“It’s not a total loss,” he says with a sneer. “You get Liam’s. Everybody fucking wins.”

“We’re done here.” I whirl, intending to make my escape through the door, but his hand stops me, electric fingers gripping my arm.

“We’ll never be done, princess.”

I glare at him over my shoulder and toss his words from over a week ago into his face. “I got what I came for.”

Confirmation.

Heartache.

And the need to have a talk with my brother about my future.

13

Lilith Astor swept into the tower long enough to destroy and conquer, then she disappeared just as suddenly. Three days before I’m scheduled to move into the House of Cancer, I find Landon alone in his home office.

“Where’s Elise?” I ask.

“She’s exhausted from all the wedding planning.” The tap-tap-tap of fingers on his keyboard signals his distraction. “She went to lie down for a while.”

I step in and shut the door behind me. “I wanted to talk to you alone.”

My serious tone grabs his attention. He looks up from the laptop and removes his reading glasses. I never realized until now that he wears a pair. My brother, the studious ambassador.

“What’s on your mind?”

“It’s about Lilith.”

Leaning back, he runs a hand through his dark hair. The length has grown longer in the last month. “Why don’t you take a seat?” He gestures to a chair tucked against the wall.

I pull it to the front of his desk and settle in for what I expect will be an uncomfortable conversation. “Why didn’t you tell me you have a twin sister?”

“Technically, you and I both have a sister.”

I give him a pointed look. “A sister I knew nothing about until Liam told me who she was.”

Landon winces. “I should have told you, but things are complicated with Lilith. She’s…difficult to handle.”

I got a firsthand taste of her difficult nature, but I don’t tell him that.

“Is she coming back?”

He shrugs. “It’s hard to know what Lilith will do.”

I gather courage for my next question. “What’s the deal with her and Sebastian?”

Slowly he nods, understanding coming to light. “You want to know if they’re still involved.”

“Yes.”

Because as much as I hate it, Lilith Astor is an intolerable wall standing between any real union with Sebastian, and though marriage to a man in this tower isn’t something I’d chose for myself, I want it to be real.

I want it to be reciprocated.

“It’s an obsolete question, Novalee. He’s going to marry you.”

“Not by choice.”

Landon frowns. “Is that what he told you?”

“Not in so many words. But I’m not as gullible as you might believe. He wants Lilith.”