Page 92 of Shattered Crown
The question landed somewhere tender. I looked away.
"Caroline was different. We made sense on paper. Our families approved. The courtship was..." I searched for the right word. "Transactional."
Xavier's grin faded. "That's depressing."
"I know." I met his eyes. "Aria isn't like that. She doesn't care about what makes sense on paper. She cares about what's real." I ran a hand through my hair, frustrated with myself, with my inability to articulate this. "I don't know how to show her that I'm real. That what I feel is real."
My brother studied me for a long moment. I braced myself for another joke, another quip at my expense.
Instead, he stood up.
"Alright," he said. "I'll help you."
Relief flooded through me. "Thank you. I?—"
"On one condition."
I should have known. Nothing with Xavier was ever simple.
"What condition?"
He smiled. That particular smile that usually preceded something I would regret. "You'll owe me. And when the time comes, I'll collect."
I thought about what that could mean. Knowing Xavier, it could be anything. Money. Connections. Cleaning up some catastrophic mess he'd gotten himself into. The possibilities were endless and none of them were good.
But Aria was worth it. Aria was worth anything.
"Fine," I said. "We have a deal."
Xavier clapped his hands together. "Excellent. Now, let's get to work."
The next three hours were a blur.
Xavier made phone calls. Dozens of them, to people I didn't know, arranging things I didn't understand. He commandeered my credit card, ordered supplies, and enlisted the help of a blonde woman named Celeste who apparently owed him a favor.
I tried to follow along, to understand what he was planning, but he waved off my questions with increasingly impatient hand gestures.
"Trust me," he said, for the fifteenth time. "This is what I do."
"You've never held a job in your life."
"Exactly. I've had to develop other skills." He was texting rapidly, his thumbs flying across the screen. "Romance is one of them."
By six o'clock, we were parked two blocks from the Kealoha Foundation, in a spot with a clear view of the front entrance. Celeste had met us there twenty minutes earlier, carrying shopping bags and wearing an expression of long-sufferingpatience that suggested she'd done this kind of thing for Xavier before.
I watched through the windshield as they worked. String lights, strung between two trees across the street from the foundation's entrance. Dozens of candles in glass holders, arranged in a pattern I couldn't quite make out from this distance. Flowers everywhere, the kind Aria loved, the ones that grew wild in the gardens of the Kahale Grande.
When they finished, Celeste jogged back to the car.
"All set," she said, slightly breathless. She was pretty, I noticed distantly. Blonde hair, bright eyes, the kind of easy smile that probably got her whatever she wanted. "The lighter's in the bag. Make sure you light the candles before she gets there, or the whole effect is ruined."
Xavier pulled her close and kissed her, deep and unhurried, like they had all the time in the world. I looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. When had my brother gotten a girlfriend? Why hadn't I known about this?
"Thank you, sweetheart," Xavier murmured against her lips. "I owe you."
"You owe me dinner. Somewhere expensive." She pulled back, patted his cheek, and walked off down the sidewalk without looking back.
Xavier turned to me, all business now.
