The Duke and the DJ (The Rebel Royals 3)

Spin kept her eyes on his fingers. She wondered if that's where his calluses came from? From protecting his mother from that monster.

"Don't mention it,” she said.

He didn’t let her go. She chanced a glance up. His gaze connected with hers.

In his clouded gaze, she saw clear understanding. He might struggle with communicating with the cultural slang of the club, but this language between them he understood perfectly. They shared a common language of dysfunctional homes.

After one more lingering look, Zhi bowed his head. Then he straightened and turned.

"Hey," she called after him.

He stopped and glanced over his shoulder at her.

“No texting or DMing without me.” She wagged her finger.

A small smile quirked at the corner of his lip. He gave her a quick nod. And then he was gone.

A second later her phone chirped. The peace-sign emoji popped up on her phone.

Chapter Seventeen

Dinner was entirely civil and a bit surreal. Zhi sat back and watched his mother make idle chit chat with Spin and Lark as though the earlier scene had never happened. He had changed his clothes. His mother wore a pale plaster on her temple. Spin sat with her hair free of the bandana, and they spoke about such mundane things as the weather, the sweetness of the meat Lin had prepared, and the refreshing citrus in the lemonade.

Lark made up the bulk of the conversation. He’d caught the magician’s assistant glance at his mother’s temple exactly once, but she never brought it up. Zhi doubted Spin had told her friend about the incident. In fact, he knew she hadn’t.

He wasn’t sure how he was certain. But he was. Likely, it was the same certainty he’d had when he’d stood next to her after … the incident.

No one had ever stood by him and his mother’s side during or after one of his father’s rages. The staff knew better than to get between them. Nian would always defend her husband. She’d once threatened to sack a footman who had come to her defense. Soon everyone simply waited until the dust settled to clean up the mess the nobles had made.

Not this time. This time, Spin had been by his side. She’d tended to his mother as though she’d done it all before. He got the feeling that she had. But for herself? Or for someone else?

He was dying to ask. But he wouldn’t. Just as they’d made a silent agreement to not speak of what happened earlier today, he knew he couldn’t ask her about her past.

In the present, his mother was peppering Spin with questions about her life and getting nothing. Spin wasn’t shutting the duchess out, not at all. In answer to one of the duchess’ questions, Spin would say something vague and turn the conversation toward Lark. Lark always had an interesting tale to tell. When the conversation came back around to Spin, she’d smile and redirect the question to his mother.

Zhi sat quietly, watching the DJ work the room. She was masterful at distraction. She mixed and spun the record away from her every time the needle of a question was dropped. By the time the dishes were cleared, he realized he knew not one more fact about the woman than he had before he’d sat down.

Again, he wondered what she was hiding? Why wouldn’t she share any of herself? The woman he’d seen back in the music room, she had been the real Spin. He was sure of it. As she’d layered the different beats one on top of the next, he’d been granted a peek inside her world.

There he saw a woman who was complex. She could be soft and airy like the notes she pressed on the piano. But she could be loud and raucously annoying like the repetitive percussive beats of the polka. She was also loyal and inclusive like the way she’d had Zhi clap along to be part of the song.

She was all these things rolled into one. But pull them apart, and you didn’t get the whole picture. Zhi wanted to know more. He wanted to turn the volume of her up and learn the words to her score.

“Begging your pardon, Your Grace?”

Zhi looked up to see Oswald at the dining room’s entrance. He still wore his service coat. Zhi couldn’t help but see it was threadbare. The staff didn’t usually have to worry over that so much as guests were an irregularity here at the estate. But Oswald and the rest of the staff had had to don their tired uniforms for the entire day so as not to tip off Spin that there was anything amiss. He couldn’t have her tell Parker the true state of his affairs.

“There is a matter that needs your attention,” Oswald demurred.

Zhi held in his sigh. He knew that any matter that needed his attention would require him to get his hands dirty. He rose, bowing to his mother and inclining his head to the women.

Before he stepped away, he caught Spin’s eye. Her penetrating gaze made him think that she knew what was up. But she couldn’t. She might be a translator for him between two worlds. But she didn’t know his inner thoughts.

He felt the doubts touch the corners of his eyes at that thought. She’d seen so much of him and his private world. If he wasn’t careful, she would see it all. He turned from her, shutting off her view of himself, and proceeded Oswald out of the room.

“What is it now?” he asked once they were out of earshot.

“Best if I just show you.”