Cricket scowled at him and pressed her hands against his chest. He thought she was going to pull him closer. Instead, she shoved him away. Her strength was more than he expected, and he stumbled back with her power. “Then best not do something you’ll regret,” she hissed at him.
Radley blinked and took another step back, studying the flash in her eyes. “Don’t tell me that hurt your feelings,” he purred. “The Snapdragon heiress hurt by the truth. You’d be a pretty collectable, sure, but I doubt the axe that would come down on my head would be worth it.”
This time, she didn’t hide the flash of hurt in her eyes at all and it startled him. The pain there was evident for all of two seconds before she slammed it away, but it was too late. He saw real hurt there and realized he hit a nerve. But just as quickly, the cold mask he’d come to attribute to the Snapdragon family took its place, the iron in her blood taking over.
“I’ll sign off on the grenades,” she said, her voice just as cold as her expression. The passion she always held in her voice, the color, was gone, replaced by ice. Regret slammed into Radley so hard, he nearly stumbled beneath it. He shouldn’t care. They were enemies. It should stay that way. “I’ll see you tomorrow for practice.”
Cricket fluttered her wings and flew over the desk rather than risk touching him. His stomach twisted violently.
“What about dinner?” he asked, suddenly wanting her there, already missing the banter and the look in her eyes, the teasing she was so clever at. “You have to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.” She didn’t even look at him, didn’t even turn as she landed delicately on the plush carpet and moved toward the door.
“I didn’t mean it,” Radley spit out suddenly, not quite an apology but he couldn’t remember the last time he apologized to anyone but his mother.
She froze in her escape and turned to look over her shoulder. Those eyes met his and the ice was gone, but in their place was a hollow sadness he never expected from someone like her. She had everything she could ever want. What did she have to be so sad about?
“Yes,” she whispered. “You did.”
And then she was gone, the door closing behind her with a soft shush that spoke of money. Radley stared after her, fighting the urge to chase after a fae he should hate.
But after taking a moment to think about it, he realized he didn’t hate her at all. Not one bit. He might hate her father, might hate the fae as a whole, but he didn’t hate the pretty pink fae that he was starting to realize was stronger than he had given her credit for.
Radley sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m such an asshole,” he murmured to himself. And he didn’t know how to be anything else.