“That’s a lazy answer.”
He huffed a small, surprised laugh. “Maybe it is,” he said. “This is how I learned. I guess I don’t know how to do it any other way.”
Diana felt something in her relax. “I like it when you’re honest,” she said, realizing the truth of the words as she spoke them.
“When I make my case like a human?” he said, a grin in his voice.
She let herself yield to the pressure of his hand, the tilt of his body—for now. Dancing might not be quite like fighting, but you still had to be careful when someone stepped into your guard.
“Better,” he murmured. “Next time, you can lead.”
What next time? she wanted to ask.
Alia’s laugh floated over the crowd, and Jason swung Diana around gracefully, cutting through the other couples so they could keep Alia and Theo in view—they were laughing, breathless, hands clasped, spinning in a tipsy circle. Theo’s style of dancing was definitely more theatrical than Jason’s.
“I don’t hear Alia laugh enough,” Jason said.
“I suspect she’d say the same of you.”
His shoulders lifted slightly in a shrug. “Maybe. She needs to meet more people, have more fun, but with the danger…”
“She’s having fun now.”
“Well, I don’t want her having too much fun. Not with Theo.”
Given the display with his father, Diana wasn’t sure Theo was the best thing for Alia, either. Even so, it was hard not to think of what Theo had said about Jason not wanting him around. “I thought you were friends.”
“We are. But Theo isn’t exactly…steady. He falls in and out of love like a kid on a waterslide. Falls hard, hits bottom, wants to go again.”
“His father seems to agree.”
Jason winced. “I know. He’s too rough on Theo, but I understand his frustration. Theo’s brilliant. He can write code, hack pretty much any security system. He just seems to want to spend all of his time gaming.”
“Is that so bad?”
“He could make a lot of money at it, if that’s what you mean.”
“It isn’t,” Diana said, annoyed.
“I just think he could do a lot of good, if he wanted to.” Jason lifted his arm, his other hand pressing at Diana’s back so she spun in a tight circle, the lights of the room whirling past. “But Theo doesn’t want to listen to me any more than Alia does.”
“No one likes to be told what to do. You’ve chosen a future. Alia deserves the same chance.”
“She isn’t ready. She trusts too easily. Case in point, you.”
This again. Jason’s wariness was understandable, but his assessment of his sister was so wrongheaded. She pulled back a little so that she could look at him. “Alia didn’t trust me because she’s naive. She leaned on me because she had to.”
“And now you’ve conveniently gained access to our home and a party full of some of the most powerful people in New York.”
“There is nothing convenient about this for me.”
Jason hissed in a breath and Diana realized she was clutching his hand like a vise as her anger rose. His hand gripped her waist, drawing her closer, his gaze fierce.
“What brought you here, Diana Prince? How do you fight the way you do? How did you identify my security team?”
Part of her wanted to pull away, but she refused to retreat. Instead, she leaned in, so close their mouths were almost touching. His eyes widened.
“Do you really think you’ll get the answers you want by trying to bully me?” she asked.
He swallowed, then seemed to regain his composure. “I tend to be very good at getting what I want.”
Diana’s chin lifted. “I think you’ve grown too used to people saying yes to you.”
“Have I?”
“But you have no idea how much I enjoy saying no.”
The corner of Jason’s mouth curled, his dimple flashing briefly, and Diana felt an unexpected surge of triumph.
“You think I’m a bully,” he said, shifting his weight with ease, using his momentum to guide her.
“Yes.”
“A jerk?” He took another smooth, sure-footed step, his thigh brushing hers as they glided through the crowd.
“Yes.”
“A budding tyrant?”
That seemed a bit extreme, but she nodded anyway.
Jason laughed. “You may be right.” He took advantage of her surprise to spin her. The lights of the room whirred around her, and she felt the swell of the music rise up through the floor as he drew her back into his orbit. “I know what people think of me. I know I’m not fun the way Theo is or charming the way my parents were. None of this comes easy to me. But I also know I’m fighting for the right things.”
She envied his certainty, the conviction in his voice.
“How can you be so sure?” she asked.
“Because I know what it would mean to lose them. Alia wants me to let Michael do more of the work, enjoy myself. She doesn’t understand how fast we can be on the outside of what our parents created, with no way back in.”
Diana thought of her mother sitting at the table in the Iolanth Court, speaking to one Amazon after another, the long meetings and debates and dinners, Diana waiting, always waiting for a moment of her time. I can never be seen to be shirking my duties, she’d said. To the Amazons, I must always be their queen first and your mother second. Diana hadn’t really understood, hadn’t wanted to. Can’t Tek do it? she’d asked. But Hippolyta had only shaken her head. If Tek does the work, then the Amazons will begin to see her as their queen, and rightly so. It must be me, Diana. And one day, when I grow weary of this work and this crown, it will be you.
“What?” said Jason. “I can see you want to say something, so spit it out.”
Diana met his eyes. “When you ride, your mount learns the feel of the hands that hold the reins; it gets used to responding to those commands. There’s danger in letting someone else take the reins for too long.”
A troubled expression passed over Jason’s face. “That’s it exactly.” He spun her again, and this time, when he drew her back to him, there was a hesitancy she hadn’t sensed before.
“What is it?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at Alia. “Is something wrong?”
“She’s fine,” said Jason. “Everything’s fine. It’s just, you’re the only…” The muscles of his shoulder bunched beneath her hand, and he gave an almost-irritated shrug. “Everyone always just tells me to relax.”
Uptight. High-strung. Alia and Diana had both used those words to describe Jason. But maybe he was so focused because he couldn’t afford not to be.
“Michael must understand,” she ventured.
But Jason’s frown deepened. “My parents trusted Michael implicitly. Sometimes I worry they trusted him too much.” He cast her a guilty glance, and she realized how dangerous a dance could be. The music, the glow of the lights, this half embrace. It was too easy to speak secrets, to forget the world waiting beyond the last note of the song. “That isn’t fair. He’s done a lot for our family. Still…”
Diana looked over at Alia and Theo and saw him give her another wild spin. “Still?” she prompted.
“There were a lot of people with a lot to gain from my parents’ death. Michael didn’t buy into the conspiracy theories. He made sure there was a full investigation, and there was nothing suspicious. The roads were wet. My parents were arguing.”
“But you think there’s more to it.”
“You don’t understand.” He took a long breath. “They’d been arguing more and more.”
Despite the heat of the room, a chill settled over Diana’s shoulders. “You think that Alia was the reason?”
“I don’t know. If her power—”
“You seem immune to it,” Diana protested. “Your friendship with Theo has thrived. You and Nim spar, but you seem genuinely fond of each other.”
“But what if our mother and father weren’t immune? What if…what if they weren’t fighting because of problems at the lab or because they’d fallen out of love? What if…I don’t know.”