Christmas In The City (Imperfect Match 1.50)

Like my real gift to him tonight was not the sex, but me.

Surely . . . surely that must mean he cares for me like I think I’m beginning to for him? Surely this can’t be it, this can’t be our goodbye sex, not when he’d kiss a piece of my jewelry simply for being the thing that brought me to him?

My heart rises into my throat like a balloon, and I turn when Grim carefully slides free of my body and bundles up the condom with some nearby tissues. When I finally face him, I can see the indentation of royal diamonds on his lips.

“Grim,” I breathe, reaching up to touch his mouth with my fingers, needing so much to touch the proof of his feelings for me.

But he ducks out of my reach, not meeting my eyes as he goes to throw the condom away.

My heart sinks back down into my chest.

Maybe lower.

Maybe it sinks right into the floor.

“Grim,” I try again, but my voice breaks.

“I should go.” He still won’t meet my eyes. This entire night he’s demanded my gaze, commanded my attention, letting me hide nothing from him—but now he’s a cipher, betraying nothing with his voice or his expression or his posture.

He still won’t look at me as he pulls on his rumpled tuxedo, and I know with a woman’s intuition that it’s because he’s afraid of what his eyes might show me.

I step closer to him, still naked and flushed from his sex, and I almost demand that he looks at me. As a queen and as his lover, I deserve to see what he’s trying to hide. I deserve to see what he won’t say.

And I almost do it, I really almost do it. My mouth is already forming the words and my shoulders are back and my chin is lifted—my favorite queenly pose. No matter that I’m unclothed, I was born to command men, and I’ll order Grim to tell me the truth. I’ll decree it. If I’m worth worlds upon worlds, then I deserve to hear it.

Grim fits his arms into his tuxedo shirt, not bothering to button it, and shrugs on the jacket.

“After I leave,” he says, his voice emotionless, “I want you to call Vashti up here so she can spend the rest of the night with you. I don’t want you sleeping alone until you have properly trained guards outside your door.”

I don’t answer. My pride and my hurt won’t let me—and neither will they let me march up to Grim and adjure the truth out of him. I fold my arms over my chest—not to cover myself, but out o

f defiance—as he goes on.

“And I’ll send over that proposal soon. I know I can’t ask you not to travel and not be anywhere near that weasel until you have better security, but Lani—” He clears his throat and looks over at the door. “Your Majesty, please. Please consider it. If anything happened to you, I—” He clears his throat again, but this time he can’t seem to make himself continue. In uncomfortable silence, he shoves his feet into his shoes and makes his way over to the door.

I don’t follow.

He pauses, then, with his hand on the doorknob, and he meets my eyes for the first time since he pulled free of my body. His eyes are stormy and angry and defeated all at once. But his voice is pure regret when he says, “Worlds, Lani. Upon worlds.”

And then he turns the knob and leaves my life forever.

Chapter 8

Grim

I feel like shit.

And what’s worse, I think I might deserve it.

“So the Des Moines hotel block is bought out. There’s not a structure with sniper sightlines on the other side of the street, but even so, I’m still not sure we have sufficient local police presence,” Rick, Maxim’s personal security guard, says.

I try to force my attention back onto the Iowa strategy meeting and away from the look on Noelani’s face as she came apart in my arms. The way she looked when I barked and practically stammered nonsense as I fled her room like a teenage boy terrified of his own feelings.

Silent. Regal. Disappointed. That’s how she looked.

“They’re always stretched thin at the run-up to primary season,” Bill, recently assigned to Lennix’s personal detail, says impatiently. “I think we focus on having our own people in place, and let the local uniforms focus on what they like. Riding their pretty motorcycles for police escorts and shit like that.”

Rick shakes his head, a frown puckering the old scar that bisects his forehead. “We need presence outside of the hotel. You’ve seen the size of the crowds Maxim’s drawing now. He’s ahead in every poll, and the whole country is watching to see if an Independent can win Iowa. We’ll need the blues for traffic and crowd control.”