They weren’t used to quiet.
When the pain eased, Lila sat up. Her hand drifted to her belly, and her thumb stroked back and forth.
Tristan’s arm wrenched back as though he worried of hurting her. His face had paled. He opened his mouth opened to say something, but then thought better of it, clamping down on his tongue once more.
“I’m fine,” she assured him.
“You keep saying that, but I don’t believe you. I’ll get Doc to come up and check you out. He should—”
Lila grabbed his chin. “I’m fine, Tristan. It had nothing to do with the accident. Just let it go.”
“No, I won’t let it go. You’re not okay. You need to see a doctor.”
She slid off the bed and fumbled for her clothes, fingers aching, stomach sinking into guilt. She’d let Tristan start something without revealing that her birth control had changed.
Fuck.
She was a lousy excuse for a lover.
She slipped her tank back over head, her sweater far too warm in the heat. Dixon must have come back to the apartment while they tarried in the bedroom.
Tristan quickly dressed. “I’m going to get Doc. It will only take a moment. He’s right downstairs, and he’ll check you out properly this time.”
“I said no.”
Tristan paused at the door, clearly debating whether he should listen.
“I’m fine, really.”
His fingers worked at the doorknob. “I think I heard Dixon in the other room.”
Lila finished dressing, and they peeked inside the apartment’s main room. The purple walls shone brightly in the afternoon sun. The light glinted off the kitchen counter and coffee tables, made with wine barrels that had been stained to a deep shine.
Sure enough, Tristan’s brother had returned at some point. He wore nothing but indigo boxer briefs and a shamrock bracelet. His legs rested on the coffee table, ankles crossed as he stretched in a plush chair near the couch. He had a body similar to Tristan’s, a swimmer’s build, slightly muscular and rangy at the same time. He’d shaved his head close to the skull, highlighting the elegant planes of his face. Gauze wrapped around one of this thighs, a consequence of their shooting match with the Italian mercs less than two weeks before. A darkly stained cane leaned against his chair.
A sandwich sat on the coffee table next to a stack of books about the oracles and the gods. He pointed a remote toward the screen.
He retracted it as soon as they entered, his blue eyes holding amusement as Lila smoothed her hair. Both plopped down upon the couch beside him.
“Did Shirley tell you about Lila’s bike?” Tristan asked.
The tongueless man snatched up his notepad on the coffee table. No, what happened? he wrote.
Tristan absently intertwined his fingers with Lila’s as he explained about the accident, giving the back of her good hand a kiss as he explained about the motorcycle’s failed brakes.
Dixon worried the notepad in his lap, his pencil trapped and forgotten in the wire spiral along the top. As the son of a Holguín mother, Dixon had grown up as a highborn, rather than a slave. He knew exactly what had happened, for he had grown up in Lila’s world.
He didn’t need her to connect the dots, but Tristan did.
Tell him why someone would do that to an heir.
Tristan looked back at her, his eyes searching.
“There could be any number of reasons. May I have some Sangre?”
Tristan walked to a little locker in the back of the room. He took out a bottle of Sangre and a couple of black Jolly Roger mugs and poured Lila a glass.
The locker closed in the quiet.