Chapter 214
My mother cut in, and God bless her for the one thing she still always has: cover. “Mr. Hawk, we will discuss this seriously and we will take time. Nathaniel is his own man, and we value his input. Allow us to consider your proposal.”
It was exactly the pause I needed. A graceful refusal without the slamming of doors. My mother had read the room—she knew my heart and my stubborn streak—and she offered them time to breathe, which meant time for thinking and—hopefully—time for cooler tempers to back down.
Britney, however, wasn’t finished. She moved as if to place a hand on my arm, face all sweetness and practiced innocence.
I stepped back a fraction and she misread that for coyness. “Well, I hope we can—connect. Socially, at least.”
I looked at her then, and something in me softened—not for her, but for the ridiculousness of the moment. “Miss Hawk, thank you. But my evenings are taken,” I said, and the words came out easier than I expected. “I have someone I care about here.”
That sentence landed like a small stone. It wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t need to be. It was simply true—and the truth sometimes lands harder than any speech.
Britney blinked. For a moment she was speechless; the practiced smile cracked. Mayor Hawk’s polite mask froze into a curious arrangement of politeness and recalculation.
“I see,” the mayor said carefully. “If that is so, perhaps we will revisit this at a later date.”
My mother offered the same diplomatic smile she always used when smoothing over town spats. “Yes. Let’s take time to think.”
As the Hawks excused themselves, the air shifted from tense to slightly relieved. Deal not done, but tabled. Time bought.
I watched Aya as the room emptied, saw the tiny detail she thought she hid—the way she exhaled when the immediate pressure eased, the foxed little narrowing of her eyes when she caught me looking. I felt a small feral pride at having put a stake in the ground. No, I hadn’t obliterated the ledger. I hadn’t upended treaties. But I had made clear—firmly, quietly—that I wasn’t a bargaining chip.
She approached me in the quieter aftermath, cloak sliding off her shoulders, still smelling faintly of festival smoke and funnel cake. Up close, she was ridiculous and sharp and completely, damnably real.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, the sass back in her voice but softer around the edges.
I shrugged, a bad actor trying on sincerity. “Someone had to say it. I wasn’t about to let Mr. Hawk’s daughter audition for my future.” My thumb brushed the bruise of a spot on her wrist—a leftover from grip on my arm at the festival—and I found I liked the badge of it.
She rolled her eyes but didn’t push away. “You look serious. Scary serious.”
“Only when it counts.” I let a small grin cut through. “Besides—” I leaned in close enough that my voice dipped and the rest of the room fell away, the old family debts and the mayor’s ledger suddenly smaller—“I don’t like the idea of someone else thinking they can buy what belongs to me.”
Her eyebrows climbed. “And what, exactly, belongs to you?”
She smiled—real, a little warm around the corners—and in that sloppy, vulnerable second I said the only thing that both steadied me and set me off at the same time.
“You.”
She blinked, unreadable for a beat, and then—just the ghost of a grin—turned away like a proper lady stealing plans. “You’re insufferable.”
I laughed, because what else do you do when you’ve just said something that makes your ribs ache? “Maybe,” I admitted. “But I’m yours about as much as I can be without promising the moon.”
She swatted my shoulder, theatrical. “Don’t get romantic on me. We’re still pretend.”
“Right,” I said softly, though not entirely honestly. “Pretend it is—until it isn’t.”
Her eyes caught mine, and we both knew how much of that was a dare and how much was a promise. The ledger of the town still sat on the table in someone else’s life. But in that narrow, hot moment, I’d put my name where it mattered.