The Hellion (Wicked Wallflowers #1)(25)

“That’s the one, then?”

He paused, midmovement, and looked over.

She nudged her chin. “It’s just you placed all the other pages on top, but you stuck that last one in the middle. So, I take it, you were attempting to . . . hide it.” By the amusement in that slightly overemphasized word, Cleopatra found that to be of extreme hilarity.

“You’re observant.” It was a good reminder that he should trust this imp as far as he could throw her, but having lived the life he had, there was also an admiration for her cleverness.

“No choice but to be,” she said simply, lifting her shoulders in a little shrug. She gave him a half smile that dimpled her cheek. “Learned quick that to not be watchful will ruin a person.”

“I didn’t see that one,” she said, contentedly filling the void of his unresponsiveness.

“And you won’t,” he muttered.

A cynical snort escaped the young woman. “Afraid of even a Killoran seeing your club? I didn’t take you as smart, Thorne.”

Thorne. Cleopatra used his surname to make her annoyance known . . . or to bait him.

“Why would I show you my plans?” he retorted. Relinquishing his pile, he folded his arms and met her gaze. “Isn’t one wise to keep one’s enemy close?” One also didn’t engage in casual discourse or make mention of one’s past . . . but he’d done—and continued to do—both this night. It’s boredom. Nothing else to account for it, but the tedium of living inside the fancy end of Mayfair.

“You’ve seen my club.”

My club. Not my brother’s. Not Killoran’s. Nor even Diggory’s. My club. Even in her boldest, most confident day, his own sister, Helena, had never laid claim to the gaming hell. This boldness and strength in Cleopatra only sent that blasted admiration swirling.

“Only fair you show me yours,” she continued over his tumult, giving a little shrug of her shoulders.

“Show me yours?” He chuckled. “Using a child’s argument.”

“It is the only way I seem able to reason with you.”

Adair stilled. Wait. By God, had she just . . . ? Why, did she call him . . . ?

Cleopatra winked and stretched her palm out.

He was going mad. There was no other accounting for the fact that even now he considered turning his plans over to a damned Killoran. Adair shot a glance over his shoulder at the closed door. His brothers would have his head for such foolishness. Returning his focus back to the persuasive minx, he dropped his gaze to her hand—and stopped.

A jagged D stood stark upon her palm. That possessive tattoo that marked her connections to the beast who’d tortured Adair and his brothers. Cleopatra balled her hand and yanked it back to her lap. It also served as a reminder of the folly in lowering his defenses where this one was concerned. He opened his mouth to deliver a jeering taunt.

It was her lips, however, that halted that flow of words. Or rather . . . the corners of her lips. White, tense lines that revealed that for her brave show and grand displays, she wasn’t the unaffected, deadened person Diggory had been.

“Never mind,” she mumbled. “Keep your damned plans. If they’re as rubbish as the other ones I looked through, then you needn’t even worry about competition in the first place.” She jumped to her feet, and any grand exit she surely intended to make was ruined as her spectacles slipped from the bridge of her nose and clattered noisily upon the floor.

Cursing, Cleopatra sank to her knees and stretched her fingers about. Why . . . why . . . she really had a need for those frames.

Swiftly joining her on the floor, Adair rescued the slightly bent pair. “Here,” he murmured.

“What are you—?”

He tucked the curved wires around her delicate, shell-like ears and perched them on the bridge of her freckled nose.

Freckles. She had freckles. A faint dusting upon her nose and upon her cheeks. It . . . softened this woman he’d thought could never be taken for delicate.

Adjusting her glasses, Cleopatra glowered at him through the smudged frames, shattering his foolish musings. “What are you staring at?” she demanded.

He frowned. Ignoring her cursing and questioning, Adair plucked them from her face and stood.

“Thorne,” she gritted, jumping up.

Yanking the tails of his shirt free of his waistband, he proceeded to scrub the frames with the soft material. “For someone who requires glasses, Cleopatra Killoran, you’re certainly one who doesn’t take proper damned care of them.” Ignoring her grasping hands, he held the spectacles higher, out of her reach, and continued cleaning them. “Here,” he muttered, replacing them again.

She blinked wildly like an owl startled from its perch, and in this instance, she may as well have been any innocent lady of Polite Society and not a ruthless member of Diggory’s—and now Killoran’s—gang.

He cleared his throat. “You need to clean your glasses.”

Just like that, the charged moment was shattered. “Don’t tell me wot Oi need,” she barked. “You with your presumptuous hands and . . . Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded as he returned to his desk. “Oi was . . .”

Shuffling through the stack, he withdrew the most recently agreed-upon plans for the club. “You wanted to see it,” he pointed out. “Here’s your chance to glimpse inside the greatest club in England.”