A Dove's Tale

Chapter 172

Five hours. Only five hours since I'd last seen Chevalier, but it felt like an eternity.

I mentally scolded myself for being so silly as I approached his office. The honeymoon was over. He and I couldn't be with each other all the time. And I was certainly not walking faster than normal in my eagerness to see him.

If his brothers realized how much I missed him after five measly hours of being apart, I'd never hear the end of it. My guards would at least keep their mouths shut. But I still didn't dare look back at Julius and Byron, knowing I'd see a faint smile on at least Byron's face and a glimmer of amusement in Julius' gray eyes.

The office door was just ahead. What were the odds Chevalier would be alone?

I took a deep breath and knocked at the door, which flew open almost immediately with an exuberance that dashed my hopes to the ground.

"Hello, Ivetta!" Clavis exclaimed, beaming at me with a smile that meant trouble.

"Hello, Clavis," I replied, smiling politely back and bracing myself. "It's almost dinnertime, so I was wondering if you'd all finished work for the day."

I tried to keep my eyes on him, but they wandered naturally past him to survey the room. The entire faction was here. Luke was leaning against a bookcase with his arms crossed over his chest, as if he'd been talking before I arrived, and Nokto was depositing a neat stack of papers on the enormous white desk where Chevalier sat, bent over a document with a quill in hand. He looked so regal in his normal white, black, and gold attire, framed by the window behind him and a dimming sky of a much darker shade of blue than his eyes. Eyes that made my heart skip a beat when they looked up at me.

Clavis laughed. "What you really want to know is if Chev has finished work for the day. Isn't that right?"

Was I that obvious?

"Haven't had enough of him yet?" Nokto teased, flashing me a sly smile.

"We haven't seen ya for a week," Luke complained, giving me the same pitiful expression he used when he tried to guilt me into baking him desserts. "Didn't ya even miss us?"

"Well, of course I—"

"No."

Chevalier's cool interruption brought a paradoxical rush of heat to my cheeks. He set his quill down and stood, his face expressionless, but his eyes undeniably set on me as he crossed the office with a few long, easy strides. I swallowed and glanced at his expectant brothers. He wouldn't kiss me in front of them again, would he? Once was enough, right?

But his hand simply came to the small of my back, and he guided me to the door without a word. I exhaled a breath of relief—and ignored the twinge of disappointment.

"Aw, you're not even gonna kiss her?" Luke asked, following on our heels. Clavis and Nokto came along my right side, both well out of Chevalier's reach, I noticed. My guards didn't follow.

"A gentleman doesn't normally kiss and tell, but we all saw the longing on her face," Clavis added. "To leave her hanging like that—"

"I don't need a kiss right now," I said quickly.

"Interesting choice of words," Nokto noted, tilting his head to the side as he studied me with amusement. "'Need' instead of 'want'. Whatever did you do to her while you were gone, King Highness?"

"We know 'what' he did," Clavis replied. "It's the details we're missing. How about it, Ivetta? Chev wasn't very forthcoming, and we had a bet—"

"Enough," Chevalier said sharply, saving me from having to hear the rest of that statement and bursting into flames from embarrassment.