And now he had the funniest sense of déjà vu.

“You,” he croaked, squeezing his eyes shut. This—woman—this lilac and orange—female—this—destroyer of fucking worlds—

“I came to check on you,” she whispered. “I read on the internet that you should check on people with concussions or they might, you know, die.”

This human bloody wrecking ball—

“Did you know you’re speaking out loud?” the demoness asked.

This gorgeous fucking nitwit—

“Is this negging? Are you negging me right now?”

Jacob’s thoughts lurched along like a series of disjointed train carriages, but they were all aimed squarely at one thing: getting rid of Eve Brown. “Piss off,” he growled, trying—and failing—to sit up. Turned out his arse was broken, too. That’s what it felt like, anyway.

“Your arse is what?”

“Stop reading my thoughts.” With his left hand, he fumbled for his glasses.

“I’m not reading your thoughts! You’re speaking out loud, genius.”

“That’s right,” Jacob muttered soothingly to himself. “I am a genius. Everything is fine. Here are my glasses, I will just put them on and be happy.”

“Oh my God, concussions are so weird.”

For once, the harbinger of evil made a valid point. Jacob shoved his glasses onto his face, scowled at the crack across his lens, then got on with the very necessary business of glaring at Eve Brown. “Go. Away.”

She came closer, because she was the bane of his existence. Her steps brought her into the slice of watery moonlight that had snuck through his curtains. She was still prettier than she had any right to be, with those wide eyes and that glowing skin. Her mouth was free of obnoxious gloss and therefore looked even better than before. He wanted to bite it. He wanted to bite her. She had many, many bitable places. He was busy cataloging them all, from her chest to her waist to her hips, when he realized that Eve wasn’t wearing her obnoxious T-shirt anymore. She was wearing a loose, oversized shirt, and—

And he never figured out what else, because at that moment, she reached out and touched him. Her cool palm pressed against his forehead, and Jacob’s mind went a little haywire.

Well. A little more haywire.

“Hmm . . .” she murmured. “You’re warm. But that’s probably because you’re covered in a thousand blankets.”

“It’s my nest,” he said. His nests kept him safe. Even when he didn’t know where he was, or where Ma and Dad might drag the family next, his nests had always helped him fall asleep.

But Jacob had never told anyone about his nests. Especially not as an adult, for God’s sake. He clenched his jaw to stop his uncontrollable mouth spilling any more embarrassing secrets.

Instead of laughing or asking questions, Eve just nodded absently. “Yes,” she said, “nests are useful things. This one could do with a reduction, however.” And then she . . . she fucked with his nest!

Well, she removed one of the blankets. And then another, and another, and while Jacob did start to feel a little cooler—funny, since he hadn’t realized he was hot—he also felt completely outraged.

“There,” she said softly. Soft, soft, soft. “Is that better?”

“Get off,” he mumbled. “Off my . . . nest . . .”

“Pardon?”

“Gerroff my . . .” He broke off into a yawn.

“I think you’re tired.” He felt the weight of another blanket lift. “You should probably go back to sleep. There’s fresh water on your bedside table, and I’m right next door if you need anything at all. Okay?”

“Fuck . . . off . . . awful woman.”

She laughed. She laughed. For God’s sake, Jacob was going to push her out of a bloody window.

After he took a little nap.

Chapter Six

Eve’s Monday mornings were always wildly unpredictable, but she could never in a thousand years have seen this coming. It was 5:56 A.M. and she was standing in someone else’s sterile, steel kitchen with the memory of a thousand employee handbooks spinning through her mind, preparing to make breakfast.

Good God.

It wasn’t as if Eve had never made breakfast before. She really had taken several cooking courses. It was just, she’d taken those courses for fun—to pass time, to learn a new skill. They were a party trick to impress friends with, a way to devise the perfect hangover breakfast for Gigi or comfort food for Chloe.

She hadn’t taken those courses to be an actual bloody chef, a professional who was held to specific standards and on whose shoulders the weight of a bed-and-breakfast guest’s morning experience rested. And yet, here she fucking was.

Delightful.

Huffing out a breath, she bent to check the fresh pastries she’d chucked into the oven, tapping her thighs in time with the hypnotic beat of KATIE’s “Remember” blaring in her ear. Mont had arrived half an hour ago to check on her—but Eve, like a witless fucking oblong, had sent him home because he looked tired. Who gave a damn if the man looked tired? She was tired. She’d spent last night on Jacob’s pullout sofa, courtesy of Mont, sleeping on lumpy pillows he’d dragged out of some cupboard, wearing pajamas he’d apparently borrowed from some mysterious—and outrageously long-limbed—sister. She’d been up for hours reading Jacob’s various employee handbooks—

And checking on his adorable sleeping face.

—and googling bad bed-and-breakfast reviews to torture herself with the various ways all this could go wrong. She’d gotten ready that morning under the cover of darkness, trying to put off the moment Jacob discovered her presence for as long as possible because she knew he’d be unreasonable about it. Really, under such stressful circumstances, it was only a matter of time until she crumbled into dust and contaminated the croissants. This entire endeavor was doomed to go tits up with her at the helm.

“Excuse me?”

Eve jumped so violently, she was surprised she didn’t bump her head on the ceiling. Smoothing down her apron and adjusting her hairnet—HOW NOT TO FUCK UP MY HEALTH RATING: Chapter One, Section A, THE BASICS: Wear your fucking hairnet—she turned toward the source of the sound.

There was a windowlike hatch in the kitchen wall, and the employee handbooks had revealed that it was meant to be opened. Eve had done so when she came down that morning and discovered the window let her see into the dining room, sort of like an olden-days shop front. Now that window was occupied by what appeared to be—shudder—a guest.

“Hello in there,” he said brightly. He was a man of middling age, pink cheeked and gray haired, with far too friendly a smile for this time of day and a waterproof parka covering his torso. “Bit early for breakfast, am I?” he asked cheerfully.

Eve stared at him in disbelief. Who in God’s name was early for a 6:30 A.M. breakfast? “Yes,” she said faintly, then rallied. HOW NOT TO PISS OFF MY CUSTOMERS: Chapter Three, Section B: Harmless rule breakers are to be humored, however much it might pain you. “But I’m sure we can accommodate you, sir. The pastries are still in the oven, but I can take an order for a cooked breakfast?” Eve approached the window, produced her little notepad, and steeled her spine. Do not fuck up. Do not fuck up. Do not fuck up.