Walking to the window, I looked out over the clear, clean aqua water of the swimming pool below, where a small band would begin playing after the cocktail hour concluded. Small, intimate tables dotted the patio, and beautifully positioned votive candles set the whole scene alight with a romantic aura.
Turning back to face the room, I stood silently for a moment, a feeling of joy, mingled with sadness coursing through my body. I loved this place deeply. And I was leaving it. I looked down, despair making me feel weak.
I felt the weight of someone's stare and raised my gaze. Grayson stood across the room. And as that beautifully sensuous mouth curved into a grin, I sucked in a breath, taking in his costume.
The delight I felt was sudden and fierce, and I brought my gloved hands to my mouth, bending forward as I laughed joyously. Elation, hope, happiness, surprise, and sorrow, and a hundred other emotions, slammed into me. I took a step toward him at the same moment he began to walk to where I stood. Had he done this for me?
He was wearing a black tuxedo. The mask he wore covered only the top half his face, made to look like iridescent blue, green, and black dragon scales curving around his eyes and the sides of his head. There were small horns at the top and threads of shimmering red and orange running through it to look like fire.
He was dressed as a dragon.
He paused and turned slightly to show me the wings attached to his back—black with the same blue-green scales and threads of fire. His grin grew as he turned toward me again and we met in the middle of the room, rushing together and stopping suddenly when we were a few inches apart.
We stood looking at each other for several heartbeats before he said, "Hi, little witch." His voice sounded raw and as I stared into his eyes, seen only through the holes in the mask, I swore I saw longing. "You look ravishing."
"Hi, dragon," I breathed, questions swirling through my mind. He was devilishly gorgeous as he again smiled down at me, and my heart flipped once and then twice inside my chest. "So do you. I can't believe you did this." I nodded up at his mask, grinning again.
"Oh I did," he assured me. His grin faded as he took one step forward. "I missed you."
"You did?" I whispered, taking one step forward as well.
He took a step closer. "Yes, God yes. Kira, this week . . . I have so much to tell you. We have so much to talk about. I hope—"
"We do?" I asked, my words colliding with his, hope blooming inside me again.
"Yes."
I looked down. "You didn't even call me," I said, trying to keep the hurt from my voice. "I thought—"
"Charlotte tried to find out where you were."
I blinked. "I didn't know she was asking for you. Why didn't you just ask me yourself?"
"I didn't think after . . . well, I wanted to show you rather than tell you, and so I thought it best I wait for tonight," he said, a throaty edge to his voice. "I needed to look in your eyes. Kira—"
"I—"
"Kira!" I heard sing-songed loudly from the doorway. Charlotte came rushing toward us, dressed as a fairy godmother. I laughed happily, turning to her and letting her sweep me into her warm embrace. "Oh, I don't want to crush you. Let me look at you." She turned me one way and then the other. "Perfect, simply perfect."
"You, too, Charlotte," I said. "You should wear this all the time."
Her expression gentled as she said, "My darling girl, you know how much I've come to care for you, right?"
"Yes," I said, hugging her again. And I did. Despite the reasons she'd brought Shane and Vanessa here—and I was suddenly beginning to believe her reasons were deeper than I yet knew—I didn't doubt the purity of her motives or that she cared for me. I felt it in my heart.
Seconds later, Vanessa and Shane came into the room. Vanessa dressed as the most perfect Tinkerbell I'd ever seen, and Shane in a tuxedo with a green mask and Peter Pan hat, a sword strapped to his side. I felt heat rise in my cheeks at the thought of the last time I'd seen them, but when they grinned at me, and because Vanessa hugged me warmly, I relaxed, and I felt a measure of relief. I looked over to Grayson whose expression seemed calm.
As Vanessa and Shane went to get a drink at the bar, I turned to Grayson, seeing warmth and a peace in his eyes I'd only caught glimpses of before. "You've made up with them," I said incredulously.
He nodded. "Yes. There were a lot of apologies to go around. And I explained all about . . . us. I told you I had a lot to tell you about."
I opened my mouth to speak, wanting very much to hear exactly what he'd told Vanessa and Shane, but the doorbell rang. The string quartet started up, the crooning melody of "I See The Light" filling the air, as food staff entered from the kitchen holding delicious-smelling hors d'oeuvres on silver trays.