Chapter 261

“An exception?” Natalie asked, her lips curling up into a satisfied grin. “Anybody I know?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” Alaina breathed, struggling to keep her composure. She bit her lip and blushed. “I blame you, really,” she huffed. “For answering the door in that state. You put all sorts of things into my head that I can’t get rid of.”

Oh, dear. Had she said that out loud? So bluntly?

“Things?” Natalie asked. “Like what?”

Not intentionally, Alaina’s eyes flicked down toward Natalie’s skirt.

“Ah,” Natalie said, catching the glance. “You saw that too, then.”

“Saw ... and was interested,” Alaina forced herself to say—throwing the words out there, to see how Natalie would receive them.

By the growing excitement in her eyes, the interest was mutual. Despite all the hints being there—the constant flirting not just today, but days previous—and that it shouldn’t be a surprise, Alaina’s heart fluttered. So it was reciprocated.

Natalie opened her mouth, and Alaina hung on her next words.

But then Natalie hesitated and pulled back, grimacing.

“W-What?” Alaina asked. She could read that reaction easily enough, Natalie reining herself in. But everything had been going so well, and apparently, she was a person more than up for some, um, casual interactions.

So what had happened?

“I can’t,” Natalie said, looking away and breaking that smoldering eye contact that had been mixing up Alaina’s insides.

“Can’t?” Alaina repeated. “Why not?”

She didn’t need to ask what she couldn’t do. That much was obvious.

Her.

Natalie wrinkled her nose, struggling to phrase it.

“I told my teammates I wouldn’t,” she said.

“O-Oh?” That took her aback. “You’re taken?” She had been getting the feeling that the five girls were more involved than just delving partners, but she’d assumed it was an open relationship. At least by how shamelessly Natalie had been flirting in front of them.

“Taken? Oh, no, it’s nothing like that.” She grimaced. “It’s ... you.”

“Me?” Alaina asked, alarmed.

“Er, sorry,” Natalie hastily corrected. “You’re wonderful. I mean, it’s your dad.”

“My father?” Understanding slammed home. A frown tugged on her lips. “What does he have to do with this?” She waved between them.

Natalie shifted awkwardly. She made a sheepish expression, a sort of ‘you know what I mean,’ but Alaina crossed her arms and made her finish the statement.

“It’s unprofessional,” Natalie sighed. “That’s what my teammates keep telling me, at least. So I promised them.”

“Promised them what?” Alaina asked, glaring.

Natalie spread her hands helplessly.

“Promised them what!”

“That I wouldn’t get involved with you, okay?” Natalie said. “In that way. And yeah, it’s bullshit, but it’s also the situation we’re in. Right?”

Alaina blinked.

That ’right?’ wasn’t Natalie asking Alaina to understand or to be sympathetic with her plight. It was the opposite.

‘Convince me I should ignore them,’ her pleading eyes said.

Though hilariously, Alaina didn’t think it was an expression given intentionally. Just her subconscious sending out a request for help.

Her brain churned away as she formulated a plan of attack. This, she was pretty good at. Spinning an argument, or turning words around in the right way. Sure, she might not mingle in the high courts of Aradon, but a baron wasn’t a man with no position, and she was his daughter. She was more than skilled with words.

But should she try to convince Natalie? She was right. It would be scandalous.

Unfortunately, Alaina was much, much more interested in getting into Natalie’s skirts than she was worried about a bit of a scandal.

Maybe a bit of scandal was why she found herself so excited in the first place.

“Well,” Alaina said in her most reasonable voice. “I don’t see what my father has to do with us at all. So that’s an unfair reason to reject me, don’t you think?”

“Tenet makes it clear we’re agents of them when we’re out on a quest,” Natalie disagreed. “It’s probably implied we shouldn’t involve ourselves with anyone, much less the point-of-contact’s daughter.”