But he didn’t want her. Anything to do with her, really.
Fine.
She was perfectly adept at making benign conversation.
Her forefinger flung out from the railing into the night air. “This house is so much taller than the rest in this area. Do you like it up here because you get to look down on everyone?”
He chuckled as he turned toward the street and set his forearms upon the railing. “No. I have several reasons. That is not one of them.”
“Tell me one of them.” She couldn’t look at him, her stare firmly fixed on the cobblestones below.
“I kept this townhouse for its height—but it’s not so I can look down on everyone, it’s so no one can look down on me. No one can see me. I like to be anonymous, but I find that hard to come by with the business I am in.”
“Reasonable. If I recall correctly, when I first arrived in London, I merely uttered the name Blackstone and people’s eyes went wide. Everyone had heard of you. Feared you.” She glanced at him. “I envy you this.”
“What?”
“You know who you are, where you belong, who you can depend upon. I’ve never had that. Not since my mother was sent away. Since then, there hasn’t been a place for me in this world. A true place for me. A place without fear. A place with simplicity.”
“You can have that here, for as long as you need to.”
“Thank you.” Her mouth quirked to the side. “But I’m allowed my room. This terrace. That is it. This isn’t simplicity, Talen. This isn’t normal. None of it is.”
“What if I brought Verity over? Aside from Declan she’s the only other person I would trust with knowing this place exists.”
“No—I don’t want to jeopardize your anonymity here.”
“I trust her.” He shrugged. “She would never let it be known.”
“You would do that?”
“If it would stop you from sulking about, then yes. It may even squeak a smile out of you.”
She smiled at him, meeting his look. “Don’t think me ungrateful, because I am. I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me when I was nothing but a stranger dumped upon your doorstep.”
“I wouldn’t say dumped. Juliet is smart. She would never dump anyone.”
“She is that. Regardless, you took me on when you had no reason to. You’re more of a hero than you give yourself credit for.”
“Ness—”
“So tell me another reason you like it up here.” She pointed outward into the night air as she cut him off, knowing what he was going to say. He wasn’t her hero. That was his opinion. Her opinion, she was beginning to suspect, was very different.
“Another reason?” He turned toward her, leaving his left arm draped across the railing, and pointed upward. “The stars. Up here on clear nights, I’m above the lights so I can make out the stars.”
She glanced upward. The sky was clear and the stars were shining brightly. That’s what he’d been doing lying on the chaise longue when she’d stumbled upon him. “You like the stars?”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“From my years at sea. I learned to navigate by them, though I wasn’t very good at it. Declan was always better. But truly, I always liked the mystery of the stars more than the practicality of them—fixed stones in the sky, marking the way, yet always moving. Always moving.” He looked up, his eyes shifting across the night sky. “Look at that one.”
She followed to where his finger pointed, turning her back toward him to do so. “Which one?”
“Actually, look at those three—the three in a tight line, together. That is Orion’s belt. He just made it into the sky here in London.”
“Orion?”