And his … lower assets … were sheer perfection in those jeans.

Bruce Springsteen’s ancient album cover had a case of the middle-aged sags compared to Duke.

As he came over with the bottle, she picked up the spatula she’d laid out and got busy cutting squares through the melted mozzarella.

“You want some, too, yes?” he said.

“Please.”

As they served each other, she felt a little more relaxed. And then when he took a bite and was all about the mmmmmmmmm? She might as well have been Julia frickin’ Child.

“I’m glad you like it,” she said, sipping her wine. “I—oh, no, I put out hors d’oeuvres and forgot.”

Just another example of her game. Yup. Real player over here.

He glanced over at the crackers and cheese by the toaster. “I’m a main-event kind of guy.”

As his eyes swung back, they traveled down her body—and she had to rearrange herself in the chair. “Especially with you,” he tacked on.

In spite of the fact that it had taken her an hour to make the dinner and forty minutes to cook it, she was suddenly ready to push her plate away and finish the tour of the second floor in her bed.

“Can I admit to something embarrassing?” she blurted.

He cocked a brow. “This is really Stouffer’s?”

She shook her head. “No. I honestly did make it.”

“It would have been okay if you hadn’t. You don’t need to impress me like that.”

Cait dropped her eyes to her plate. “You’re sweet.”

“Not really. So what’s your ‘something’?”

“You’re the first man to set foot in this house.” As his head whipped up, she put her palm out. “No, no, it’s not weird or anything. I mean, of course, there’ve been workmen. Like the electrician when I—never mind. You’re just the first one I’ve, you know, invited in. For … a date.”

Duke lowered his fork and wiped his mouth with his napkin.

“Sorry,” she said slowly. “Did I cross a boundary or something?”

“No.”

Liar, she thought as she pushed at her food. Damn it, she should have just kept things light and easy. Except that wasn’t really her. Gym body or not, she wasn’t into casual sex and it was hard to pretend she was.

“I’m …” When he didn’t finish, she grimaced and wanted a do-over, starting at the front door. Or at least when she’d come in here to tackle the lasagna.

“I’ll be honest, too, then.” He wiped his mouth a second time, as if he needed something to do with his hands. “I don’t deserve the honor.”

The statement was factual, and he didn’t dwell on it—he just went back to eating.

“Why do you say that?” she asked.

He shrugged, and then nodded at her plate. “You don’t like this?”

“Why?” she repeated.

It was a while before he answered. “As you know, I didn’t graduate from Union. Looking around your house, I’m guessing that the men you usually go for finish things.”

Again, he clearly wasn’t in search of sympathy, or subtly manipulating her into an ego stroke: His voice was as level as if he had been discussing the weather.

As she thought of Thom and his career in finance, Duke cocked a brow at her. “Am I wrong?”

“I don’t have a long list of men.”

“Also not a surprise.” He took another bite and chewed. “And let me guess—you almost got married at some point, but it didn’t work out.”

“Maybe.”

“So that’s a yes.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“College was, it’s true.”

“Wait, why did you drop out?”

He glanced at the pan. “Mind if I have some more?”

“Not at all.” What she would like even more? For him to answer a question easily. “What about you? Did you ever marry?”

His harsh laugh was reply enough. “Nope. Not in the cards for me, as it turned out.”

“Sounds like I’m not the only one who almost made it to the altar.”

He paused with his seconds halfway to his plate. “You’re very smart, you know that.”

For some reason, the comment made her feel more beautiful than any other compliment he could have given her. “Well, the blond’s just hair color, actually.”

He hesitated again, his eyes narrowing. “Really?”

“I’d just gotten it done the night I met you, actually.”

When he seemed nonplussed, she frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Chapter Forty-three

Sitting cross-legged on her bed, Sissy had the book Adrian had given her on top of a pillow in her lap. Even with all the lights on, and her eyes being excellent, she was getting a tension headache from frowning at the tiny, faded writing.

Her Latin was so not good enough for this.

Leaning back against her headboard, she cursed softly.

“That bad, huh?”

Turning toward the open door, she saw Adrian standing there with a bag of Chips Ahoy!

He jogged the sealed cookies. “Want a little sin?”

“Yes. Please.”

As he limped in, she wished she knew how he’d been hurt. What had happened exactly. But she had a feeling that was seriously off-limits.

Sitting down at the foot of her bed, he did the deed of opening things up, and then offered the chocolate-chip cookies to her. She took four.

“You know,” Adrian said between bites of his own, “Eddie always did say that thing read like stereo instructions.”

“It’s nearly incomprehensible—and it’s totally discombobulated … like stream-of-consciousness stuff. No organization, just a series of random riffs.”

“Well, what have you got so far?”

“Can you people really do spells?”

“Jim can, yup. I’m okay at it. Eddie was better than I am—he used to tell me I had ADHD and that was the root of my problem. You need to focus properly.”

“Can you do one for me now?”

“Like I’m a trick pony?”

“Come on. I need a break, and I’m honestly curious.”

Adrian popped another cookie into his mouth. Then he held out a palm. Frowning in concentration, he made a waving motion with his free hand over it.

“Presto!”

She leaned in. “What did you do?”

“I made nothing appear. Just like magic.”

Sissy started to laugh. “You’re a freak.”

“Too right. And an idiot. I should have brought up the milk.”

She looked down at the book again and got serious. “Tell me more about the mirror.” When he didn’t reply, she glanced back up at him. “Please.”

“You hit me with this even after I hooked you up with the Ahoys?”

Except he stretched out across the end of her bed, propping his head up on his hand. He kept munching away, somehow not getting cookie crumbs all over the place.

“The mirror, the mirror …” He shook his head. “It’s the ugliest f**king thing you’ve ever seen. Old and decaying, just like her.”

“Whenever I’ve seen the demon, she’s been young and beautiful.”

“Just another of her lies.” He rubbed an eyebrow with his thumb. “Like I said, the thing with her is, she needs that portal. She loses the mirror? She’s stuck on this plane, at least from what Eddie always told me. Now, you’d assume the easiest thing to do would be to break it, but if you do? You get sucked into the shards and you ain’t never coming out. The key would be to get control of the POS. Take it out of her possession and make it so she can’t get access to it. Logically, that’s the only set of chains you’re ever going to put on her.”

“You found me in that bathroom.” She put her hand across her abdomen. “To protect…”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you take the mirror with you when you left?”

Adrian blew out a curse. “Jim had flipped the f**k out when he saw you, and because he’d tripped her spell, she was coming back at a dead run. It was a choice between keeping the savior from attacking and probably getting shanked … or taking the mirror. We chose him.”

“So she’s killed someone else to replace me.”

The angel cleared his throat. “Yeah.” Abruptly, he reached out and put his hand on her knee. “Hey, hey … you need to stop thinking about all that. That’s not your biz.”

“If Jim felt that way, I’d still be in Hell.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to be a hero up here.” He took out another cookie. “Or down there.”

Sissy was quiet a long time. And then she heard herself say, “She hurt him.”

“Excuse me?”

“I saw Jim …” It was so hard to put it into words, and she didn’t know why she was bringing it up now. “She hurt him. Her … people hurt him. Bad.”

When Adrian didn’t reply, she glanced up. His face was set in stone, no expression to be found within the composite of his features. And that was when she knew … he’d had the same abuse done to him.

“Sissy, do me a favor?”

“What?”

“Don’t tell him you saw that, okay? It’ll kill him.”

“That woman needs to be stopped,” Sissy said darkly.

“That’s what Jim’s trying to do.”

Sissy was silent for a time. “There’s another thing I’ve been wondering. How did he get me out?”

“He traded a win for you.”

As those simple words sunk in, Sissy felt her head go a little fuzzy. “I’m sorry … he did what?”

As Duke traced Cait’s blond hair with his eyes, a feeling of dread hit him hard. You don’t suppose … oh, come on, there was no reason to be paranoid.

“I thought it was natural,” he heard himself say.

“You don’t like brunettes?”

“Ah, no, that’s not it.” He shook his head, thinking, Enough with that psychic. “The blond looks good on you.”

“Thanks.”

As she picked up her fork and started to eat once more, he tried to forget Yasemin Oaks’ warning, the strange men sitting shotgun with him, the sense of foreboding that was killing his otherwise healthy appetite. He should be talking to Cait, pulling a little uncomplicated chatter out of his ass, pretending that he was focused on normal things…

“God, this is so awkward again,” she said. But then she looked up in a flash, as if she hadn’t meant to speak out loud. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—”

“No, I know what you’re saying.” He pushed his hand through his hair. “I just … I want you to know that no matter what happens … I want to be here. With you.”

He held her stare with his own, and was surprised to find that regardless of the intentions he’d started out with? That was the God’s honest. Sitting in this neat little kitchen, in her neat little house, eating her perfectly cooked lasagna? There was nowhere else he’d rather be—and not because he was making a revenge fantasy real.

And for some crazy f**king reason, he seemed to want her to know that.

He broke the eye contact first. “I haven’t …” He cleared his throat forcefully, and thought that he really should shut the hell up. “I don’t feel things anymore, you know? I don’t … well, I haven’t had emotions like this in forever.”

“Emotions like what?” she whispered.

Duke rubbed the center of his chest, and skirted the question. “You want to know the irony? I was going to be a cardiologist. I was always fascinated by hearts, how they work, why they work. Didn’t get that far, of course. But that was my plan.”

“What really happened?” She reached over and put her hand on his forearm. “You can tell me.”

Well, my brother found out that I was in love with a woman, and he seduced her and left her pregnant … and it fu**ed with my head so bad, I’ve never gotten over it. Especially because I knew him all along—I knew what he was capable of. And I’ve been waiting for years to get back at him …

Duke looked across the table at Cait, and finished the thought: You were the way I was going to do it.

For the longest time, he’d been watching G.B. from a distance, checking up on him from the sidelines, monitoring that career of his. And his fraternal twin had proven to have nothing in common with Duke, except for one thing—he never, ever dated anybody seriously. There had been casual hooks, yeah. Things that happened in bars or clubs or behind the scenes. But the bastard had never once invited a woman to see him sing or perform, a specific woman, a woman who was a quality female like this one.