Isabella was standing near a grand piano, a vision in shining emerald green. Her laugh was like the giggling of silver bells, artificial and perfectly pitched. She was breathtaking, the kind of woman who seemed sculpted for rooms like this. And she was focused, with an unnerving intensity, on Locas.
I quickly jumped back to escape her sight; I couldn't keep a straight face like the professionals do. I might smile at her, and Locas men, whose eyes were shining like torches, would get to see us. So I watched firmly from a distance. The calculation beneath the glamour. Her eyes, when they flickered away from him, weren't adoring; they were scanning, assessing. She touched his arm, leaning in to whisper something that made him laugh, but her body was angled, her posture too deliberate. It was
