Cassian Voss got out.
“You waited three hours?”
“I had calls.”
“In a car?”
“I own comfortable cars.”
Elena almost smiled.
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“Yes.”
The simplicity startled her.
Cassian closed the car door.
The intimidating white dinner jacket was gone. He wore a black overcoat over the same dark shirt, and somehow without the ballroom around him he looked less like a legend and more like a man who had not slept enough in years.
“You asked me to invite you again without an audience.”
Elena folded her arms against the cold.
“I did.”
“Dinner tomorrow.”
“That sounded more like an order.”
Cassian tilted his head.
“Dinner tomorrow?”
“Better.”
“At seven.”
“You’re doing it again.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
“What time would suit you?”
“I work until eight.”
“I can have the evening cleared with your employer.”
“No.”
His expression changed.
“I don’t want favors.”
“I wasn’t suggesting—”
“You were.”
Cassian became silent.
Elena had met powerful men before. Wealthy guests regularly spoke to staff as though service made them less human.
Cassian did something unexpected.
He nodded.
“You’re right.”
Elena blinked.
“Tomorrow at nine?”
“That works.”
“Good.”
He handed her a card.
There was only a phone number.
“No address?”
“I’ll text it.”
Elena looked at the card.
“You assume I’m going to call.”
“I assume nothing about you anymore.”
Something about the sentence unsettled her.
Before she could respond, Cassian opened the car door again.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“House.”
Her muscles tightened.
“I don’t want to discuss Julian.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
She studied him skeptically.
Cassian continued.
“But he took money from you.”
Elena stared at him.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I asked him.”
“You what?”
“He answered badly.”
Anger replaced exhaustion.
“You had no right.”
Cassian’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“I didn’t touch him.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
“Then stay out of it.”
“He stole from you.”
“That happened years ago.”
“Was he prosecuted?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because my father was dying and I didn’t have the energy to spend months proving that a man I loved had emptied an account he was legally authorized to access.”
Cassian was silent.
Elena hated that her voice had started trembling.
She looked away.
“Julian told me it was temporary. He claimed he had invested the money and lost it. Later I discovered he had used some of it to pay debts.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know.”
Cassian did.
Or suspected.
Julian Hale had spent the previous three years presenting himself as an elegant real-estate investor.
But Cassian’s people had already found gambling accounts.
Loans.
Several unusual transfers.
And one name Cassian recognized.
Marcus Vale.
A financier who specialized in turning other men’s desperation into ownership.
Cassian said none of this.
Elena looked back at him.
“You’re doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“Knowing more than you’re saying.”
“Occupational habit.”
“What exactly is your occupation?”
He almost laughed.
“You’ve heard stories.”
“Everyone has.”
“Do you believe them?”
“Some.”
“Which ones?”
“The ones where people seem afraid to say your name too loudly.”
Cassian looked toward the empty road.
“Fear is useful.”
“Is that supposed to reassure me?”
“No.”
That answer, strangely, did.
He did not pretend.
Elena put the card into her pocket.
“Nine tomorrow.”
“I’ll send a location.”
She began walking toward the bus stop.
Cassian frowned.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Your bus runs at this hour?”
“Night route.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“No.”
“It’s two in the morning.”
“I have taken that bus for five years.”
Cassian looked as though arguing physically hurt him.
Elena smiled faintly.
“Good night, Mr. Voss.”
“Cassian.”
“Good night, Cassian.”
She walked away.
Cassian stood beneath the streetlight and watched until she reached the stop.
Then he got into the car.
His driver, Luca, glanced at him through the mirror.
“She said no?”
“To the ride.”
“Women don’t usually refuse your car.”
“She also refused marriage.”
Luca coughed to hide a laugh.
Cassian looked out the window.
“Find everything on Julian Hale.”
“Already started.”
“Everything.”
Luca’s humor disappeared.
“Yes, boss.”
Across Bellgrave, Julian Hale sat alone in Vivian Ashcroft’s penthouse.
Or what had been their penthouse.
His suitcase lay open near the elevator.
Vivian had thrown his clothes into it herself.
“You lied to me.”
Julian stood in the living room while she paced.
“I didn’t lie.”
“You neglected to mention that you were engaged to the maid.”
“Elena isn’t—”
He stopped.
Vivian’s eyes widened.
“Finish that sentence.”
Julian rubbed his face.
“She isn’t just a maid.”
Vivian laughed bitterly.
“Apparently not.”
“This has nothing to do with us.”
“She humiliated me in my father’s house.”
“She played a piano.”
“She made Cassian Voss look at her.”
Julian stared.
There it was.
Not love.
Not betrayal.
Status.
