I nodded and stepped onto one of the black flagstone paths that curved deeper into the greenlab. A glass roof covered the entire space, the sunlight streaming inside adding even more warmth to the already humid air. I wandered through the rows of flowers, herbs, and bushes, enjoying the quiet.

I’d almost reached the back of the greenlab when a series of soft scrape-scrape-scrapes interrupted the silence. I headed toward the sound.

I rounded another row of stitch-sting bushes and found Felix perched on a stool. Several clay pots crouched on the table in front of him, along with bunches of herbs laid out on damp paper towels, as though he’d just picked them. But his attention was fixed on the blood-red rose in his hand, and he didn’t hear me walk up behind him.

“Picking another rose for Deah Draconi?” I asked in a snide tone.

Felix yelped in surprise, crushed the rose in his hand, and then yelped again as its thorns stabbed his skin. He winced and dropped the mangled flower onto the table.

“Geez! Give a guy a heart attack, why don’t you?” he muttered. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do. Because you gave Deah a rose just like that one at the arcade.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did,” I said. “You brought that white rose for Devon to give to Poppy, as part of their fake date, but that red one was for Deah all along, wasn’t it? That’s why you were carrying that gift bag around. Because you had two flowers in there and you didn’t want anyone to see the second rose or know who it was for.”

Felix opened his mouth, but for once, no words came out. He bit his lip, and a guilty flush stained his cheeks.

“You can’t tell anyone, okay? Please?” he asked, desperation creeping into his voice. “The Sinclairs and Draconis don’t exactly get along.”

“Don’t worry. I’m good at keeping my mouth shut . . .”

He relaxed a little.

“For the right price.”

He sighed. “What do you want?”

“I don’t know . . . yet. But when I do, so will you.”

I grinned in the face of his sour, petulant expression and leaned against the table. “Although, I have to ask. Deah Draconi? Really?”

Felix straightened up. “Deah’s not so bad.”

“Not so bad? She stood by and let her brother assault Poppy.”

He shook his head. “Nobody can stop Blake, not even Deah. And he’s second-in-command to their father, who listens to everything Blake says.”

I couldn’t argue with him. Everyone knew about Blake and Victor Draconi and their combined cruelty. But I just couldn’t picture motormouth Felix with stuck-up Deah.

“Is that why you flirt with every girl you see? Because you don’t want anyone to know that you’re totally hung up on Deah?”

“What’s it to you?” he muttered. “You’re just like everyone else. You hate her just because she’s a Draconi, and you don’t even know her.”

I shrugged. “So make me not hate her. Tell me about her. How did the two of you hook up, anyway?”

For the first time since I’d surprised him, a smile flitted across Felix’s face.

“It was dumb, really. All the Family kids go to the same school. It’s supposed to foster better relations between us or something like that. Anyway, Deah and I were in the same chemistry class this year, and everyone was doing an experiment. Of course, I was talking with my lab partner through the whole thing.”

“You? Talking? Really?”

“Yes, really,” he said, laughing. “Anyway, Deah was at the next table, and my talking was bugging her, because she finally told me to shut up. Then I told her to shut up, and before you know it, the teacher is telling us both to shut up and giving us two weeks of detention after school.”

Felix sucked down a breath and kept right on talking. “So we get detention, and we’re all alone in the school library, and there is absolutely nothing to do, since they take your phones away. Since there’s no one else to talk to, I start talking to Deah.”

“And she didn’t knock your teeth out of your mouth?”

“Oh, she was pissed at first, but she was as bored as I was. So she starts talking back to me. One thing leads to another . . .” His voice trailed off, and he waggled his eyebrows.

“And now the two of you are sneaking around behind both your Families’ backs,” I finished. “How very Romeo and Juliet. You know how that went down, right? Because these kinds of things never end well.”

It certainly hadn’t for my parents.

He winced. “You can’t tell anyone. Seriously. My dad and Claudia would freak, and the Draconis . . . well, I don’t know what they would do. And I don’t want to find out. Neither does Deah. So don’t say anything. Okay, Lila? Please?”

“Don’t worry. Who am I to stand in the way of true love?”

I put my hand over my heart and sighed dramatically. Felix laughed and chucked what was left of the rose at me. I dodged it, and I found myself laughing with him. It felt . . . strange. Mo was the only person I had laughed with since my mom died. In fact, Mo was the only person I’d had a real conversation with since she’d been gone.

The thought made my laughter dry up, but Felix didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he glanced down at his hand, which was still bleeding from the rose thorns. “Well, I guess I should take care of this.”