Chapter Fourteen

NATE

"Bim's told me to accept James's offer of a job if he makes one," I said, after we'd been driving for a while.

"What do you think about that?"

I didn't know. That was why I was telling him, to see if there was an angle I'd missed. "Even though I'd be doing it with Bim's knowledge, it feels wrong, as if I'm betraying my family. I can't help but wonder if Bim wants to get rid of me and this is an easy way to do it."

"I think you're worrying over nothing," Alex said. "With your grandfather's blessing about the job, you've no reason to feel guilty. And from everything I've heard about Abimelech Mortimer, if he didn't want you, he'd take great pleasure in firing you to your face. No, he probably hopes you can get into the bank itself and find out more info."

My heart lightened as I realised he was right. If Bim thought that little of me, he wouldn't have sent me here. Would he?

"I think we've reached the end of what we can do unless I can get into the bank," I said. "So, how's the Teague and Fortescue mingling coming along? Any prospective matches yet?"

"Dan's smitten with someone called Rose. I haven't met her, so I have no idea if it's reciprocated. At least it's not like the old days when they'd have had to make a final decision within weeks that affected the rest of their lives."

"Why do we keep so separate as families, apart from these formal visits?" I asked him. I'd been questioning many things I'd thought were perfectly natural since meeting Alex Teague. Not least, I'd assumed the banking families' opinion of red dragons was common to all dragons. "It would be so much easier, so much more natural, if we just mixed normally. We could give prior warning and ask permission before entering one another's territories."

Alex was quiet for so long that I glanced at him, wondering if he intended to answer. "Maybe it's because some secrets are too big to trust outsiders with."

"That's my point. We're dragons. Surely we shouldn't be outsiders to one another."

"You're not wrong," he said. "Though good luck with changing anything."

"True." The headlights ate up the white lines in front of us.

"What do you think your grandfather will do now he knows it's definitely old man Fortescue behind it?" Alex asked.

"He'll either find a way to replicate the attacks and direct them against the Fortescue bank because he'd see that as poetic justice, or he'll confront James Fortescue." I winced. "Iwant to be out of Bath before that happens."

Alex laughed. "Yeah. I've not met your grandfather, but I can imagine. Presumably, he'll give you the heads up to get out of the firing line before he does anything."

I had a moment of sudden, unwelcome clarity. Bim wouldn't think to warn me.

I wasn't overly worried—I could get myself out of trouble almost as easily as I could get myself into it. Years with Charlie had given me lots of practice. But the knowledge that my safety wouldn't occur to Bim felt like a slap in the face.

ALEX

I waited for Nate to negotiate a busy roundabout before I filled him in on my side of things. "Fortescue still hasn't spilled much to Margaret. What he has said is that it's time we held a moot—I think he got that from Tolkien—and have representatives of all the dragon families present. He won't tell her why he's thinking of that for the first time in living memory. If he calls it once he has a formal understanding with us and the Mortimers are in turmoil, it would be his chance to establish the Fortescues as the pre-eminent family."

"Did he give any idea of when he wants this meeting?" Nate asked. "That would give Bim a timeframe for acting."

"Not so far. He's damn cagey. Maybe he realises Margaret's not the dim-witted country bumpkin he no doubt thought her when he invited us here."

"Have you had a chance to sound out Ella or Steven yet?"

"I spoke to Ella earlier, and she had no idea about the Arthur connection," I told him. "She was torn between fascination and wanting to get away from me as fast as possible. She appears to view me as something the cat dragged in, only less pleasant."

"I think that's my fault," Nate said, stopping the car at traffic lights. "She's still hoping I'll get back together with Charlie, so she's unhappy about the amount of time I spend with you."

"She's very fond of you," I said in an understatement. When I'd first seen them together, I'd thought she was flirting with him. Now, it seemed more as if she was clinging to him, unwilling to let go.

"You were around a lot when she was younger, weren't you?" I realised. Maybe it was as simple as Nate being so much more decent and kinder than either of her brothers or anyone else in her family, so she didn't want him to leave again. Nate and Charlie getting back together would ensure that he'd stay, at least in her mind.

I decided not to try and delve any further into the murky psyches of the Fortescues when Charlie grabbed Nate the instant we were through the front door.

Nate allowed himself to be towed away down the hallway. I didn't like how easily he acquiesced to Charlie, and my dragon hated seeing another man touch Nate, but he'd been clear that things between them were over. And he'd been equally clear there was nothing more than friendship between us.

Mr Taylor had been hovering while I watched Nate and Charlie disappear together.

"I hope you're getting overtime," I said, handing him my jacket.

"A butler's work is never done, sir." There wasn't a flicker of expression on his face.

I headed upstairs. If I weren't so determined to spend every minute I could with Nate, I'd take Mr Taylor out for a drink. I'd bet he'd be a poker-faced riot.

NATE

"So? Have you punished me enough yet?" There was a laugh in Charlie's voice.

"I'm sorry?" What the hell was he talking about?

"Come on, Nate. We both know what your answer's going to be. You're right, I shouldn't have ended things, and I get why you're mad at me. But I'm willing to grovel. On my knees. Frequently." There was a familiar, excited light in his eyes. I couldn't tell if it was due to the prospect of blowing me or the prospect of blowing me in the family's morning parlour, just off the busy hallway, when the house was full of dragons.

I couldn't work out how we'd grown so far apart. There'd been a time when we'd known one another's every thought, and now it was as if he didn't know me at all. Something occurred to me, and it sounded oddly like Alex's voice. He had a way of seeing to the heart of what was eluding me.

"If you wanted to get back together, why didn't you contact me?" I'd blocked him on everything when we split, but he could easily have found my details on the bank's website and made contact through work.

"Because it wasn't till I saw you again that I realised how bloody stupid I'd been. I threw away the best thing that happened to me, Nate, and I'm sorry for it."

Five years ago, those words would have been everything I'd wanted to hear. Now, I knew enough to understand their worth, and anger surged through me in a heady rush. "If you'd believed that, you'd never have been sleeping around on me. You'd never have said those things you did." That I was clingy, expected too much, and—worst insult of all in Charlie's world—boring. "Remember? You just put up with me because I was there, willing and gave good head. You're saying whatever you think will get me back, not the truth."

I was breathing hard as my voice grew louder. It had been a long time in coming, this anger with Charlie. "You never cared about me, Charlie, even if you think you did. No one would treat anyone they cared about the way you treated me."

The shock on his face had turned to blankness. It was a trick of his I knew well—hiding whatever he felt and giving nothing away. Just as he'd given me nothing, although I'd given him everything.

"Fuck you, Charlie," I said, and walked out.

ALEX

I'd slid into the drawing room where yet another gathering was taking place, nodding at Margaret and Jenna, though my attention wasn't on them. It was on the stairs. I was waiting for Nate. Or possibly Nate and Charlie, wound in one another's arms, heading unmistakably for Charlie's room.

The fact I wasn't a full dragon didn't stop the hoarding instinct when I saw something I wanted. And I wanted Nate Mortimer. His gold scales had shone in the light, an outward manifestation of the warmth and goodness I thought I'd seen in his heart. But then, I'd been wrong before.

I was sipping a glass of champagne I'd snagged from the bar when the front door slammed. Mr Taylor would never do that. It had to be either Nate or Charlie.

Leaning over the bannister, I couldn't see a thing because of a huge lantern in the way. So I went downstairs, where I found Mr Taylor in the hall, presumably also summoned by the slamming of the door. Nate's scent was in the hallway, stronger than Charlie's, meaning it must have been he who'd just left. I gave my glass to Mr Taylor and followed Nate.

The night was still and cold, a crispness to the air suggesting that winter was just around the corner. It was child's play to track him down a narrow street with tall Georgian townhouses lit by fancy streetlights and along a footpath that opened out into a park. I hesitated as I finally saw him, sitting at the foot of a tree, his head in his hands.

I hadn't thought what to say. I hadn't even considered why I was following him. It had been instinct. Maybe I should leave him alone.

He looked up, but I couldn't see his expression in the shadow of the tree.

"Alex." Bizarrely, there was no surprise in his voice.

Keep it normal. Don't make it weird. "God, I could kill for a fag," I said, and joined him, sitting on the cold, wet grass. Nate's outdoor adventures were going to be the death of me.

"You smoke?" he asked, surprised.

"Not since I was twenty, but it never quite leaves you." Then I forgot all my intentions to be normal and not talk about feelings. "Are you okay?"

He gave a laugh that was a bit shakier than I think he wanted. "I finally told Charlie where to go, and it feels strange."

"Were you together long?"

"Six years," he said. "We split five years ago." His head thunked back against the tree, and he looked up at the sky through bare branches. "I can't believe I wasted so much of my life when all I needed to be free of him was to tell him to fuck off." He looked sideways at me. "Except it doesn't work like that, does it? I needed that time to become the person who could tell him to fuck off."

He bashed his head against the tree again, and I curbed my instinct to curve my hand around his skull to protect it. "I'm sorry," he said. "Listen to me bleating on. Why did you come out if not for a smoke?" He drew in a swift breath. "Have you found out something more about their plans?"

I shook my head. "Just wanted to check you were okay."

He didn't rip up at me even though I was way out of my lane.

"I am," he said, certainty in his voice.

I couldn't think what to say in the silence that followed.

"D'you think we should buy Mr Taylor a bottle of something to apologise for the way we keep messing up his evenings?" I asked eventually.

"That's a good idea. Speaking of whom, I suppose we'd better get back before he locks up for the night. Charlie and I—" He paused. "Once, he forgot his key, and at four in the morning, we thought it was a good idea to climb up to the balcony to get in. Thank God Ella heard us before we broke our stupid necks."

"I'm assuming there was alcohol involved in your spectacularly bad decision-making."

He laughed and got to his feet, holding out his hand to pull me up. My foot caught on a tree root, and I stumbled into him. It was too good an opportunity to miss, so I breathed in deeply and filled my lungs with Nate's scent, even though it was a little tainted by river water.

He clasped my arm to steady me, and for an instant, I thought he would draw me even closer, that we might kiss. Instead, he patted me, as if I were a horse he was vaguely fond of, and let me go again. "We should get back."

Yeah. Trying to kiss him now would have been the worst possible timing. Better to let this final break-up with Charlie settle. I didn't want to be the rebound guy again. But this wasn't a newly splintered relationship. This sounded like it had been the long-overdue shutting of an almost-closed door, and I thought I'd heard that in the way he'd laughed. He'd sounded freer, somehow.

Maybe now, everything would change.