Glorious Rivals(67)

Rohan leaned down, bringing his lips very close to hers, telling himself that all he was doing was keeping up the illusion that nothing between them had changed.

You’ll use me. I’ll use you. All’s fair.

“It means,” Rohan continued in the kind of whisper that was meant to be felt as much as heard, “that to achieve a necessary end, there are times when one must do things that perhaps one would… rather not.”

Needs must. Rohan brought his lips to hers. It had been his intention to kiss her lightly, teasingly, but Savannah Grayson was not one to be teased, and she was, apparently, not made for kissing lightly.

At least not with him.

There was more than one way for a girl like Savannah Grayson to go for the jugular. And then suddenly, her hands were on his chest. Suddenly, she was pushing him back, but not toward the cliff—and not so far that she had to let go of the front of his shirt. “Needs must when the devil drives,” Savannah said. “All’s fair in love and war.”

It took Rohan a moment—just one—to hear what she was really saying. “Proverbs. Idioms.”

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” Savannah let go of his shirt and let her hands fall to her sides. “Don’t judge a book by the cover.”

“Can’t see the forest for the trees. Don’t put the cart before the horse.” Rohan offered his face up to the morning sun, because it was either that or let himself relish the way she looked bathed in that same light. “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”

“What you want,” Savannah quoted, “is number—”

“Three. The third line.” Adrenaline was an old friend of Rohan’s, as was risk. And letting himself continue to do this with her was a risk.

A magnificent one.

“Can’t see the forest for the trees,” Savannah said. “That’s the third line of the riddle. And if we’re supposed to focus on the without of it all…” Her top lip brushed against her bottom one for just a moment, not so much a pause as the tiniest little moment of victory. “On what’s missing…”

“The forest,” Rohan murmured, his lips brushing hers. “The trees.”

They did make an excellent team.

She will betray you, a voice very much like the Proprietor’s warned Rohan. If distractions were weakness, trust was something far worse.

“Which part of the forest do you think we’re headed for?” Savannah said.

Rohan did love a challenge. “The outer edge?” he said. “Not within, but without.” A double meaning, perhaps?

“Which outer edge?” Savannah pressed.

Rohan pushed back. “You tell me, love.”

“This is Hawthorne Island.” Savannah’s gaze hardened like melted sand to glass. “They’re Hawthornes. They ruin everything they touch.”

Rohan smiled. “The burned part of the forest it is.”

Chapter 57

GIGI

Gigi’s fingernails were short, stubby, nibbled little things, but Eve’s were longer and sharp—appropriately villainous nails, really, and Slate’s boss had already torn one attempting to claw through the duct tape on Gigi’s wrists, after Gigi had managed to get their chairs back-to-back.

Was she still planning Eve’s eventual demise? Yes, most definitely. But Gigi was fully capable of prioritizing.

“This would be easier,” Eve told Slate in a deceptively pleasant voice as she tried again, “with a knife.”

“I already told you,” Slate replied, “whoever brought us here took my knife.”

Gigi couldn’t help thinking that the two of them bickered like siblings—or exes. The jury was still out on that one.

“That knife was my friend,” Gigi declared morosely.

“It definitely was not,” Slate said.

With her back to Eve, Gigi was facing Slate. With only a few feet separating them, she could make out the exact color of his eyes, so dark the pupils almost disappeared into his irises. For once, his dark blond hair wasn’t in his face, the light scar through his eyebrow fully visible.

“You don’t know the first thing about that knife.” That was from Eve, who tore another nail—and cursed.

“Creative use of expletives,” Gigi complimented. “And I do so.” She let her eyes settle on Mattias Slater’s. “Fourteen notches in the sheath,” Gigi said quietly. “Fourteen horrible things. And you’re always at your most dangerous when your intentions are good.”

Eve stopped what she was doing. For three or four seconds, she went very still. “You told her?” Eve asked Slate, and then she started in on the duct tape again—with a vengeance. “About your father?”

The duct tape tore—just a little at first, but soon, the binding had ripped far enough for Gigi to begin to wiggle her wrists out of it.

“What about your father?” Gigi asked Slate.

Mattias Slater closed his eyes. “Quiet,” he ordered.

“I’m going to try not to take that personally,” Gigi announced, but when Slate opened his eyes again and caught hers, she realized: He wasn’t avoiding the question.

He’d heard something.

Gigi listened, but she couldn’t hear anything other than the sound of gently falling water from the infinity fountains. And then one of those fountains—and the wall behind it—parted, and Gigi knew exactly what Slate had heard.