14. Corin

14

Corin

In the time Maya Flores had worked for him, she had never asked him anything. At first, he’d thought nothing of it. He had been raised as heir to the Blackburn clan; the only people who questioned him were his grandfather and a few brave tutors. Everyone else in his life jumped to anticipate his needs before he knew them himself. If they needed to know anything, they asked his assistants.

They asked Maya. And Maya always knew everything.

“Ask away,” he said.

She watched him warily, her expression tight, as though she was weighing up the cost of taking up his offer. At last she inhaled sharply and said, “We’ve been out here for almost half an hour. You’re wearing the same clothes you shifted out of.”

“Is there a question somewhere that I’m missing?”

“That sleeve is almost ripped off.” She pointed, then swept her accusing finger down to his chest. “Your shirt has no buttons, and is torn. Your pants—”

Her cheeks darkened.

“What about my pants?” he asked solicitously, and she narrowed her eyes.

“They’re … disintegrating. Your shoes are entirely absent. As for your under—your socks ,” she corrected herself, and ‘darkened’ was no longer an accurate description of her cheeks. ‘Thermonuclear,’ perhaps. “I don’t even know where they ended up. Do you? Are my neighbors going to find gold-thread-imbued … socks … washing up in front of their houses with the next tide?”

“You know I have gold woven into my clothes?”

“Apollo told me. And suddenly I realized why all your laundry needed such particular dry-cleaning. And why your jackets were always so heavy . So—should I expect Tomás to jump into the sea after scraps of gold-woven socks? Is that what my future holds?”

“No.” He hesitated, and then continued. “Any clothing directly next to my skin suffers the most when I shift. There wouldn’t be enough left of my underwear or socks to bother anyone, even if they did have gold woven into them. I save that for my shirts and suits.”

Though he maintained hope that the disintegrating nature of his pants would continue to bother Miss Flores. The moment he’d said underwear , her blush had heated to crisis point.

He waited for his dragon to warn him that he was in danger, but it was as in favor of this ill-considered tactic as he was. He wasn’t thinking of claiming her; only teasing her. A little.

The duskfire was still dormant. Under this brilliant morning sun, it was almost possible to believe it couldn’t harm anyone.

He leaned to one side, pretending to reach for the bottle of not-wine and coincidentally letting his shirt fall further, buttonlessly open. “Was that your only question?”

“And you’re … all right with that? I’m not going to hear a sudden splashing, and turn around to see you’ve summoned an assistant to bring you a new change of clothes.”

He watched her dark eyes flick to his chest and flood a deeper black. “No. I’m perfectly content as I am.”

“Wearing rags?” Her eyebrows shot up, but her eyes didn’t move from his. If he let himself, he could think she was as trapped in his gaze as he was in hers. “It’s like I don’t even know you.”

“I put a great deal of effort into ensuring you never found out a lot of things about me.”

Her lips parted. “Yes.” She hesitated, and added in an undertone, “You’re not the only one.”

She looked down at her tumbler, twirled it between her fingers, and then looked up again. Her eyes found his. They were shining somewhat less, now. “There was something else…”

She’d seen through him. His ruse about only being here to deal with his stolen treasure. His need for more than just the physical. Of course she had. This was Maya. His brilliant, sharp Maya.

No. Not his.

“Go on,” he said.

“Right.” She looked down, fists bunching in her lap.

A warning bell sounded in his head. This wasn’t the behavior of a woman about to throw herself at her mate.

She took a deep breath, and he steeled himself. Whatever judgement or accusations she had for him, he would accept with as much dignity as he could conjure.

“What age do dragon shifters normally first shift into dragon form? Is there any danger if he’s started shifting too early, or spends too long in one form or another? Should I have specific enrichment activities for his dragon side as well as his human side? Is there a medical reason for your obsession with gold? Should I be embroidering gold into Tomás’s clothes, too? What dragon milestones should he be reaching and what can I do if he isn’t hitting them? Sometimes I think he’s growing feathers? Is that normal? I can’t hear his telepathic speech, so what if that means he doesn’t develop properly because he can’t communicate with me? He eats so much. Is it enough? Does he need other things in his diet? Dragon things?” She gnawed on her lower lip. “Is that what the gold is for? Do you get some sort of … magical vitamins out of it? Is he going to be malnourished because I didn’t give him a hoard? He has my bracelet, but I don’t even know how real that gold is. What if he gets sick? What sort of doctor do you take a dragon child to?”

She broke off with a sharp gasp and covered her mouth. “That—all came out at once. I meant to take it more slowly. I have a list…” She scrambled for her purse and removed a small notebook, which she gripped with white-knuckled fingers. “I’ll start over.”

“No. Don’t.” Her eyes flew to his, and he felt the uncertainty jolting through her as though it was his own heart hammering against his ribs. He raised both hands in surrender. “I didn’t mean it like that. But—you want to talk about Tomás? You’re worried about him?”

“I have to know that I’m doing the right things for him,” she said in a small, strangled voice. “He shouldn’t have to—to grow up missing things just because I’m his mother.”

How can she think that?

Another idiot question. He didn’t need his dragon to tell him that. She was a human who’d been thrown into a world she never knew existed—and the person who should have been there to catch her and lead her through it had failed her utterly.

Had failed them both.

He moved beside her, slowly, as though if he moved too suddenly then whatever was already close to breaking point inside Maya would shatter entirely.

“You are doing everything right for him,” he said sincerely. She shivered, and he reached out one hand and laid it on her shoulder. “I don’t know the answers to all your questions, but I know that much. Tomás is healthy. He is happy. He has everything he needs.”

“But what if I’m doing something wrong and I don’t even know it? What if I’m hurting him? He stole your gold watch. If I’d given him a hoard already, would he not have had to steal it off you? And now, all the treasures from your family vault—”

“The gold is my problem.” He couldn’t prevent the trace of a growl in his voice. “You don’t need to concern yourself about that.”

“Because I have so much else to worry about already? No, thank you, I think I can find space to worry about someone stealing from my ex-boss and sending it to me, as well. Especially given—” She sucked in a breath that made her sound like she’d been crying. Christ, had she been crying? No—her eyes were dry. Just hemmed around with tears, not actually weeping. “The circumstances.”

“The circumstances,” he repeated bitterly. “I see.” How often had she cried already, that the tears came so easily and she was so practiced at holding them back?

Coward. Fool. You could have prevented all this.

“You haven’t talked about this to anyone, have you? Your concerns about parenting Tomás.”

She grimaced. “How can you tell?”

“It all bursting out like a dam in flood was a hint. But—” He hesitated. Would saying this help things, or hurt her more? “What about your friends here, they couldn’t tell you about raising shifter children?”

“They’ve already done so much.” Maya wrapped her arms around her knees. “I couldn’t bother them.”

You didn’t want to flounder in front of them, after they’d already seen you at your lowest. Maya had never asked questions—never let herself appear uncertain, or ignorant. Of course she was desperate to correct her reputation with her new neighbors. Corin’s jaw set. “I thought I was the only one you never admitted weakness in front of.”

“You’re not that unique. Sorry.” She shot him a complicated smile. “It wouldn’t have helped, anyway. Apollo’s never met another dragon baby, and he’s a different type of dragon shifter entirely. He—he doesn’t like gold the way you and Tomás do. And he didn’t shift until he was a teenager! That’s so much later than Tomás. I don’t know if that means he was late, or Tommy was early, and what if it’s too early? People say if you learn to walk before you crawl it can affect your coordination later in life. What if he can’t fly properly?”

“He seems to fly very well already.”

“What if he flies somewhere I can’t reach to get him down safely?” she cried out, and slapped both hands over her mouth again. “Oh god. I didn’t mean to say any of this. I had—”

“You had a list,” he finished for her.

“I left space under each query for when I figured out an answer. I put little boxes to tick off.” She gestured at the notebook, which she’d dropped onto the picnic rug, and made a noise that was perilously close to a sob. “Damn it.”

“And you wanted to ask … me?”

She looked at him for one long, hard moment, then let out a breath that held the weight of the world in it. “Of course I asked you. You’re so conveniently here. And you feel guilty over everything that’s happened, so you’ll tell me anything I want to hear.”

No trace of tears now. She’d banished them—hidden them as neatly as she’d hidden all the secrets and fears that had plagued her the year they had spent together, never knowing one another. His chest ached.

“I can only tell you what I know,” he informed her. “Which is less than you might hope. I haven’t been very involved with any of the children in my clan. I imagine I know far less about baby dragon shifters than you do. And you’re doing a wonderful job.” He paused. “That should have been the first thing I told you when you brought Tomás to meet everyone at the office.”

Maya went still.

“I made a great many mistakes then.” He turned his gaze away from her with difficulty, and looked out over the sea. The water was still shimmering; he wondered what was hiding beneath its glittering surface. “It is beyond time I changed that.”

Silence hung between them, ready to be broken.

Maya was staring at the ocean, too. Both assiduously not looking at the other.

“I thought this was just a physical thing,” she whispered. “Relieving tension.”

Her eyes lifted, and the hope in them filled his soul.