But rounding out the list were many more intentions.
No. She had to be honest about this. Not intentions. They were more like reactions. Peeved ones.
Funny how the attitudes of three “caring” brothers could do that to a girl.
She was certain their hearts had been in the right places—at some point. But from the moment she had reentered the palais three days ago, to be greeted by Ev and ’Raz together, her nerve endings were turned into spooked porcupine quills. Their high noon standoff had not been the goal of her text from the tarmac, which had been to steal a quiet heart-to-heart with Ev.
After the ambush in the vestibule, they escorted her into one of the high council’s conference rooms. Sure enough, several members of the island’s chief governance body were already waiting inside—which had turned her quills to icicles. She was positive she would be shown right back out the door, but their surprise was larger than that. They wanted to grill her about everything that had happened in Paris. More specifically, about what had happened with Brickham back in Paris. By then, they had obtained more observation footage than what the media had. Much more than what the cameras at the pub had picked up.
Creator help her, so much more.
From a roof across the narrow passage in Montmartre, they saw her and Brick ducking into the doorway at the hidden sex club.
From a spot near the Moulin Rouge windmill, they saw him tugging at her close in the middle of Place Blanche, his face nuzzled into the back of her neck.
From a desktop camera in the undertaker’s office at the Montmartre Cemetery, they watched him break into the office and then help her do the same.
As they replayed each piece of footage, one conclusion had become increasingly clear. They had already tossed their eggs into the same basket as Samsyn’s. The basket engraved with Brickham’s name, filled with the eggs decorated in a single word.
Guilty.
She had not remained in that conference room for long. What good would it have done? She left her brothers there, with their assumptions that their sister had fallen for some charlatan spy and not a selfless warrior who had given her the world in one night, and aimlessly paced her chambers while waiting for word of Brickham’s progress.
Sometime, in those seemingly endless hours, she had gone to her closet and pulled out this dress from the back. She had done so in anticipation of this exact moment. The dark azure garment was more fitted on top than she normally wore, with a deep V neck that descended into layers of fluid skirts. Those were the dress’s ultimate deception. Only a few of the gauzy panels were actually sewn together. That meant, if she moved the right way, she had the opportunity to expose a great deal of her legs.
And perhaps, if Brickham liked it, a lot more.
Oh, how she prayed he would like it.
How she wanted to know, at last, if everything they had shared in Paris was not just a collection of random memories for him. Not all the running and hiding and shooting and fear, of course. But everything else. Absolutely everything else.
Every electric tangle of their gazes.
Every wet mesh of their lips.
Every frantic fusion of their bodies.
By the Creator and all his angels, especially that.
All the moments she had ordered herself to toss away as they had raced to the outskirts of Paris. With every mile they had gotten closer to the tarmac at Bourget, she’d focused on pushing all those stolen moments to similar environs of her mind. Not all the way out, because she already recognized that impossibility, but far enough away that her spirit would cease panging from them and her heart would stop demanding more of them.
But then the world itself had exploded.
And mere minutes later, as bullets ricocheted off the hull of the private jet that Samsyn had arranged for them, a new realization had drilled into her.
Brickham was going home with her.
Which meant the memories no longer had to hide.
For the last three days, she had practically been living on them. They had been her strength during the days, her succor during the nights, her hope for the agonizing transitions between each.
But none of them compared to the pure wonder of this moment. Of walking into the room and finally getting to embrace the joy of her reality again.
He was truly awake. And even sitting up!
She took her same path in from the door, nearly a direct line to his bedside, but had to halt after three steps. That was the instant Brickham turned his head.
And their eyes met.
A moment she had been fully preparing her senses for—or so she had thought.
She was not ready. Not by the smallest fraction. The truth…it bared her in a thousand unseen ways. The miracle was filled with so many more details. The sculpted magnificence of his torso against the bed’s downy pillows. The rough glory of his thick stubble. The proud lift of his formidable jaw. The powerful pierce of his oceanic blues.
“Brickham.” She finished with a gulp. It hurt in all the best ways. Not the same during all the moments that crept by, weaving an increasingly uncomfortable silence between them.
“I—they told me you were awake and talking.” Uncomfortable became unnerving. “I had to come see for myself.”
Thank the saints, that part was less of a stutter. She also managed to leave off the part about leaping up in the middle of lunch with Camellia, her brother’s wife and anointed queen, once she received the update text from the infirmary medic. After a fast stop in her chambers to slip into the special dress, she had almost taken the hallways at a full sprint.
“Your Highness Jayd.” His voice was a little scratchy, but his unmistakable undertone of command was still there. “Forgive me for not standing, but under the circumstances…”
Oh, yes, still completely there, despite his gruff attempt at a laugh. Creator’s toes, how she longed to join him in that blessed insertion of mirth, and then use it as a gateway to letting more of his energy flow through more of her.
But she was not the only one in the room who had heard the man’s rumbling nuance. The fierce grooves that appeared between Samsyn’s brows proved that already.
Damn it.
“Mr. Brickham.” She wrapped her own tone in irritation while throwing a terse glance toward her brother. “That is not necessary, and you know it.”
A beat of silence. Two more. Neither man moved, though she finally looked over at Samsyn again.
“Brother.”
“What?”
“Surely you have someplace else to be now?”
Syn stiffened, clearly ready with a retort. But, thank the Creator, a procession of pings broke out from the radio on his hip instead.
“Fuck.” Syn eyed the message in the radio’s window. While replacing the device into its belt holder, he was equally concise about the look he gave Brickham. “I will make it back later. We can pick up the conversation from there.”
Three seconds and a matching number of strides later, he was gone.
Jayd regarded the closing door, debating whether to let out the next words in her head. Perhaps it would be all right if she forced a lighthearted laugh first. “And what conversation might that be?”
But her smile faded fast, as soon as Brickham averted his gaze. Since he did it while she closed the remaining space to the bed, she was not hesitant about her new expression.
“He basically asked me what was going on between us.”
“He—what?” It was as sharp as her backside plunking to the mattress. Thank the stars every bed in the infirmary had extra-firm foam toppers.