“And so tonight begins a new era, not only for Charlotte and myself but also for Vaughn Construction . . .” Sebastian went on with his speech.
“What a boring, pompous, long-winded jackass,” a snide voice murmured in my ear. “Some people just do not know when to shut up. What do you see in him?”
Startled, I looked over to my right at Finn’s grinning face. Not many people could sneak up on me, but he was one of them. Finn was lighter on his feet than a cat. Despite my annoyance with him over the past several days, I had to admit that he cut an impressive figure in his tuxedo, and his hair gleamed like polished walnut in the soft glow from the chandeliers. Not that I would ever tell him that, though. His ego was big enough already.
“When did you get here?”
He waved his hand. “Not important. Just like everything your boyfriend is spouting up there on his soapbox.”
“He’s thanking people for coming and supporting him and Charlotte,” I said, rolling my eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Give the guy a break. His dad just died a few weeks ago.”
“You mean, you just killed his dad a few weeks ago.”
Fury flashed through me like lightning striking the earth. My eyes narrowed, and my hands balled into fists. “Is that why you came here? To remind me of that? Because my memory’s not that short. I never forget them—any of them.”
I remembered all the assignments that Fletcher had sent me out on, all the random people who’d foolishly decided to mess with me, all the punks who’d wanted to hurt me when I’d been living on the streets—all the people I’d killed. I remembered the way they looked, talked, laughed, snarled, smelled, and I especially remembered how they’d died and that I’d been the cause of their sudden, violent demises. Maybe that was where my dreams, my memories, were coming from. The fact that I just couldn’t forget about all the bad things that I’d done, even if some had been necessary simply to survive.
Finn’s face softened at my harsh words. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t come here to fight. I just don’t know what you see in that guy, Gin. Look at him, holding court in the middle of the ballroom, crowing about all the things he plans to do now that his father is gone. He’s trying too hard, yet again, like a prince who’s finally seized the king’s throne and doesn’t want anyone to know exactly how ill suited he is for the job.”
I glanced at Sebastian. Sometime while I’d been talking to Finn, Sebastian had let go of Charlotte, who’d disappeared into the crowd, and was now waving around his free hand and stabbing his index finger up to the ceiling in order to punctuate his points. Maybe he was being a little overly dramatic, but I knew how important it was for him to make a good impression tonight, now that he was the head of the Vaughn family.
“He’s doing the best he can,” I said, turning back to Finn. “You can’t blame him for that.”
“No, I suppose not.” Finn sighed. “Just . . . be careful with this guy, okay, Gin? I’ve seen the way you look at him.”
“And how is that?”
For once, Finn’s green gaze was dark and serious. “Like you’re halfway in love with him.”
I kept my face cold, calm, and expressionless, but he must have seen the uneasy agreement in my eyes, because he reached out and gently touched my arm, as if I were a piece of delicate glass. That’s exactly how I felt right now—brittle, fragile, and utterly exposed.
“You know that it can never work out, right?” Finn said in a soft voice.
“Of course I know that.” I sneered. “I killed his father. I might be an assassin, but I’m not stupid.”
Finn shook his head. “It’s more than just that. It’s what we do versus what he does. Our world versus his.”
“And here I thought that we all lived in the same world.”
“Not people like us. Our world is in the background, in the shadows, in the darkness, where few people dare to tread.”
“And his isn’t?”
Finn held out his hand, gesturing at the ballroom. “This is about as far from the shadows as you can get, Gin. And I think you know that deep down inside. You can be one thing or the other—you can’t be both.” He paused. “Except maybe if you’re Mab Monroe.”
Everything that he was saying was undeniably true. But I had just been so . . . so . . . happy with Sebastian, so thrilled with the way he made me feel like I was the most wonderful person he’d ever met. I’d never had that before.
Oh, Fletcher loved me like a daughter, Jo-Jo too, and of course Finn and I had our sibling rivalry going on. I supposed that even Sophia felt some sort of fond, grudging affection for me, although she would never go so far as to say it out loud. But the four of them had been a family long before I’d shown up like a lost puppy on the back step of the Pork Pit, and sometimes I still felt like an outsider looking in. I supposed that was one of the reasons that I’d trained so long and hard to be the assassin Fletcher had wanted me to be—so I could please him in one area that Finn never could.
So I could be the insider for a change.
But it wasn’t like that with Sebastian. Not at all. He made me feel important, he made me feel . . . special in a way that I never had, not even with my own family. Even when my mom and sisters had been alive, I’d always been the one in the middle. Not old enough to hang out with my mom and Annabella and too old for Bria and her dolls, even though I was the one who’d always ended up playing with her anyway, simply because I loved her so much.
I didn’t want to give up Sebastian and how he made me feel, but Finn was right. I didn’t have a choice. Because sooner or later, the sand would run out in the hourglass of my happiness, the carriage would turn back into a pumpkin, and my glass slipper would splinter into shards. Either I’d slip up and say something that I shouldn’t, or Harry Coolidge or some other investigator would get the bright idea to take a hard look at me and when and why I’d appeared in Sebastian’s life. I’d rather leave on my own terms, with at least a little bit of my dignity left—and my heart too. More important, I had to go out like that if only not to endanger Finn and Fletcher. I might be willing to risk my own safety but not theirs.
Not even for Sebastian.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll try one more time to find that file the old man wants tonight, and then I’ll get out—for good.”