Chapter 52

“Julian. There you are.” Rafi felt a wash of warm relief—that Julian had forgiven him, to some extent at least, and that he now had an ally on the premises. He stood and pulled Julian’s chair out for him.

“Here I am.” Julian had outdone himself sartorially. Rafi had told him to dress ‘casual elegant, heavy on the elegant’ and worried about how stuffy that made his family sound. Now he felt underdressed, not because Julian looked any more formal than he did—he simply looked better. Rafi couldn’t have named a brand for his boots or charcoal-gray trousers, but they carried that intangible aura of extreme quality, and his silk shirt, deep purple with a pattern of silver fleur-de-lis, was fancier than anything Rafi owned. It brought out the purple notes in his opal bracelet. Around his neck was something closer to a cravat than a tie, bordered in purple, and his hair was styled in that perfect balance of sleek and soft and wind-tossed, like—well, like a movie star.