Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 542

Chapter 542

KAEL

The room absorbed this with the specific quality of a room that had been asked to absorb something and was choosing to do so without comment.

"Killian," I said. "Do you think I avoid things."

Killian, in the corner, had the expression of a person who'd walked into a room without knowing what was happening and had been watching it develop and was now being asked to participate.

"I think," Killian said carefully, "that I'm not in a position to make assessments about avoidance given the history."

"That's a diplomatic answer," I said.

"I've been working on diplomatic answers," he said.

"Chapter fifteen," Ivory said.

Killian looked at her.

"Chapter fifteen is the chapter where the older brother decides to stay," Ivory said. "And the decision is clear in the text. What's less clear is everything he hasn't said yet. The things he's decided to stay for but hasn't named." She held Killian's gaze. "Did you read chapter fifteen."

"Yes," Killian said.

"And?" Ivory said.

"It was significant," Killian said.

"In what way was it significant," Ivory said.

Killian looked at me.

I looked at Ivory.

"The book club," I said, "has started."

"The book club has started," Jordan confirmed.

"I want the record to show," I said, "that I was not the one who proposed this."

"Noted," Nina said.

"And that I maintain my position that the metaphors are being applied very directly," I said.

"Also noted," Nina said.

"And that I'm going to participate anyway," I said, "because the alternative is watching four people discuss chapter fourteen while I pretend I haven't processed it."

"You've processed it," Ivory said.

"I've processed it," I confirmed.

"Since when," she said.

"Since the den," I said. "The third reading."

Ivory looked at me with the expression that had the healer and the person and the twelve years all in it simultaneously.

"The third reading," she said.

"The first time you skipped it," I said. "And then came back two weeks later and read it anyway." I held her gaze. "I understood why you came back."

The room was very quiet.

"Because you needed to say it," I said. "Even through a proxy. You needed the thing in the chapter to exist in the space between us even if you couldn't say it directly."

"Yes," Ivory said, and her voice was the quiet version.

"I heard it," I said. "I was a wolf but I heard it."

She looked at the annotated copy of the book, which was in front of her on the desk where it always was during these discussions, the multiple pages of notes visible even from across the table.

"The book club," I said, and my voice had the quality of something that had found its footing, "is now in session. What does everyone want to discuss."

Nina's smile arrived.

Jordan sat back in his chair with the expression of someone who'd been waiting for exactly this outcome.

Aria looked between all of us with the expression of someone who was watching pieces click into place that she'd been trying to arrange from the outside for months.

Killian looked at Ivory.

Ivory looked at the book.

"Chapter seventeen," Jordan said.

"Chapter seventeen," Ivory agreed.

"The hallway scene," Nina said.

"We are not starting with chapter seventeen," I said.

"The hallway scene is directly applicable," Jordan said.

"To a situation that I've explained multiple times was a corridor collision," I said.

"The characters' collision in chapter seventeen," Ivory said, "is also described as accidental."

"Is it resolved to be accidental," I said.

"That's the discussion," Ivory said.

"I'm not having a discussion about whether chapter seventeen's collision is accidental or not," I said.

"We could start with the window," Aria said.

Everyone looked at her.

She looked slightly surprised at herself. Then she settled into it.

The corner of Ivory's mouth moved.

"You brought it," she said.

"I thought it might come up," he said.

"Good," she said.

Aria was the only one without a copy.

Nina reached into the bag under the table and produced a copy and placed it in front of Aria without comment.

Aria looked at it. Then at Nina. Then at the copy.

"When did you—" she started.

"I've been organized about this for weeks," Nina said.

"You had a copy ready for me," Aria said.

"I had a copy ready for everyone," Nina said. "Including Killian. Including you. In case the moment arrived."

"Nina," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"You've been planning this," I said.

"I've been prepared for it," she said. "There's a difference."

"Is there," I said.

"The planning implies I forced it," she said. "The preparation means I was ready when it happened naturally."

"It didn't happen naturally," I said. "Ivory left a book in Killian's room and Jordan gave you chapter one months ago and you've been—"

"Creating favorable conditions," Jordan said.

"For the book club," Ivory said.

"That we said no to," I said.

"That achieved critical mass," Jordan said.

"With conditions," Ivory said. "That we created."

"Favorably," Jordan said.

I looked at the three of them. At Aria, who was holding the copy Nina had produced with the expression of someone who was starting to understand exactly how long this particular situation had been in development. At Killian, who looked like someone who'd been handed a prop in a play they'd stumbled into and was deciding whether to take the role.

"The window," I said. "Let's talk about the window."

And the book club, which had been inevitable since approximately the second year of the curse, began.