Surprised, I looked over my shoulder at him. All I saw was my reflection in his sunglasses.
“And sorry about that shit with Val,” he continued. “I know you were close to her. That isn’t easy to deal with.”
My fingers tightened on the handle. “No, it’s not,” I admitted, angling my body toward him. “Did you suspect something?”
“Not until David had me watching her, but I didn’t see shit that would’ve made me suspect anything.”
And David had put Dylan on Val-duty because Ren told him that he suspected she was the halfling.
“Strange thing is, Ivy, I saw her kill fae.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Like, how fucked up is that? She was working for them and still killing them?”
“She had to keep up appearances, I guess.” Saddened by that fact, I turned back to the stairwell. “I’ll see you later.”
“Yep,” he said.
I pushed my sunglasses up onto my head and started climbing the steps—steps that I had almost bled out on when an ancient had shot me with a gun he’d manifested out of thin air. An ancient that David had refused to believe was around.
The stairwell always smelled like sugar and feet, a gross combination. I hesitated on the second-floor landing. Irrational dread formed like a lead ball in my gut. The last time I’d stepped through this doorway, I’d found Doc Harris dead on the floor, his gaze blank and fixed on the ceiling.
Taking a deep breath, I hit the buzzer and looked up at the small camera. I had no idea who was monitoring the door. If there wasn’t anyone, I had a key and could—
The door opened suddenly. Ren stood there. I so was not expecting to see him already. “Uh . . .”
He leaned against the doorframe. “I thought you were going to think about what I said, Ivy?”
My lips pursed.
“I can see that you didn’t.”
“I did,” I insisted.
“And I also thought you weren’t coming out to do anything work related, and yet you’re here.”
Um . . .”Are you going to let me in?”
Ren sighed as he stepped aside. I shot him a look as I walked in. The first place my gaze went to was the floor. The beige carpet had been pulled up. It made sense considering Harris’s blood had most likely bled straight through the to the boards below.
“Huh.” My throat felt oddly hoarse as I stared at the floor. “Who knew there was hardwood under there? Like, why would they have covered that up with crap carpet?”
Ren curled his hand around the nape of my neck. The touch was so different from how the prince had done it. He turned me toward him, and I opened my mouth to speak, but he lowered his face to mine and kissed me.
It wasn’t a soft kiss, but it was sweet and long. My lips parted, and I tasted chocolate on his tongue, which made me start to grin as his arm circled my waist. He drew me against him. Out of instinct, I looped my arms around his neck. When he moved his mouth to the side, he kissed the corner of my lip.
I was a little breathless when he settled me back on my feet.
“You looked like you could use the distraction.”
“Oh,” I whispered.
He slid his hand up through the mass of my curls. “I’m not in your head, sweetness, but I know what you were seeing when you were staring at the floor.”
I closed my eyes as I rested my forehead against his chest.
“It’s the same damn thing I saw when I first walked in here and every time since then, but it’s not the doc I see on the floor.” He lowered his head as I dropped my hands to his waist. I knew he was talking about me. “I keep telling myself it’ll get easier.”
“Has it?”
“Not really.”
“That’s motivational,” I murmured.
Ren drew back, and I lifted my gaze to his. “What’ve you been up to?”
“Nothing really. Went to get beignets, but . . .” The truth rose to the tip of my tongue. Tell him, ordered Good Ivy. Keep your mouth shut, ordered the voice that sounded strangely like Tink.
“What?”
I lowered my gaze. “The place was packed.”
Tink would be so happy.
“And that stopped you?” he asked.
A door opened and a heavy, irritated-sounding sigh forced us apart. I turned around. I was kind of relieved to see Miles Daily, the de facto second-in-command. The reason I was “kind of” relieved to see him was because I was pretty sure Miles didn’t like me and also had thought I was the traitor.
Miles raised his dark eyebrows as he glanced between us. “Am I interrupting?”
“You going to get pissed if I say yes?” Ren said.
I bit down on my lip to hide my grin.
Miles rolled his eyes and turned back to the room he’d just been in, which was probably the most emotion I’d ever seen from him. I could never get a read on the guy. He was worse than David when it came to figuring out how he felt and what he was thinking.