heady stuff, indeed.

She quirked her lips in a smile and faced him.

He narrowed his eyes. “Is there something amusing about this?”

“Actually, yes.” In a bid to stir his ire, she drew herself up onto the edge of his desk.

“Y—” He faltered in his reply, moving his gaze up and down her person, before settling once more on her face.

Her skirts rucked about her ankles in a way that would have earned embarrassment from a proper lady. She did not, nor would she ever, fit into that category—no matter how much her brother sought to stuff her into that mold. “Am I expected to believe you’ll shoot me here in Ryker Black’s home?”

Adair eyed her carefully for a long moment, and then, not taking his gaze from her, he tucked his pistol inside his waistband. “Is that why Killoran chose to send you? To learn our plans and bring them back?”

She was torn between flattery that he thought her capable enough to be the one sent as a go-between, and . . . frustratingly hurt that he saw the inherent silliness in her being the sister to make a match. It didn’t matter that she was in complete agreement on the matter of her form and face. Knowing his disdain, however, rankled.

“They’re rubbish,” she countered.

He stitched his eyebrows into a single warning line.

“Your plans,” she clarified.

His jaw worked, and she braced for him to order her on to hell. “There’s four of them there,” he said gruffly, unexpectedly engaging in a discussion on his club. And they were drawn up by several builders and quickly. He’d not mention that point.

“All right, then. I’ve looked through two of them, and these ones”—she indicated the pages in question—“are rot.”

“You had no more than six minutes to study them,” he challenged.

Cleopatra widened her eyes. He’d been there the entire time?

The hint of a smile curved his lips. “I heard you in the hall.”

“Impossible.” Her fingers made contact with the thick sheets, and they wrinkled noisily in the room.

“Do you make it a habit of wandering the halls of another man’s home and snuffing out candles?”

Shame at having been discovered, and against her knowing, brought her toes curling so tight her arches ached. “I thought the room had been left vacant and the flame was left lit,” she groused.

There was a mocking edge to his grin, belied by the hardness in his eyes.

“And you were worried because you know the danger posed by an errant flame?”