Radiant Desire
Author: Inara Scott
Date: 2011-09-29 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Romance; Paranormal Romance; Fae; Fairies; Adult; Paranormal; Contemporary; Fantasy Romance
Description: The object of every man’s fantasy just lost her wings…Kaia Verde is one of the four Faerie Handmaids of Zafira, Queen of the Fey. To redress an ancient wrong done to Zafira by a human king, the Handmaids make sport of mortal men, seducing and humiliating them. When Kaia sets out to seduce Garrett Jameson, but ends up being the one surrendering to pleasure, Zafira is furious. Kaia’s punishment is simple: make Garrett fall in love with her by the summer solstice, then break his heart, or face eternity without her wings—or her soul. To make the task harder, Zafira tells Kaia she cannot use her fa

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Inara Scott. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

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Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Entangled Publishing is a subsidiary of Savvy Media Services, LLC.

Edited by Libby Murphy

Cover design by Heather Howland

eBook ISBN 978-1-937044-30-5

Print ISBN 978-1-937044-31-2

Manufactured in the United States of America

For my mother, whose own stack
of naughty books got me started on this path, and who
never questioned the value of romance.

Your little filly loves you.

Chapter One

Kaia took her place in line with the rest of the court, across the room from the gleaming marble dais that held Queen Zafira’s empty throne. Today, she had to be perfect. Her hair had to flow in sunlit waves, her body curve with pure, radiant sensuality. She had to exemplify beauty, desire, and sex. She had to be the fantasy of every living man.

For today was the Anniversary.

A tall sprite with enormous ears and long teeth raised a crystal bugle to his lips and began to play the ancient processional hymn. There was a flurry of activity as the crowds of Fey—tiny pixies, gangly sprites, hundreds of imps and their darker cousins, the boggles and dakini—jostled for position closest to the silk rope that separated the queen from her subjects.

The queen’s court began its slow march toward the throne. Each move was carefully orchestrated. Zafira had little pity for those who disrupted the perfection of her ceremonies. First down the aisle came the dryads, with their narrow faces, thick, tangled hair, and slanted eyes. The water nymphs followed, their voluptuous bodies barely clothed, clouds of blonde hair floating around their piquant faces. The night faeries came next, with glowing, moonlit skin, white hair, and sad, dark eyes. Just before the queen came the light faeries, represented by the four Faerie Handmaids: Analise, Talia, Kaia, and Mina.

When the procession reached the dais the Handmaids—each wearing a crown made from her birth plant—took their places in formation around the throne. Kaia looked to her sisters. Even among the Fey, they were a breathtaking quartet: tough-as-nails Talia, with her inky black hair and red lips; sweet Analise with her blonde hair and startling blue eyes; rebellious Mina, her voluptuous body topped by a shock of curly red ringlets and creamy skin. Together, their iridescent wings shot rainbows around the hall.

The crystal bugle sounded again, a high trill that always brought a shiver to Kaia’s spine. This was Zafira’s call, the call that had brought together the Fey since the beginning of time. Kaia bowed her head, spread her wings wide across her back, and bent one knee. A cloud of silver sparkles flared, then faded to reveal Zafira, light faerie and Queen of the Fey, her arms flung wide in a dramatic gesture intended to elicit a gasp from the audience.

Zafira’s long, black tresses danced about her head and shoulders on the breeze of the sylphs, the tiny, butterfly-like creatures that surrounded her. She’d enhanced her stature for the occasion until she stood at least a head above the tallest faerie in the room.

“Tonight,” Zafira boomed, “is the night we recall the infamy of man.”

“Tonight is the Anniversary,” Kaia and the other Handmaids chorused in response.

No matter how many times she had said the words, they never grew rote. As a child, Kaia had watched Zafira’s previous Handmaids say these same words, and had felt a wave of giddy pleasure and awe every time she saw the beautiful light faeries. Now, it was hard to believe that she was one of those symbols of the grace and power of the Fey.

Zafira nodded solemnly. “On this dark night, we recall how man’s treachery is unbounded by conscience or honor, and how he has sought to destroy Faeria and claim dominion over the land of the Fey.”

Zafira raised the Willow Scepter, its bulbous head rubbed smooth from the generations of queens that had come before, and the crowd roared in response. The Scepter’s sinuous length twisted to symbolize that the ways of the Fey were not straight and predictable like men, but creative, curved, and impossible to control.

“Let us begin,” intoned the Handmaids, and Kaia smiled at the second wave of cheers that followed their words.

Zafira glided down the aisle to her throne. Two male figures followed closely at her sides, bare chests displaying broad shoulders and rippling muscles. Their cloven feet exposed their dual nature: these were satyrs, half-demon and half-faerie, driven only by a need for pleasure and beauty. Zafira demanded obedience from all her subjects, but her hold was tightest around her satyrs, from whom she expected pure, unfettered devotion.

When she reached her throne, Zafira spun around, letting her golden gown flow in billowing waves around her feet. Many of the Fey took an involuntary step back. “Tonight, I will send my Handmaids into the human world to punish men and humiliate them the way they have humiliated us.”

Cries of delight filled the hall. Faeries had been seducing men for thousands of years, but for the Handmaids it was a sacred duty. Stealing the hearts of men and using them for pleasure was the way the Handmaids extracted revenge for the pain Zafira, and all of the Fey, had suffered over the centuries.

“Handmaid Kaia, step forth!”

Kaia paused, startled to hear the queen call her by name. This was not part of the usual ceremony. But then again, Zafira honored tradition when she pleased and disregarded it when it did not suit her. Kaia threw back her shoulders, forced her wings to arc gracefully across her back, and ensured her gentle smile was perfectly intact before stepping up to the dais. Her heart thumped. Had she done something wrong? Somehow displeased Zafira?

She lowered her head gracefully. “My queen.”

“Kaia, you know the vow of my Handmaids.”

Kaia nodded, her lips automatically forming her response after decades of practice. “My queen, as your Handmaid I vow never to lose control, and never to yield to the wishes of men.”

Zafira swirled her staff in a circle, leaving behind a translucent, sparkling image of a man’s face. He was as handsome as the satyrs at Zafira’s side, with a tumble of blond hair falling over his forehead, cerulean blue eyes, and dark, tanned skin. His white teeth flashed in a smile that was equal parts humor and unspoken menace.

“This man, Garrett Jameson, is the man you will capture next,” Zafira said. “You will bring him to his knees as only a Handmaid can. Introduce him to pleasure and the greatest desire he has ever known, and then leave him alone and wanting.”

Kaia hid her surprise behind a deep curtsy and swirl of her wings. Zafira had never sent her after a particular human before.

“Yes, my queen.” She paused, knowing she should keep her mouth shut but unable to prevent the question from leaving her lips. “May I ask why?”

Zafira frowned, and Kaia froze, terrified she had angered the mercurial queen. A moment later, Zafira’s icy features softened and she began to chuckle. The sound danced through the hall like music, as beautiful as everything else about the queen—and just as dangerous.

“Because it will amuse me,” Zafira said, her laugh tinkling through the hall. “I have some interest in this particular man. I will enjoy seeing him brought low.”

Kaia nodded, feeling a lump in her throat. “It will be done.”

Zafira motioned for Kaia to return to her place beside the other Handmaids. “See that it is, Kaia,” she said in a quiet voice. “See that it is.”

Chapter Two

Kaia shot a glance at the thin gold band around her wrist. Quarter to ten; he should be here soon. Somewhere behind her a band started to play. The music was soft and rhythmic, a saxophone and bass guitar, the smooth crawl of a rute across a snare drum. In the week that she’d been haunting this club, Kaia had come to appreciate the live jazz music featured each night. Of course, no mortal could approach the perfection of the music that filled the halls of Faeria. Still, of all the sounds humans created, she’d found jazz most appropriate to seduction.

Seduction.

Kaia shook her head. She’d been sent to the human world to complete a very simple task. Thus far, she had experienced nothing but defeat. Though the boggles had given her the location of Garrett Jameson’s favorite nightclub, the coffee shop he frequented, and his office, she hadn’t even managed to talk to him. Every time she saw him he was surrounded by other men in dark suits, or he was talking on his cell phone, or reading thick sheaves of papers with very small print. She had tried bumping into him on the street, but he’d done little more than apologize and stride away, not affording her more than a moment’s glance. She had seen him here, at the Blue Hour. He had sat in a booth in the back of the room while watchful bouncers steered her away if she tried to get too close.

Kaia found her failure utterly infuriating, particularly when faced with Garrett Jameson’s uncanny perfection. As far as she could tell, her target lacked any visible flaw, with only the unruly lock of hair that fell across his forehead betraying the perfection of his square jaw and arresting eyes. His suits were exquisitely tailored, his voice smooth and deep. Sometimes, Kaia could scarcely believe he was human. Yet he had no interest in catching the eye of a beautiful stranger, even one practically glowing with faerie magic.

Every day that she failed to achieve her task brought with it a fresh wave of panic. At first, it seemed laughable—a man resisting her attempt at seduction? Impossible! As the days passed with no sign of progress, Kaia’s worry began to mount. Zafira had given her a direct command. She had to succeed. Zafira would show no mercy to a Handmaid who could not meet her expectations.

She had vowed that tonight would be different. She’d finally caught a break while following Garrett in line for his morning coffee, when she’d overheard him agreeing to meet someone named Ted here at ten. Arriving early, she’d positioned herself at a table near the entrance to the club. At around 9:30, the bartender called a man with curly red hair and soft hazel eyes Ted.

She’d shamelessly eavesdropped on Ted’s cell phone call a few minutes later. It started with him asking someone named Rachel where she was, and quickly devolved to begging and pleading for her to come to the club. She’d heard “my love,” “the wedding,” and “whatever you want,” followed by a deluge of words from the other end. After a few minutes, he slapped the phone closed. His face was mournful, his eyes drooping at the corners like a sad Irish setter.

He was needy, and if there was one thing Kaia understood, it was needy men.

She had introduced herself a few minutes later. She tried not to turn on so much charm that she’d scare him away, but there wasn’t much she could do about her appearance. She’d found a tissue-thin silk dress at the hotel boutique that morning, and it draped across every one of her curves like a gleaming, silky spider web. The hazy light from dim strobes and tiny votives danced across her skin, leaving behind a perfect golden glow. Men from every side of the crowded bar were watching her, earning dirty looks from their female companions. Kaia deliberately shielded the red-haired man across the table from some of her heat. She wanted to seduce his friend, not him.

Yet her efforts were seemingly unnecessary. Ted didn’t even glance at her perfectly positioned cleavage. All he wanted to do was talk about his fiancée, Rachel.

“I asked her out the first time we met,” he said dreamily, staring into space. “I knew from the start we had something special. It took only one date before I fell in love.”

“So what happened?” Kaia stole a sideways look toward the door, hoping Garrett would arrive soon. Anticipation licked down her spine. Tonight, they would meet. He couldn’t avoid it if she was talking to his friend.

And when his eyes finally met hers, she would unleash all the power of faerie on him.

He didn’t stand a chance.

“I don’t know,” Ted said miserably. “She’s nervous about the wedding, I suppose. It’s a big step. Anyone would be scared. But we love each other, we really do. She’s perfect. The perfect woman.” He launched into a litany of Rachel’s angelic qualities.

Kaia masked her irritation with a patient smile.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. Look, I should let you go. I have a friend coming in a few minutes. I didn’t mean to drag you down this way. I’m sure you could find someone much more interesting to talk to.”

Kaia’s heart skipped at his not-so-subtle attempt to get rid of her. She needed to stay with Ted. He represented her only chance to get close to Garrett. “Please, I could really use the company. I’m just in town for a night.” She shook her hair and let a hint of faerie magic trickle to him. “The last thing I need is some oaf trying to hit on me. I’d much rather hear more about Rachel.”

Ted’s mouth dropped open and for a moment he stared at her, transfixed. As soon as Kaia let off on the flow of magic, he sank back into his memory of Rachel. “Well, she’s the most beautiful woman in the world. I mean, not beautiful like you, but beautiful in her way. Some people think she’s bossy, but truly, she’s the kindest person you’ll ever meet. You can see it in her eyes. She just opened up a flower shop. Rachel’s Roses.” He sighed. “Everyone told her how hard it would be to open her own store, but she made it happen. She’s amazing.”

“So what’s the problem?” Kaia asked, her gaze sliding briefly to the door. “Why is she having second thoughts?”

“She does a lot of weddings, and they don’t always go well. She doesn’t want to turn into Bridezilla or get too worked up about the whole thing. She said she wanted to elope, but I couldn’t do it. A couple of weeks ago she started saying maybe we should wait, maybe we went too fast. Her parents had a messy divorce, and I think she’s scared to get married. I don’t know how to convince her to trust me.”

Kaia wanted to believe Ted loved his fiancée. Unfortunately, she had a long history of watching men like him pledge their devotion to unsuspecting wives and girlfriends minutes before they succumbed to Kaia’s charms. They used every excuse in the book to justify their unfaithfulness, but it came down to one thing: men were treacherous, dangerous creatures.

Kaia and the others used faerie magic to entice the men, but the magic wasn’t irresistible. It simply took willpower. Willpower most men weren’t interested in exercising.

She started to say something soothing and understanding, but the words caught in her throat when a tall figure appeared at the doorway.

Garrett Jameson had finally arrived.

He wore a rumpled linen shirt, open at the neck, and a dark blue blazer, managing to convey the appearance of both enormous wealth and utter lack of care. Square, rangy shoulders topped a narrow waist and long legs. The bouncer at the door motioned toward Ted, and Garrett stopped, surprise flickering across his face.

He crossed the floor to where they sat. Kaia forced herself to drop her eyes. If this week had taught her anything, it was that she would have to play this man very carefully.

“Ted, is that you?” Garrett asked in disbelief.

Kaia slowly met his gaze, her pulse racing as she waited for him to react to the burst of faerie magic that transformed her in a matter of seconds into the object of every man’s desire. Instead, his startling aquamarine eyes surveyed her without emotion, raking across her bare shoulders and plunging cleavage with clinical precision.

No! He could not ignore me now.

The shock left Kaia reeling.

“Garrett!” Ted jumped up from his seat, looking for all the world like a guilty child. “You’re here.”

“Right on time.” Garrett held up a heavy silver diver’s watch. “Ten o’clock.”

“I was talking.” Ted’s face flushed as he glanced nervously at Kaia. “I guess I lost track of time.”

“Understandably so,” Garrett drawled. “You’ll have to introduce me to your new friend.”

“Garrett Jameson, this is Kaia... er... ” Ted trailed off as his flush deepened. “I don’t think I got your last name?”

Kaia rose languidly and offered her hand, leaning forward just enough to give Garrett a peek down her dress. She wasn’t giving up that easily. “Kaia Verde,” she purred, giving her voice enough throaty appeal to make Ted take a step back and adjust his collar.

Garrett did not react. He shook Kaia’s hand and treated her to another thorough visual examination. He maintained a relaxed smile, sliding one hand to rest casually in the pocket of his pants. For all his easy posture, he pinned her with his gaze like a butterfly in a display case. She had the sinking feeling he had already decided something about her, and it wasn’t good.

“Where did you and the lovely Ms. Verde meet, Ted?”

“Kaia’s in town for a conference. She was asking me about things to do while she’s in Miami and we got to talking.” Ted shrugged helplessly. “I suppose I was boring her senseless.”

Kaia placed a hand on Ted’s arm. “No, absolutely not. I was enjoying the company.”

Garrett smiled knowingly. “In town for a conference, you say? Which one?”

Kaia bristled at the tone. Mistrust was not a reaction she was used to receiving from men. Sometimes they were regretful, sometimes shy, but never had she had a man look at her the way Garrett Jameson did. She threw a lock of hair over her shoulder and focused on radiating charm and sensuality.

“It’s for work,” she said. “Nothing exciting. Ted was kind enough to share a table with me. We were just getting to know each other.”

Men stopped and stared from across the dance floor at the renewed rush of faerie magic. Garrett only shook his head, turning back to Ted. “So where is Rachel? I thought she was meeting us here.”

“She’s at home,” Ted replied. “Before we left I asked her about the wedding and she went a little berserk. She said she needed some time by herself.”

Garrett frowned. “As in, she’s moving out?”

Ted’s mouth dropped open. “I hadn’t even thought of that. I assumed it was more of her usual wedding panic. You don’t think she would really move out, do you?”

Garrett sighed with exasperation. “Ted, this is Rachel we’re talking about. Once she gets something in her head, she’s impossible to reason with. You know that.”

“It just never occurred to me… I never thought… ”

“Well, think about it,” Garrett said. “I’ve been listening to you moaning about losing her for weeks. You can’t very well ignore something like this.”

“But what about—” Ted glanced in Kaia’s direction. “I sort of promised I’d keep Kaia company.”

Garrett followed his gaze and raised his eyebrows. “Seriously? You’d risk Rachel for that?” He rolled his eyes. “Go find your fiancée.”

Kaia gasped at the direct insult. She had never, ever been on the receiving end of such derision.

Ted winced. He turned and gave Kaia an apologetic smile. “He can be a little bossy sometimes.”

Kaia narrowed her gaze. “Bossy? Is that what you call it here in Miami?”

“Go,” Garrett said again. His disapproval surged at her, but he directed his words at Ted. “You shouldn’t be here anyway.”

“Ahem.” Kaia cleared her throat. She turned to Ted and dropped her voice. She needed to preserve a relationship with Ted, just in case she needed to use him again later. “I understand if you need to leave. I would hate to get between you and Rachel.”

Ted glanced back at Garrett. “Garrett, she’s all alone,” he pleaded. “Any chance you can keep an eye out for her?”

Kaia masked a rush of satisfaction. Ted might think himself in love with Rachel, but he was hardly immune to her faerie charm. If she had wanted him to stay by her side all night long, he probably would have.

Silly men.

“Sure,” Garrett said, flashing her a mocking smile. “I have the feeling Kaia doesn’t like to be lonely.”

A quiver passed down her spine as his gaze bore into her, full of warning and a deep-seated, distinctly unfriendly suspicion. She focused on keeping her back straight and the faerie magic flowing.

Zafira herself had sent Kaia after this man.

She could not fail.

Chapter Three

Garrett let his gaze drag once more over the obscenely beautiful woman before him. She was truly extraordinary—a model, surely, with long tawny hair tipped with gold and soft skin radiating in the dim light of the club. Full, round breasts threatened to spill from the confines of her dress. She had to be at least six feet tall, her legs long and slender, her tiny waist curving into lush hips. Her features were oddly compelling, and once he started looking at her, he found it hard to turn away. She had wide-set, slanting green eyes that looked vaguely foreign, surrounded by a thick fringe of lashes. Her lips were full and red, a perfect bow under her long slender nose.

He assumed there was plastic surgery involved, though her breasts didn’t have the unnatural firmness of the silicone that abounded in Miami. He supposed she might simply be blessed in her DNA, but even that did not seem to explain the otherworldliness of her beauty.

Which begged the obvious question: why in the world would she be trying to seduce Ted? Garrett’s oldest friend was the perfect catch for someone like Rachel—he was financially stable, reasonably attractive, and gentle enough that a strong-willed woman could order him around for the rest of her days. Not to mention loyal. Ted was like one of those dogs who would have to be fed and watered at their master’s grave. He was hardly the type to attract a woman who looked like she’d just crawled out of the dream of a teenage boy.

The obvious conclusion was that Kaia Verde was either a prostitute or an opportunist. Or both. If Garrett didn’t feel such protective concern for his best friend, it might have been laughable. Ted was careful with his money, but he was hardly loaded. If Kaia thought she had found a sugar daddy, she was terribly mistaken.

Ted turned to Kaia. “You’ll be okay with Garrett.”

Kaia raised a hand to her lips and kissed the tips of her fingers. She blew the kiss in Ted’s direction. “Thanks, hon. You go work things out with Rachel. I’m sure we’ll meet another time.”

Watching her lips purse, Garrett felt an unexpected tug in his groin. He waited until Ted’s curly hair disappeared into the crowd before he prepared to deliver a stirring rejection that would send Kaia running for the door. He’d known women like her before—too many of them—and he didn’t trust them. He didn’t trust any of them. Yet when she turned and cocked her head as she studied his face, the dark emerald of her eyes sent a rush of heat tingling through him. Now that he was no longer distracted by the need to protect his friend, he was overwhelmed by the sensation of pure desire.

Without thinking, he pulled her into his arms.

Her lithe body meshed perfectly against his, and her arms settled automatically on his shoulders as he gripped her around her waist.

“Funny,” she said, the barest hint of pleasure sparking in her catlike eyes, “I don’t recall saying I wanted to dance.”

“I told Ted I would take care of you. So really, it’s my obligation as a friend.”

Kaia didn’t move, just scrutinized him with a steady look. She did not protest, either, and looking at her caused his throat to close with want, so he spun her around in a slow circle, tightening his hold around her waist as he did. As if thrown off balance, she stumbled over his feet, pressing her body more squarely against his. Her lids flared open as she regained her balance and she let out a little squeak of alarm. The complete lack of grace was completely at odds with her appearance, and Garrett was relieved that the tension between them was momentarily broken.

“Two left feet?” he asked.

She swung her hair around her shoulders and regained her balance. “I suppose I’m not much of a dancer.”

His shoulders relaxed further when she stumbled again a few minutes later, tripping this time over his feet, and landing squarely on his big toe. He had wondered if she might be faking clumsiness for some reason, but her sigh of frustration erased his suspicion.

He helped her regain her balance. “Ted should have mentioned how dangerous you are.”

“Me? Dangerous? That’s absurd. I’m as helpless as a newborn kitten.”

She had an unusual accent, something musical and sensual. Something he’d never heard before. He tried to focus his attention on her voice but it was elusive, the sound slipping through his fingers like sand.

“You are about the furthest thing from a kitten that I’ve ever seen.” He tried to spin her to the left, but she moved right, and they bumped heads. He laughed. “And you are a horrible dancer. Are you sure it’s legal for you to be out here?”

For just a moment, her mask of sensuality slipped, and she giggled and shook her head, sending strands of shimmering gold over his shoulder. “What can I say? I love to dance. It’s just my partners that seem to have an aversion to it.”

The Kaia that laughed was even more attractive than the one that kept trying to seduce him, and Garrett had to clear his throat to breathe. He coughed to cover his confusion, stunned by his reaction to the sort of woman he should have been able to dismiss in a heartbeat. “How about you keep your feet in one place, and just sway?”

She nodded. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Her body felt as soft and supple as it looked, her flesh firm and warm under his fingers. He’d never danced with such a tall woman before and found it added a level of eroticism to their movements. His hips brushed against hers as they moved, making it impossible to ignore that they fit together perfectly. They could have been lying down, bodies meshed, inches from making love, for all the distance between them.

Her face was level with his, her lips a heartbeat away. For a moment, he had the feeling she was watching him through her lashes, studying him as if he were prey. Then the look was gone, and all he saw in her gaze was a guileless, radiant sensuality.

“You don’t like me,” she said.

Garrett pulled back, simultaneously surprised and impressed by her honesty. “I don’t trust you. No man in his right mind would.”

Kaia pulled her mouth in a delicate expression of amusement. “You don’t have to trust me,” she whispered, pressing herself against him to whisper in his ear.

Her sensuality was so blatant it should have been absurd. Garrett had never been attracted to the hard sell, and it should have been easy to push her away. Yet his body rebelled. He dug his fingers into her hips and pulled her closer, just enough to briefly mold her stomach and thighs against his. The sensation rocked through him. Helpless, he did it again, this time more deliberately.

“I think there’s a law against this,” he said, unable to believe the way he was touching her.

“If there is, it was made to be broken.” She arched backward and moved her hips, giving up any pretense of dancing.

He slid his hands lower and gently caressed the outline of her buttocks. Obligingly, she swayed even closer. He could imagine sliding into her, pulling her legs around his waist, and burying himself in that perfect female form.

Red lights flashed in his brain.

On the dance floor, Garrett? In a public place? With a woman like her?

“I have a feeling it wouldn’t be the first law you’ve broken,” he said.

He forced himself to stop moving. He reminded himself of the many reasons why he didn’t want anything to do with her. She could be a gold digger, a prostitute, or a woman of one-night stands, and God only knew what kind of diseases she might carry. He drew back a few inches and straightened, regaining some crucial distance between them. For some reason he couldn’t stop sliding his hands along the curve of her waist. The warmth of her flesh burned him through the silky material of her dress. He wished she would say something, anything that might suggest she was as overwhelmed as he, but she only breathed a soft sigh and ran her tongue over the edge of her lips.

She chuckled, low and throaty. “Ah, but you’ve misjudged me. I’m nothing more than a simple country girl.”

“Really?” Talking seemed to help distract him from the throbbing tempo of lust rushing through his veins, so he searched for a neutral topic. He kept his hands locked around her waist to ensure she stayed at arm’s length. “Which country?”

She waved negligently behind his back. “It’s a figure of speech. I’ve moved around a lot.”

“Are you really here for a convention?” he asked.

“Oh yes. Plumbers convention.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously,” she taunted. “Why don’t you believe me?”

He took one of her hands and studied it. Her fingers were long and slender, topped with short, unsullied, pink half-moons. She immediately shook them from his grasp and put them back around his neck.

“Forgive me,” he said, “but those aren’t the hands of a plumber. Model, perhaps? Actress?”

Stripper? he had to stop himself from saying. Though on second thought, given her complete lack of grace, he wasn’t sure how she could pull off a routine. Of course, with a body like hers, no one would be concerned about choreography.

When he continued to study her, waiting for an answer, she said reluctantly, “Landscaping. I work for a nursery.”

“Now I believe that almost as much as I believe the plumber bit. Don’t you know people who work with plants have to get dirty?” He pulled down her hands again, but when he looked at them this time, they seemed subtly different. He felt calluses on her palms, and noticed several nails were chipped. It took him by surprise, because he was sure they had looked perfect before, untouched by work, but now he could imagine those same hands digging in rich brown dirt.

Not only did she have him crazy with lust, she had him seeing things, too.

She took his face between her palms. “You like to talk, don’t you?” she murmured, and pressed her mouth against his. That soft pink tongue darted out, touched his lips, and entered his mouth. Once again he was helpless, her touch a drug that clouded his mind. Without a thought he took control of the kiss, explored her lips and tongue, and reveled in the warmth of her mouth and the way her body fit against his. Hunger, fierce and hot, drove him to kiss her again.

When the music stopped, he realized he had been mindlessly grinding against her, in full view of an entire club of interested patrons. Humiliation coursed through him. He struggled to regain control, to slow the frantic beating of his heart. He needed to get off the dance floor. As long as they remained in close contact, his body seemed determined to take over.

In an extreme act of willpower, he stepped away. He could hear his grandmother’s voice in his head, mocking him for his weakness, and reflexively, he glanced around the bar to see if anyone might be watching. “Perhaps we should get a drink.”

Kaia’s full lips formed the most adorable pout he’d ever seen. “I wanted to dance.”

“I’m not sure I could call that dancing.”

“Maybe we could dance somewhere… more private,” she said. “So I wouldn’t embarrass myself, of course.”

“Why don’t we have a drink?” he repeated. He might not have the strength to walk away, but he would not let her make a fool of him in public.

Somewhere in the depths of her eyes he thought he saw a flash of fury, but it was immediately replaced with a playful smile. “You aren’t scared of me, are you, darlin’? Little ol’ me? I won’t hurt you, I promise.” Her words were half tease, half challenge.

“You are the most terrifying woman I’ve ever met.” That was the truth, and he knew if he had any sense, he’d have run away a long time ago.

She laughed, and somehow, the laughter only made her more beautiful. A shiver went down his spine. He took her hand and felt the tiny calluses pressing against his palm. Something about her made it impossible to walk away.

She held his fingers to her lips and gave them a light kiss. “We will just have to find a way to soothe your fears, won’t we?”

Chapter Four

Kaia followed Garrett, fighting to maintain her calm. She was throwing everything she had at him and still he was resisting her faerie magic. She’d never experienced anything like it before, just like she’d never experienced the strange heat that seemed to follow the path his hands took from her waist to her buttocks and back.

The bar was crowded, but two leather-topped stools remained empty at the far end of the room. Garrett guided Kaia toward them and sat down. She remained standing. She crossed her arms over her chest and studied him, nibbling her lip.

Garrett Jameson apparently had some kind of supernatural willpower. She could tell he wanted her badly, yet he’d managed to push her away. He was suspicious of her in a way that she’d never encountered, enough so that she’d had to use her magic to change her hands. Her failure to have her way was driving her into a frenzy. She needed to succeed, of course, to please Zafira. But now she wanted him for her own purposes, too. Her pride demanded that he submit. She couldn’t give up.

“Sit down,” Garrett said, patting the seat next to him. “Let’s talk. You can tell me about your work at the nursery, what convention you’re here for, and why you seem so anxious to get me back to your room.”

Kaia dug her nails into her palm as she eased into the seat. “What can you tell me?” she asked, her smile fixed in place. “What you do for a living, why you order your friend Ted around like you’re his father, and how the women of Miami let you get away without a ring on your finger?”

Garrett chuckled. “No. I tell you that I’ve only got a hundred bucks in my wallet, and if you’re looking for a patsy, you’re wasting your time.” He waved to the bartender, who handed off a drink to a customer and made his way down the bar toward them. “What would you like?”

“Chardonnay, please.” Kaia pulled a single lock of hair over one of her shoulders, and curled it around her finger. She smiled lazily and dropped the curl into the shadow between her breasts.

There, she thought. Just try to resist looking at that.

Remarkably, he did. Garrett spared only a brief glance in her direction before turning his attention to the wine list. He ordered a glass of something that sounded old and impressive while Kaia quietly seethed. If she could get him alone in her room, he’d be unable to resist her, she felt certain of that. In this setting, he appeared remarkably resilient.

She blew out a breath. No matter. Ever since she’d become a Handmaid, she’d made a study of men. She’d lived among them for weeks at a time and seduced them again and again. She’d read their books, listened to their music, and learned to appreciate their art. Human women, on the other hand, remained a bit of a mystery. Kaia had spent little time with them, and generally found their actions baffling.

“For the record, I had no intention of sleeping with your friend Ted.” Kaia guessed this was at the heart of his distrust of her. He must have thought she was trying to take advantage of Ted. That would explain his suspicion. “I wanted to know what sights I should see in Miami. I have a day free after the conference, and I’ve never been here before.”

Garrett removed his coat and slung it over the back of the chair. His shoulders looked even broader under the soft linen shirt. “Back to this mysterious conference. What’s it about again?”

“Plants,” she said, deliberately keeping her tone vague. “It’s a plant conference.”

Kaia didn’t like to talk about herself. Her reticence originated in the fact that she’d never been a particularly good liar—that was Talia’s forte—and also because there were things about people she didn’t entirely understand, and she worried her ignorance might catch her in a lie.

“Ah yes, plants. Funny thing is, I don’t really think of Miami as the plant capital of America,” Garrett rejoined.

“That’s because so many of the wild lands have been destroyed.” She wagged a finger at him, confident that this was one topic she understood. Thanks to human developments, faeries had been forced to retreat from many of the deep forests and native lands that had once been their home. The trees and flowers that had once sheltered them were destroyed, and their birth plants were cut down in vast numbers, making it difficult—if not impossible—for them to reproduce. “If people spent half as much time worrying about plants as they did their haircuts and clothes, the world would be a much better place.”

He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Forgive me. I had no idea I was dealing with a plant crusader.”

The bartender returned with the wine Garrett had ordered. Kaia took a sip from her glass, considering her strategy. The direct approach didn’t seem to be working. She decided to try a little more restraint. “Have you got a girlfriend I should know about?”

Garrett leaned back in his chair and took a drink from his wine, his long, tanned fingers wrapped negligently around the base of his glass. “Did you ask Ted that?”

Kaia paused, considering her response. She dropped her gaze and traced a circle around the base of her wine glass, feigning embarrassment. “You want to know the truth? I wasn’t really in the mood for… ahem… companionship. Ted looked like the kind of man I could talk to without being hit on.”

“You’ve changed your mind?”

She reached out to touch his hand. “You’re very convincing.”

He snorted and moved out of her reach. “Why do I have the feeling I’m not the first man you’ve said that to?”

Kaia feigned outrage, while inside she screamed with frustration. Garrett was like a chess player, countering her every move with one of his own. “Look, Ted seemed like a good guy, and that’s all I wanted tonight. At least, until I met you.” She fluttered her lashes until she elicited a snort of laughter.

“You are something else, aren’t you?” he said with reluctant approval.

She took his laughter as a sign of progress, and pressed on. “I’m rather offended, actually, by your insinuation. You don’t know a thing about me. What right do you have to judge me, or Ted for that matter?”

Garrett drank from his glass of wine. “I’ll admit that I might have jumped to conclusions about what you wanted from Ted, but you’ll have to admit that things looked a bit sketchy.”

“When you have a body like this,” she said, gesturing toward herself and sighing dramatically, “everything looks sketchy. You can’t imagine how difficult it is to get men to take me seriously. They assume I’m stupid or scheming, simply because I look a certain way. It’s a curse, really.”

“Forgive me if I don’t shed any tears on your behalf. I have the feeling you’re perfectly happy using your looks to your advantage. Not that I have a problem with that. I’ve watched men use their money to push people around for years. I’m not sure why a woman shouldn’t use whatever weapons she has at her disposal.”

“An interesting perspective. So what is it you do, Garrett, that gives you this unique outlook on life? Business? Politics? International espionage?”

A tiny smile played at the corner of his mouth. “Real estate, actually.”

She waited for him to elaborate, but silence followed his bald statement. “Real estate? That’s it? I’m not quite sure what to do with you. You’re a man, aren’t you? Men are supposed to talk about their jobs. So... ” She motioned with her hand. “Talk.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “I’m afraid my job isn’t particularly interesting. In fact, it’s downright boring. I’m involved in the family business. Is that enough?”

Kaia pouted. “I suppose if that’s all I’m going to get. Now, I noticed you never answered my question about a girlfriend.”

“Observant, aren’t you? All right, no, there’s no girlfriend.”

“You’re not adverse to women, I hope?”

“Hell no. I happen to enjoy women very much. I simply have no interest in marriage, and girlfriends have a pesky habit of turning into wives. So I avoid the whole dirty business. It makes things better for everyone.”

“You have no desire for a family? A little woman at home to take care of your needs? Granted, there’s that whole pesky, till-death-do-us-part thing, but surely you could work your way around that?” Kaia found herself leaning forward unwittingly, forgetting to maintain the faerie magic that should have been surging at him. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat down and actually talked to a man. They were usually too busy trying to get her into bed to waste time in conversation.

He took a deep drink of his wine. “Not an option. If I were to marry, I would honor my vows.”

Kaia sobered abruptly. Something about the steely glint to his eyes told her that Garrett believed, sincerely, in what he had said. Which left her deeply confused. Garrett wasn’t married, he wasn’t unfaithful, and as far as she could tell, he was an honorable man.

What could the first man she’d ever truly liked have done to deserve Zafira’s wrath?

§

Garrett couldn’t remember ever having met a woman like Kaia Verde. She said things women weren’t supposed to say, was blatantly seductive without being insipid, and seemed to have absolutely no compunction about her desire to get him into bed. Yet when he forced her to back off on the seduction, he found her mind to be as intriguing as her body. She was literate and intelligent. As the evening progressed, their conversation meandered from lamenting the loss of the wetlands in the Everglades to his favorite topic—music. She must have had some sort of formal training, because she knew musical theory well enough to pick apart the merits of the various forms and argue about them with unexpected passion. She loved classical and Celtic music, while he was a fan of jazz and blues. Somehow, she’d even managed to worm out of him his childhood fantasy of being the next Wynton Marsalis, and that was a memory he hadn’t dredged up for decades.

Meanwhile, he knew little more about her than when they first met. He didn’t know where she lived, who she worked for, or even the name of the convention she was supposedly in town to attend. All he knew was that she was smart, funny, and utterly unpredictable. It was a heady combination.

They’d finished one bottle of wine and started another. If she was a prostitute, she was a damn good one. Good enough that maybe he didn’t even mind that she’d probably been spinning lies at him all night long.

As the wine slid through his veins, Garrett watched as Kaia leaned across the table and began to stroke his arm, followed with tiny kisses on his palm. This should have been embarrassing—he’d never been one for public displays of affection. All his good intentions fizzled away under her touch. When he felt her hand under the table, on his knee and then his thigh, he thought he might have died and gone to heaven.

And when she murmured, “Isn’t it time to go somewhere more private?” he couldn’t think of a reason to say no.

§

Kaia relaxed into the seat of the cab with an inward sigh of satisfaction. Garrett had placed his hand on her inner thigh and kept it there as they traveled—a possessive gesture, like a man laying claim to something he owned. Still, a muscle jumped in his cheek, and when she touched his arm it was tense, corded with taut muscle.

“Not now,” he said, and removed her hand.

“No?” she whispered, reveling in the moment. He was on the verge of losing control, but he was fighting it. She had the feeling Garrett was a man who didn’t relinquish control often. The thought of making him do so now had her heart racing with an unfamiliar fire. Casually, Kaia slid her palm over his chest and dropped it against his belt buckle.

With a lightning-fast movement, he grabbed her wrist. Slowly, deliberately, he turned his body toward her and pinned her arm behind her head. Shielded now from the view of the cab driver, he brought his other hand along the edge of her breast.

“No,” he said. “You’ll have to wait.”

A powerful sensation shot from her nipple to her stomach. Kaia sucked in a breath, surprised at the arc of pleasure his touch invoked. Kaia didn’t exactly dislike sex, but she rarely enjoyed it. Occasionally, a man would make some effort to pleasure her, but that was uncommon, and she quickly directed her attention back around to him. Yet when Garrett touched her, something strange happened. The heat she usually sent at men flowed through her instead. He was like a mirror, sending her seduction spinning back at her suddenly vulnerable body.

“Like that, do you?” Garrett grinned, though from the hard set to his jaw she knew it was not without effort. She brought her other hand toward him but he caught that one, too, and trapped it beside the first. He transferred both of her wrists to one large, competent hand.

“Let me go,” she said in a low voice. She caught the cabbie’s eyes in the rearview mirror and shot him a playful wink. The last thing she wanted was some do-good cab driver thinking Garrett was taking advantage of her.

“Oh no. I don’t think I like it when you’re in control. This feels much better.” His free hand glided along the edge of her cheek, across her collarbone, and along her breast to her nipple, where it stopped. He caressed the suddenly erect bud with a thumb. Once, then again and again, that zing shot through Kaia until it was a steady throb, and she had to bite her lip to keep a cry of pleasure from escaping.

Garrett bent over her ear, his thumb still working her nipple, now in agonizing circles, along the edges of the tender flesh and lightly across the top. “Oh, yes,” he whispered. “I like this much better.”

Kaia struggled against him, but her muscles were trapped in a thick, honeyed fog. That dammed thumb of his kept up its relentless torture, making it impossible to do anything but relish the waves of pleasure he invoked. Even her magic seemed to fizzle away.

“When’s the last time you screamed with pleasure?” he whispered. “When’s the last time you lost control?”

Never, she thought dully, her body having mutinied against her in a new, wholly unfamiliar way. She couldn’t move, could barely think, the aching caress like the buzz of a honeybee, growing ever louder, drowning out all other emotion, all other sensation. She had taken an oath, like all of Zafira’s Handmaids, Kaia reminded herself furiously.

Never yield to a man, and never let him take control.

Before now, Kaia had never faced firsthand the truth of Zafira’s many warnings. She had never understood what Zafira talked about when she said the faeries must fight their own desire or struggle to keep from yielding to a man’s touch.

Suddenly, she understood.

Chapter Five

Kaia did not know how long the exquisite torture continued, but before long her hips were moving of their own accord, arching and twitching as if desperate for their own attention.

That was when he started to kiss her.

At first, it was a gentle, close-lipped version of the familiar caress she’d applied to hundreds of men. His lips and tongue became instruments of the most delicate torture, nibbling gently on the lobe of her ear, licking and sucking along the curve of her throat. She moaned in earnest when he reached the hollow at the base of her neck, and sucked on the tender flesh he found there at the same time he pinched her nipple.

A moment later, the cab came to a halt in front of her hotel. Bright lights illuminated the inside of the cab, leaving his face shrouded in darkness.

“What floor?” he asked. Before she could answer, a doorman in a red jacket with gold epaulets opened the door and offered his hand to Kaia. Garrett dropped a collection of bills on the cabbie’s front seat and returned his gaze to Kaia. His chest heaved under his jacket, the only sign that their interlude in the car had cost him anything in the way of control.

“Ma’am?” the doorman said helpfully.

She snapped her head toward him and smiled. She placed her hand in his gloved one, and started out of the door with one high-heeled shoe. Knowing she was exposing an excessive amount of bare thigh, she peered around the sidewalk and was satisfied to see several men ogling her from the front of the hotel. She allowed the doorman to pull her to her feet, and made a show of straightening her dress over her hips as Garrett came to her side.

“Don’t bother. You’ll just be peeling that off for me in a few minutes,” he said in her ear.

She was horrified to feel the warmth of a blush cross her cheek.

Faeries did not blush.

The situation was getting dire. Kaia decided her only defense, as she’d heard men say, was a good offense. She opened two buttons on his shirt, exposing more warm flesh to her sensitive fingers.

“Should we get started right away?” she replied in a throaty whisper. His heart skipped, accelerating to a furious tempo in his chest. She set her index finger on the skin at the base of his neck. “Maybe I should just take it off now?”

Negligently, she let her hand drift down his body to brush against the hardness at his groin. He froze and closed his eyes as if he were in pain.

Kaia smiled. It helped, a little, to know that she was not the only one fighting for control.

They reached a wary truce in the elevator, as they were surrounded by other hotel guests returning from their evening pursuits. The Avalon was an upscale, five-star boutique hotel in the heart of South Beach, and the patrons dripped with wealth. She had no idea how much a room at the Avalon actually cost; Kaia never worried about such things.

She had a driver’s license and a credit card that some nameless imp had procured for her in advance of her trip into the human world, and they seemed sufficient to get her anything she wanted. Among the humans, it seemed, credit cards were great magic. To Kaia, the rules surrounding payment and credit cards were decidedly unclear. Hotel clerks, waiters, and just about any man who had the fortune to serve her seemed to be content to take a smile and a kiss instead of payment.

They exited at the tenth floor and she pulled the hotel keycard from her tiny clutch purse, hoping her hands weren’t shaking. Her body was singing with desire and anticipation, feelings she tried hard to suppress. If she were going to bring Garrett to the edge of oblivion and force him to beg her for release, she would have to remain firmly in control. Still, it took three tries to get the damn card to work, and when it did she threw the door open with relief and practically fell into the dark, empty room.

The door clicked shut behind them, the sound ominous. Kaia slapped the light switch to her right and spun around to face Garrett. He stood like a statue, arms crossed over his broad chest. Somehow he’d managed to cool back down in the elevator, and now he paced around the room, turning on lights as he went and whistling low when he saw the size of the room.

“A suite? For one person? This is an awfully expensive hotel, Kaia. I didn’t think environmentalists were quite so well off.”

“Are we back to suspicion, Garrett?” she said evenly. “I thought we were past that.”

“I just want to make sure I’m not going to get stuck with your tab tomorrow morning.”

“I always settle my bills,” she said. She didn’t actually pay her bills but that was a different matter. Kaia took a deep breath and sashayed across the room to stand in front of him. Her heart beat like a hummingbird, tripping hundreds of beats a minute, and she had to stop and catch her breath before placing her arms around his neck.

Focus on your job, she reminded herself with just a hint of panic. You are a Handmaid—never yield, never surrender!

She tipped her face toward his and breathed, “I’m not interested in your money. I’m just lonely. Can’t a woman seek out a little companionship without being accused of being a thief?”

She leaned over and touched the tip of her tongue to the base of his neck, pleased when she heard his quick, indrawn breath. She focused all her energy on exuding sensuality, warmth... and, of course, sex.

She worked her way down his shirt, unbuttoning as she went, stopping only to remove his belt and tug his shirt free from his pants. When the fine, pressed cotton hung loosely on his shoulders, she slipped her fingers underneath and delighted at the feeling of hard muscles, ridges of flesh, and crinkly hair trailing down the center of his chest in a thin line.

Undershirt, over the head. Shoes and socks, off. Garrett helped, his pupils dilated, nostrils flaring with his deep, measured breaths. He stared at her with an expression of bemused lust mixed with frustration. He knew he had lost control and could do nothing to seize it back.

Kaia slid her hands in a circle over his bare torso, grazing his erect male nipples with her palms before returning to the top of his pants. She slid down his body, pressing light kisses along the line of hair from the top of his chest down to his pants. When she reached his waist, she slipped her hand over his groin to find the erect outline of him there, waiting for her.

With some men, she never bothered to take off her own clothes. She stripped them naked, waited until they were completely vulnerable—usually just on the edge of orgasm—and stopped and laughed. And sometimes she would leave them that way, their pride dashed, their ego crushed under her beautiful feet. Usually, she snapped a picture before she went, a token to send to their girlfriends or fiancées. Their carefully built world of deceit would crumble around them, and Zafira would be happy.

But with this man, it didn’t feel right. There was no deceit here to uncover, no lies to reveal. This was just a man fighting to keep his self-respect in the face of powerful faerie magic.

And she wanted him all the more for it.

Kaia shivered at the need she saw reflected in his heavy-lidded eyes. Garrett would not permit her the luxury of remaining dressed, and she had to admit that she wanted to show him her body. She wanted to see his lust boil over, feel his eyes worship her, and his hands touch her naked skin.

“My turn?” she murmured.

He did not respond.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” With a quick motion, she pulled her dress over her head and dropped it to the floor. A matching lace bra and panties greeted his hungry eyes. She left on her strappy gold sandals.

He closed his eyes for a minute and then opened them again. “Who are you?” he asked. The words sounded forced, each syllable falling from his mouth as if with a great effort. His eyes filled with pain and wonder.

Kaia shook her hair over her back. She knew he was looking at perfection. Full breasts, rosy pink nipples protruding through the lace of her bra, a flat stomach, smoothly curved hips. Long legs, accentuated by her high heels. Every man’s desire, reflected in one woman’s body.

She held out her hand and stopped him at the edge of the bed. She got down on her knees, opened his pants, and pulled them down over his thighs, careful to brush against his length several times as she did. He did not move or protest, and his eyes closed again. She could not help but notice that his face was not full of pleasure, as it should be at this point. No, when she studied his features what she saw was struggle, a battle for control.

He was still fighting.

She wrapped her arms around his legs and pressed her cheek against his groin. For a moment, she rested there, feeling him leap against her, his body trembling in her arms. Something in the epic war he was waging with himself made it difficult for her to continue. She should have taken advantage of the weakness she knew was there, pressed him hard, stripped him naked, and wrapped her legs around him until he begged for mercy.

For some reason, she couldn’t do it. She was frozen, and all she could do was hug his knees and pray for the strength to do what must come next. The strength to fight her own desire and satisfy the wishes of her queen.

Unexpectedly, Garrett leaned down and tucked his fingers under her arms. Gently, he tugged her to standing.

“Take off your shoes,” he said.

“What?” Kaia blinked.

“Take off your shoes,” he repeated. “I need to see you without them. Without any of this.” He waved his hand over her body, indicating her bra and panties. When she did not immediately react, just stood there, staring, his mouth twitched a little, almost a smile, yet too strained to be considered such. “Please?”

Wordlessly, she reached around in back to undo the clasp of the bra. His hand came forward, removed the garment, and flung it to the ground. He took the weight of her breasts, one in each hand, and closed his eyes again, as if he was holding something precious.

Kaia froze, astonished at the intensity of the sensation that ran from her nipples to her belly. In one quick breath, the tide had turned, and she felt the struggle he waged in her own chest. Never yield, she reminded herself desperately, never let a man take control.

He released her and indicated lower. “The rest.”

She pulled a strap over the back of each heel and kicked the shoes from her feet. The loss of height put her at a disadvantage to him, and she did not like it. She liked being of a height with the men she seduced.

He cupped her buttocks in his palms, hooked his fingers in the elastic that stretched across her hips, and tugged. The scrap of lace fell to the floor. She stepped out of it and stood naked before him.

“Incredible,” he sighed. “Just incredible.”

Kaia nodded, but unexpectedly, she felt no triumph at his words. She was a faerie, and when men saw her they saw their own fantasies. She was his creation, really, and the creation of all the men who had come before him. Where was the victory in that?

He held her breasts again, but this time leaned forward and touched his mouth to one rosy tip. Pleasure so intense it might almost be called pain rushed to the spot. Kaia had to catch her breath. She put her hands on his shoulders to steady herself, but could not seem to will herself to push him away. He leaned against her. The backs of her knees hit the bed, then her bottom, and she was lying down, looking up at him with wide eyes.

He removed his briefs without taking his eyes from hers. Dark fire burned her from afar, moved up and down her body, promised her pleasure. When he covered her body with his she shuddered, and opened her legs so he would rest between them.

A fire raged in her. Control had shifted, irrevocably, from one side of the bed to the other. He seemed to know this, and some of the tension eased from his shoulders. He practically smiled as he dropped his mouth to her breasts again, and she moaned at the sensation of his tongue swirling in circles around her inflamed nipples. He stayed there for several long, aching minutes, just licking, nibbling, and sucking. He increased the intensity until she was moaning and thrusting her hips against him.

His mouth moved over her rib cage, across her stomach. Lower. Kaia froze. She had never let a man do this to her before. A few had tried, but she had diverted their attention with a few well-placed kisses and the soft sweep of her tongue.

This man was different. This man did something she’d never experienced. He paid no attention to her halfhearted protests, her soft tugs at his shoulders, her attempts to close her legs. This man put his hands on the insides of her knees, spread her like the petals of a flower, and dove in.

First, he explored her core with a single finger, brushing against her clitoris like she had brushed against his penis—lightly, almost accidentally, repeating the caress until it was clear this was no accident. Kaia’s head flipped from side to side on the pillow, her eyes pressed shut with the intensity of the sensation swirling through her body.

“More,” she moaned, “more, please.”

The finger dipped lower, and slipped inside her at the same time something soft and moist sucked gently on her clitoris. Kaia’s body bucked, as Garrett applied pressure from the inside and out. She was hot, slick, the energy of her entire body focused on his mouth, his hands, and his fingers.

The pleasure mounted within her, building toward a peak that she’d never encountered. It drove her to move restlessly against him, to press her hips up into his mouth. He sucked and thrust his finger in a rhythm that sent her hard against him, yearning for more. He withdrew his finger, knit several together, and entered her again, and the pressure intensified, along with the need. Kaia panted, her breath escaping in soft cries of need. And all at once it happened—the pressure exploded in a kaleidoscope of swirling heat and pleasure.

“Ahh,” she sobbed, her body shuddering and shaking as the waves ran through her.

Garrett waited until she stopped shaking to withdraw from her, and rolled over to where his pants lay discarded on the ground. He pulled a condom from his wallet and put it on. She wanted to say that it didn’t matter—she could only become pregnant if she coupled with a man during the brief time each year when she went into heat—but the words wouldn’t come. Her brain didn’t seem to be attached to her body.

He sat beside her on the bed for a moment before kneeling over her again. It only took a minute, but in that time a tiny bit of the fog that surrounded her lifted and Kaia realized what she had done.

She’d allowed a man to pleasure her.

No, worse, she’d allowed a man to control her pleasure.

She’d broken Zafira’s essential command.

As he prepared to enter her, Kaia shook off the haze of pleasure with brute force of will. She pushed him down onto his back, furious with herself and furious with him for driving her to utter madness.

“Let me please you,” she cooed.

He nodded, though she could see a hint of a question in his eyes. He had picked up on her anger, but not enough to fear what would come next. When he lay stretched out in front of her, Kaia straddled his thighs. She spent several moments teasing his erection to even greater heights, caressing its length with her fingers and lips before pillowing him between her breasts.

Now it was Garrett’s turn to moan, to thrash around on the pillows, and beg her for release. Each time he seemed close to orgasm she grabbed the base of his erection and squeezed gently, knowing it would prolong the moment.

“Damn, that’s good,” he said, jaw clenched and rock hard.

When he was at the edge of insanity, Kaia slid onto him by slow, teasing inches, bending low over his chest, arching her hips and pulling away, leaving only his head in contact with her flesh. She did it several times in a row, and he slowly grew more and more impatient with the game, finally locking her hips in his hands and holding her against him so he could bury himself to the hilt.

That was when she should have left. She should have taken him to the edge of paradise and when he was at his most exposed and vulnerable, pulled away. She should have stood over him for a moment to laugh, snapped a picture to prove her kill, restored her true form, and flown away. It wouldn’t have been the victory she’d been sent to claim, but it would have been better than nothing.

Yet she couldn’t do it. When she felt him fully inside, fully a part of her body, she froze. His eyes opened and locked on hers. In them she saw the familiar lust, the desire and greed for pleasure and release that she saw in all men. But she saw something more, too.

Tenderness.

It took her breath away. He slid his hand up to cup her cheek. Without moving his hips, he pulled her face down to meet his, and captured her lips in a deep, sensual kiss. Their tongues met, danced, captured a moment of stillness.

“Are you ready?” he whispered.

She didn’t know what he meant, but she nodded. His eyes rolled shut and he tightened his hands around her waist. He thrust fast and hard, and to Kaia’s immense surprise the pleasure mounted again, and the pressure and heat built up inside of her, but in a different way, a more subtle pleasure that came from her entire body. Before she knew what was happening he was exploding inside her, and the sensation of him pulsing and jerking inside sent her back over that mountain again, and for the second time in her life Kaia’s world shattered into perfect shards of glass.

Chapter Six

“Faerie! Faerie, wake up! Zafira’s looking for you!” The chipper, delighted voice of the queen’s imp slowly penetrated the haze of sleep. Kaia slitted her eyes and stared at the tiny creature bouncing beside the bed.

He was no more than a foot high, with a child’s face and body, and white skin and blond hair that glowed softly in the dark room. A set of stubby horns protruded a few inches from either side of his head, and a pair of feathery white wings whirred softly as he hovered next to her face. Like all imps, he managed to combine innocence and devilry in one tiny, obnoxious package.

“Wha... ”

She barely finished the word before he flicked her with his thumb and third finger, right between the eyes. She jerked backward and almost knocked Garrett in the head before she caught herself.

“Wake up!” he repeated, readying his chubby fingers to repeat the gesture.

She caught his hand and gave him a baleful look. “Touch me again and I feed you to a banshee.”

Unrepentant, he pulled his hand away and continued to smirk at her. “You’ve really stepped in it this time,” he chortled. “The queen’s got half of Faeria out terrorizing humanity just to work off her irritation with you. You’ll be lucky if the banshee is all you get.”

Garrett mumbled something in his sleep and threw his arm over her breasts. Kaia glared at the imp. “You don’t have to be so damn happy about it,” she hissed. “And be quiet. You’ll wake him.”

The imp’s eyes widened as he took in the sleeping form in the bed. “Is that him? The boggle said you were with Zafira’s man but I didn’t know he was so, well... manly.”

Kaia picked up Garrett’s arm and, as gently as she could, moved it to rest on the bed next to him. Gingerly, she rolled to a sitting position and eased out from under the covers. Unable to resist, she bent over the bed to study Garrett’s face one last time, his lips loose with sleep, his face vulnerable in the soft glow of the imp. He shifted positions again, and Kaia waved her hand over his face.

“Sleep,” she murmured.

He relaxed into his pillow, his mouth falling open with a soft snore.

“I brought him down, too,” she said to the imp, fighting the first surge of panic as she thought about what she had done. “Like Zafira wanted.”

The imp tsked. “You know the rules, Faerie. You let him take control of you. The boggles saw it. You can barely stop yourself from making calf-eyes at him even now. The queen would flip her lid if she saw you.”

Kaia rolled her eyes to conceal the cold fingers of terror that dug into her stomach. “Oh, hush. I am not making calf-eyes. And I don’t know why she has to spy on us all the time.”

Boggles, like most of the Fey, were shapeshifters who used their talent in service of Queen Zafira. Unlike other Fey creatures, however, their true form was unclear. They most often took the form of a hulking black dog with enormous teeth and crimson eyes, but they could have transformed into anything the night before.

The imp shrugged. “Why does Zafira do anything? Seems to me the stupid one is a faerie who knows she’s being spied on and lets loose with a man anyway.”

Despite the gravity of the situation, and the certainty that a dire punishment was soon to be doled out by an angry Queen Zafira, the imp’s words brought back the feeling of surrender—and the ecstasy that followed. For one brief moment, Kaia considered picking up that arm, burrowing back under the covers, and snuggling close to Garrett’s side.

Kaia almost laughed aloud at her moment of fancy. Garrett wanted her body. He didn’t want her. Men fell for the sensual spell of the faeries, but in the end they wanted human women, women with souls and hearts like their own.

“Come on, Faerie,” the imp urged. “You know she doesn’t like to wait.”

“I know, I know.”

An image of Zafira pacing the marble dais filled her mind, and Kaia began to shake. It took all of her willpower to refocus her energy and her magic on the process of releasing herself from the confinement of her human form. In a moment of dizzying intensity, her body became light and insubstantial. Like petals opening to the sun, her wings unfolded from her back and filled the room with a bright iridescence. Garrett sat up in confusion, and Kaia realized she had been so focused on shapeshifting that she had inadvertently released him from his slumber.

“Sleep,” she said again, waving her hand over his face.

He fell back into bed, and Kaia and the imp flew out through the open window.

§

Garrett squinted at the clock beside the bed. Six a.m. He was usually on the way to the gym by now, squeezing in a workout before heading into the office, but this morning his body felt heavy and lethargic. He rolled over to the side and reached for Kaia, but found the bed empty and cold. An image of a bright light and Kaia’s face, high above the bed, flashed before his eyes. And something else... what was it? Wings?

Yes, beautiful, translucent wings, surrounding her naked torso in delicate, swirling lines, the tips catching the edges of the light in a warm yellow glow.

A vivid dream, he supposed, but one that left him with a deep sense of foreboding.

“Kaia?” His voice echoed in the empty room. He waited a moment and called again, listening for some sound from the bathroom. Brushing teeth. The toilet flushing.

The room stayed quiet.

Dread, cold and dark, landed like a stone in the pit of his stomach. Hoping there might be some explanation for her disappearance, he hauled himself out of bed and investigated. Other than Kaia’s dress, shoes, and underthings, which still lay on the floor beside the bed, there was no sign that the room had ever been inhabited. No toothpaste marks in the bathroom, nothing in the wastebaskets.

And she was gone. Long gone, judging by the cool linens. The pillows bore no trace of the imprint of her head. He could not even find one of her hairs on the sheets.

Sinking back down onto the bed, he replayed the events of the evening. There was Ted, his woebegone friend, looking at Kaia with his big, sad eyes, and Kaia, radiating pleasure, humor, and a direct, unflinching sensuality.

There was his bizarre, out-of-control behavior on the dance floor, followed by the hours of conversation over bottles of wine. There was a woman who made him laugh even as she guarded all information about herself. And there was the woman he’d made love to, the perfect mix of uninhibited sensuality and innocence. He could still see the expression on her face as he moved his mouth along the curve of her stomach... and lower... She’d been surprised, nervous, and finally ecstatic, shaking with pleasure.

When they danced at the club, he’d had the feeling that his overwhelming hunger and need were one-sided. At the hotel, when their bodies were making the most exquisite music he’d ever heard, everything had changed. Their lovemaking became a mutual dance, one that was effortlessly synchronized. She had driven him to the edge of release and held him there for longer than he’d thought possible, working his body like an expert, and at the end she had dissolved just like him.

They had dissolved together.

Could she really be gone?

He spied a piece of paper that had been pushed under the door and picked it up, hoping it might be a note from Kaia, but it was only the “express checkout” receipt. Kaia Verde had stayed five nights at the Avalon, and during that time, she had charged a five hundred dollar dress and a few bottles of water to her room. There were no other distinguishing features to the bill. Her address was not printed on it, nor was there a phone number at which she could be reached.

There was, on the other hand, a note in bold at the top of the receipt that read, “Credit card not authorized. Please see front desk for payment.”

Damn. On some level he had expected it, but it still hit him like a blow to the gut.

He hadn’t wanted to be right about her.

Garrett dropped the bill on the bed and headed for the bathroom. He turned on the shower and stepped inside, letting the cold water jerk him back to reality. He had a busy day ahead. He had meetings from eight to eight, and in between he had to stop by the Manor to see Lexi, his six-year-old niece. Lexi was staying with Garrett’s grandmother, Portia, while her parents were away.

Portia had raised Garrett and his brother, Max, ever since their mother abandoned them at the Manor when Garrett was eight. Still, she was hardly the maternal type. Relentless business tycoon? Absolutely. Caring parental stand-in? Not so much.

Garrett didn’t like to leave Lexi alone with her for too long.

Meanwhile, he hadn’t planned to stay at the club for more than an hour the night before, so he had a pile of reading waiting at home. He had a deal he wanted to close this week on a resort property in Bali, and he’d finally found a potential buyer for an underperforming office complex in New Jersey.

So why were his thoughts still traveling back to Kaia? Her unusual features that bespoke some foreign heritage; her voice, with its impossible-to-place accent. There was something special about her. Something he didn’t know how to categorize.

He washed his body vigorously with the tiny hotel soap. Even now, he felt himself wanting to make excuses for her. To come up with some reason why she might have disappeared without a trace. An urgent phone call, perhaps, or an accident while she was out getting coffee. He knew the thought was absurd. Yes, they’d had incredible, mind-blowing sex, and yes, she was smart and beautiful and wholly unexpected. But that meant nothing when he looked at the checkout receipt and knew he’d been right from the start.

He shrugged off the disappointment and told himself it didn’t matter. He’d been learning not to trust since he was a child. As a young man, he had encountered legions of women who were more interested in his money and status than any unique turn of his mind. And, of course, he’d always suspected that Max’s wife had gotten pregnant purely as a way to trap Max into marrying her—their marriage had fallen apart just months after it started. Max was simply too committed to his daughter to seek a divorce.

It would be absurd to say that Garrett believed all women were heartless and mercenary. After all, he’d come to appreciate Ted’s fiancée, Rachel, and her matchmaking had introduced him to more than a few do-gooders who seemed to have genuinely kind hearts. Yet for some reason the combination of his money and looks always seemed to change women and bring out the worst in them. He’d given up fighting it years ago. Portia said that trust was dangerous, and Garrett knew she was right. He had only to look at his brother, and the sole remaining picture he had of his mother, to know that.

Now he could add a $5,000 hotel bill and a souvenir dress as further evidence.

Garrett turned off the shower and toweled himself dry. He dressed in his clothes from the night before, and stopped for a moment to pick up the silvery garment reflecting the light from the rising sun.

As he headed outside, he laughed at his own naiveté in thinking, even for a minute, that he and Kaia had shared something special. An old joke he’d often told Ted came to his mind: trusting a woman in the bedroom was like trusting a lawyer in the boardroom. It could only lead to disaster.

Chapter Seven

As Kaia flew toward the Faerie Gate, one of the numerous entries to Faeria scattered throughout the human world, she saw her sister Handmaids, Mina, Talia, and Analise, gathered outside. Talia was zipping around the meadow, frowning, while Analise was hugging herself and gazing nervously at the sky. Mina paced in front of the Gate, stopping every few feet to tap her foot impatiently.

Kaia’s heart caught. “You told them, didn’t you?” she said to the imp, who flew close to her side.

Imps were terrible gossips. Kaia could imagine he’d told every Fey creature he could find exactly what errand Zafira had sent him on. After all, everyone enjoyed seeing Zafira hand out her punishments.

Everyone, that is, except the unfortunate creature being punished.

The imp’s mouth dropped open, and he looked for all the world like a wounded innocent. “I did no such thing.”

Kaia snorted and yanked on a tuft of his curly blond hair. “Liar.”

“Ouch!” He rubbed his head and blinked his round, blue eyes at her. “I don’t talk to Handmaids, Faerie,” he reproved. “I wasn’t lying. If someone else told your friends something, I’ve got no control over that.”

“Oh, that’s nice. It isn’t enough that I have to seduce lawyers—now I’ve got imps that want to talk like them, too?”

“Hmph.” He patted one stubby horn and straightened his hair before sticking his nose into the air. “I don’t have to take this abuse. You’ll have to answer to Zafira anyway.”

Kaia froze, the very thought of Zafira sending a violent shudder through her body. She refused to let the imp see her panic. She did have some self-respect left.

Kaia steeled herself for an onslaught of questions as she landed beside the Gate. To a passing human who did not know about or believe in the Fey, the Gate would have been invisible. The careless eye would only have seen the trunk of a particularly tall, gnarled oak tree. To the eye of one who knew what to look for, the tree trunk clearly sheltered a door, at least seven feet in height, intricately carved with images of the Fey—water nymphs, imps and boggles, dryads with their trees, and pixies luring men through the woods. Above all of them stood a faerie queen, her head adorned by a crown of flowers, the Willow Scepter in her hand.

As soon as Talia caught sight of Kaia, she flew down to tell Mina and Analise. The three faeries crowded anxiously around the Gate, and as soon as Kaia landed, each took turns folding her in their arms.

Worry marked their faces, and they darted tense looks between Kaia and the imp.

“What?” he finally said, hovering at shoulder height among the tall faeries.

“You’ve summoned her,” Talia said, her expression a picture of disgust. “Now, isn’t there somewhere else you need to be? Some gossip left to spread? I heard there’s a pixie who’s just arrived at court. Maybe you should run and tell her what happened.”

The imp stuck out his tongue. “I just deliver the messages, Faerie, I don’t make them. And by the way, you’ve got some berries between your teeth. I hope you haven’t been walking around all day like that. How embarrassing.” He turned to Kaia. “Queen Zafira will be holding court in one hour. I would not make her wait.”

With that, he pushed his way between Mina and Analise, and approached the Gate. As if sensing his presence, the enormous door swung slowly inward and he slipped inside.

As soon as the Gate had closed behind him, Talia’s hand flew to her mouth. “Stupid, lying little imp.” She turned to Mina and bared her teeth. “He was lying, wasn’t he?”

Mina sighed. “Yes, Talia, he was. And you should know better than to be rude to the queen’s imp.”

Talia shook her head, sending waves of black hair rippling down her naked back. She wore a sleek, halter-style dress of golden silk that caressed the voluptuous curve of her breasts and ended halfway down her thighs. “I hate imps. They’re one step removed from demons. I have no idea why Zafira tolerates them in Faeria.”

“Because they’re Fey just like you and me,” Analise said in her gentle, breathy voice. Her gown was no less sensual than Talia’s, a flow of sheer white cloth revealing the outlines of her delicate limbs. “And she is the queen of Faeria.”

“Which means,” Talia pointed out, “that she can do whatever she wants.”

“Which means,” Analise corrected, “that she has a responsibility to care for all her subjects, including the imps. Faeria is the court for all the Fey. The imps belong here, as do the rest of us.”

“Can we just forget about the imp?” Kaia interrupted, tired of the sniping.

The Handmaids swung back around to stare at her, and Kaia regretted opening her mouth. Mina and Talia bickered all the time, and no one bothered to stop them. Now, with all eyes on her, Kaia knew the time had come to tell them the truth.

“Which brings up an excellent point,” Mina said, eyes narrowed. “What happened to you? All we heard from that horrible creature was that Zafira was furious, a Handmaid had lost control with a man, and the imp was bringing her to Faeria for punishment.”

Mina wore a pair of snug capri pants with a matching camisole top in rich autumn tones, setting off her shock of curly red hair and creamy white skin. A tiny emerald sparkled from her belly button.

Kaia turned around, closing her eyes and trying to block out the image of Garrett, his lean body sprawled out on the white hotel sheets. Goosebumps sprung up on her arms and she ran her hands along them. This Gate was not far from Florida, in a remote, densely wooded area humans called the Ozarks. The air was hot and moist, but Kaia felt as if she were freezing from the inside out.

She considered Mina’s question: What had happened? She remembered Garrett’s mouth traveling over the naked flesh of her thigh, and her own abandoned response.

When’s the last time you screamed? he had asked her. Never, she’d thought to herself.

That was no longer true. When Garrett made love to her she screamed with a release so overwhelming she could not think, could not move, could not begin to control the pleasure that ricocheted through her body.

“It’s complicated,” she said, keeping her face hidden from her sisters.

Talia appeared in front of her in an instant, eyes wide, hair flying behind her like a silky black mane. “Complicated? You can’t be serious. We assumed you’d been set up by some lying boggle. We were worried about how to clear your name, Kaia. It hadn’t occurred to us that he might be telling the truth. Zafira will never forgive you for this, especially if she’s got something against this guy.”

Kaia spun around to avoid Talia’s questions, fear gripping her chest at the enormity of what she faced. She tried for a calm voice, but a hard lump rose in her throat when she tried to speak. “I don’t... I mean I... ”

Mina smacked Talia on the shoulder. “For pity’s sake, shut up, Talia. You’re terrifying her.”

“Well it’s true,” Talia flared. “If she did something stupid with a man, I, for one, would like to know about it. This affects us all, Mina. You know that.”

“It affects us because we’re sisters and we care about each other,” Mina shot back. “Not because we intimidate and harass each other.”

Kaia’s teeth began to chatter. She suppressed the sound and forced her mouth to lie still, but her shoulders shook instead. “I didn’t think about you all. I’m so sorry.”

Talia’s anger dissolved in an instant, as it usually did after she lost her temper. She laid a hand on Kaia’s shoulder. “No, I’m sorry, Kaia. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I’m just worried about you, that’s all.”

Analise took Kaia’s hand and led her to a soft patch of grass. “Forget all that, lovey. We have an hour. Sit down and tell us what happened.”

Kaia tucked her wings against her back like a silky cape and collapsed into the earth, her body melting into the soft loam. She forced her body to be still. She would not panic, or cry, or run away. For one more hour, at least, she was a Handmaid, and she would carry herself as such. She would accept her punishment with all the dignity she could muster.

§

“I just can’t believe you let him do that.” Talia let out her breath on one long hiss. “The queen sent you out to bring this man to his knees, and then you turned around and let him do that to you.” She shook her head. “Madness. Absolute madness.”

Kaia shook her head. Talia still didn’t understand, and how could she? Faeries weren’t supposed to experience weakness and human emotion. Trying to describe how Garrett had broken down every barrier she set in front of him was like trying to describe a new color, or the taste of an exotic fruit. The right words simply didn’t exist.

As she told her story to the other Handmaids, her panic had evolved into a dark, fatalistic sense of dread. She had broken the queen’s most basic rule for dealing with men, and she would have to pay. The only question was how.

Silence fell over the group. Talia sat cross-legged, stroking the tip of her wings as she gazed at Kaia. Mina lay still, her hand flat over her face.

Surprisingly, it was Analise who spoke, as she wrapped and unwrapped a lock of blonde hair around her finger. “What was it like?” she asked in a very soft voice. “I mean, what did it feel like, when you… when he… ”

For all that they had seduced hundreds of men, the faeries rarely talked about their own bodies or their feelings about the act, and Kaia found her cheeks growing hot as she contemplated her answer.

Mina sat up and fixed a steely gaze on Kaia. “Tell her how it felt. Tell her you could give it up, now that you’ve had it.”

Before Zafira had picked her to become a Handmaid, Mina had lived among men for many years, giving and taking pleasure as she wished. Only she dared rail against Zafira’s strictures.

Kaia shook her head, unable to speak.

“Tell her,” Mina commanded.

Kaia cleared her throat. “It doesn’t matter, does it? I’ll never see him again.”

Chapter Eight

“Would you like a scone, Alexandra?” Portia spoke in her most lofty and elegant tones, the ones she reserved for visiting guests, clients, and the tearoom. She wore a spotless white silk shirt and long navy skirt that reached to her ankles. Her clothing, not by accident, surely, matched the pattern on her antique blue and white Spode china.

Garrett watched his young niece struggle to balance the teacup and saucer in one hand while she reached for the sugar. He suspected having a pastry or trying to converse would put her right over the edge.

He was right.

She looked up, and as she did the delicate porcelain angled slightly downward, sending tea sloshing over the edge to collect in the saucer below. Horror turned her delicate cheeks white. Lexi had the Jameson blue eyes, but her mother’s heart-shaped face and pointed chin. Her sweet, gamine features revealed every iota of feeling in her young body, and right now, they were all centered on one emotion.

Terror.

With good reason.

“Alexandra!” Portia lashed out. “Straighten your cup immediately. We will have no dribbling at tea!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” she said, looking around desperately for a napkin. “I won’t do it again. I promise.”

Garrett took the cup from her hand and poured the tea from the saucer into his own cup. He mopped the remainder with a napkin and handed his niece back the cup. “No use crying over spilled tea,” he said, giving Lexi an encouraging smile. “Isn’t that right, Portia?”

He raised one eyebrow at his grandmother’s stern visage, feeling a familiar surge of protective anger. If he had his way, Lexi would have nothing to do with her dragon of a great-grandmother.

Portia scowled at Garrett. “She will never learn as long as you keep protecting her.” She turned back to Lexi. “Now. Sit straight. No slouching. We do not make promises we are going to break. Hold your teacup like a delicate flower—do not squeeze it like a tube of toothpaste. Keep your elbows in. You aren’t a chicken. And you don’t need sugar. Real ladies do not use sugar.”

Garrett allowed himself the brief fantasy of pouring his grandmother’s tea right on top of her carefully groomed head. “For heaven’s sake. She’s just a child.”

“She’s a child who needs to learn. When you were eight you were babysitting your brother, cleaning stables, and eating formal dinners with me and my clients. Alexandra can learn the same. Her mother sets a terrible example. If I didn’t intervene the child would have the manners of a street urchin.”

When Garrett was eight, he had just come to live at the Manor. He had been terrified of disappointing his new guardian—who had insisted on being called “Portia,” not “Grandmother”—his brother Max cried himself to sleep every night, and formal dinners were nothing short of torture. He wouldn’t wish his childhood on his worst enemy, let alone the niece he adored.

He ignored Portia completely. “Lexi, why don’t we go for a ride?”

Her face brightened. “Oh, I’d love to! Can I ride Sugar? I went to see her yesterday and Mr. Netti said she’s been waiting for me. He said she’s so fat they probably won’t even be able to get the girth around her so I better get her out and exercised.” With a guilty look, she swung around to look at Portia. “I’ll finish tea first, of course.”

“You don’t have time to go for a ride,” Portia said to Garrett. “You have far too much work to do. I said I’d take care of the child and that’s what I intend to do.”

Lexi’s face fell. “I’m sorry, Uncle Garrett. I didn’t mean to make you late for work. I can go for a ride another time. Maybe this weekend.”

Garrett gritted his teeth at the way Portia had sown the seeds of guilt in her great-granddaughter. “Lexi, I’m telling you that I do have time. I came over just so I could see you. Why would I have done that if I didn’t have time?”

Portia had told him not to come today. She’d said she had plenty of activities planned for Alexandra, including her first formal tea. But Garrett could hardly leave his poor niece to battle Portia by herself all day. Besides, he needed to get out of the office. Despite the pile of work waiting on his desk, every time he closed the door and tried to concentrate all he could think about was Kaia, and the taste of her that still lingered on his tongue.

Had it only been eight hours since he’d woken up to an empty bed? And how long since he’d held her—twelve hours? Fourteen? He tried to remember if he’d checked the clock during the night, so he could figure out how long she’d stayed in the room with him. His mind stayed blank. No matter how hard he tried, all he could remember was that dream, when he’d seen her hovering above him with those damned wings shimmering around her like a beautiful halo.

A crazy dream. Truth be told, the entire night had been colored with madness. Why would the dreams that followed be any different?

“Garrett, I know what your week is like. I spoke to Mrs. Lyons this morning. You have meetings all afternoon and you’re supposed to be on a plane tomorrow morning for Chicago. We have that dinner on Thursday for the food bank, and you’ve got the keynote speech to write. And weren’t you going to meet with the governor’s chief of staff next week? On that wetlands issue? You simply do not have time to take the child on a pony ride this afternoon.”

Garrett forced himself to remain calm. He’d long since lost any hope of convincing his assistant—who had worked for his grandmother before him—to keep his schedule private. And since he’d given in and taken a job with Jameson Enterprises six years ago, it wasn’t as if he could avoid attending functions with Portia. He used to search for ways to put some real distance between them, but after Max took his job with Portia, he had looked desperately to Garrett for help dealing with his position. Shortly after, Garrett had stopped trying. Between Max and Lexi, he was neatly pinned in place, and Lord knew Portia would never change. Besides, he’d had decades to build up his resistance to his grandmother. Lexi had not.

He gently touched Lexi’s dark hair, which had been styled to lie flat and straight behind a broad white ribbon. “Come on, Lexi. I don’t know about you, but I never liked tea anyway. Let’s go ride your pony.”

Lexi set her cup carefully on the coffee table. Her voice a whisper, she said, “Ma’am, may I be excused?”

Portia pursed her lips. Deep fissures formed in the skin around them, her perfect red lipstick marred by wrinkles of dissatisfaction. “Next time, I expect you not to spill.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lexi stood and gave a little curtsy. Garrett wondered where she’d learned that move. Portia probably had some etiquette teacher from the nineteenth century on staff at the Manor.

Lexi turned to him and flung out her hand, though she maintained a calm expression until they reached the hall. “Do you really think Sugar missed me?” she began to chatter excitedly, as soon as Portia was out of earshot. “Because I sure missed him!”

As they walked toward the stable, Garrett relished the feeling of her hand in his. He had no intention of having children. For Garrett, children would require marriage, which would require a wife, and wives were a disaster he hoped never to experience. Still, he adored his niece and cherished the time he had with her. In a small way, protecting her from Portia made up for all the times he couldn’t protect his brother, Max, when they were children.

“Of course he missed you, Lexi,” he said with a smile. “How could he not?”

§

Portia Jameson watched her grandson and great-granddaughter walk out the door, hand in hand. She did not stand until they had turned to walk down the hallway and out of sight. Then she gathered the cups and placed them on the large silver tray that sat on the table. She frowned at the untouched plate of scones with the creamy white frosting that her cook, Madeline, had thought Alexandra might like.

Ridiculous. Scones with frosting. Who had heard of such a thing?

The tray had been owned by the Earl of Devarrow, and was the first real antique Portia had purchased. There had been many more pieces, of course, but nothing meant more to her than that tray. She still stared at it sometimes, to remember what it felt like to be hungry.

She walked to the window and pulled aside the heavy velvet drape. Carefully, she arranged her body so that she would be hidden behind the thin crepe liner. From that vantage, she could watch Garrett and Alexandra walk down the drive, holding hands. Her mouth tightened when she realized that Alexandra was still wearing her tea dress. The girl probably expected she could simply throw on some old breeches under the dress and ride like that. The delicate tulle would almost certainly come back to the house spattered with mud, ripped, and smelly. A ridiculous waste of a beautiful garment.

Gesturing with excitement, Alexandra turned toward Garrett and danced away. The ribbon Portia had put in her hair fell down her back and landed, unnoticed, on the driveway. Wild. The girl was always wild. How many times had Portia told her to keep still, calm down, and not let herself become overwhelmed with emotion?

Portia’s fingers tightened on the delicate fabric of the curtain. Alexandra’s smile always reminded her of Victoria. The girl looked just like her. Even though it had been over twenty years since she’d seen her daughter, she still pictured her face every time she looked at Alexandra—or for that matter, every time she looked at Garrett and Max.

Damn foolish Victoria.

At least Alexandra tried to do what she was told. Victoria had always been fighting. Always pushing the limits. Following her pleasure. Allowing herself to become a slave to her art and music. Victoria had thought she didn’t need to listen to Portia. She had thought she could survive on her own. She had no idea that Portia had reasons for her rules, reasons she could never share. In the end, all of Portia’s work was for naught. Blood had won out, and her worst fears had been realized.

Well, Victoria was out of their lives now, and good riddance.

The large brass clock on the mantle chimed three, startling Portia out of her momentary reverie. Right now, Max would be struggling to get through his meeting with the management of the New York hotel chain they had targeted for takeover. She needed to check in on him. He didn’t like traveling to begin with, and he hated the sort of aggressive negotiations he was about to face. If Portia had been feeling better, she would have accompanied him—she’d never had any problem being a tough negotiator—but her arthritis had been bad lately, and there were days it took her hours to get out of bed in the morning. Besides, there was Alexandra to care for, and there was Garrett…

Garrett. She watched him lift Alexandra into his arms with an effortless motion and throw her up to his shoulder. He had his mother’s rebellious streak and her refusal to bow to authority. But he was here. She’d managed to do that much for him. Given him a home, a career. Managed to shield him from the damn music that threatened to swallow him whole. She’d helped him build a real life.

He was strong. Controlled.

He didn’t like her, but that was acceptable. She’d done her job. She’d protected him.

It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. But it was the best she could do.

§

Kaia stood beside the gleaming marble dais that held Queen Zafira’s empty throne and fought to maintain her composure. The herald raised his crystal bugle and trilled the impending arrival of the queen. Unlike the jostling that typically followed at the Anniversary, today the crowd was subdued. Quiet.

The music came again, and the entry doors were flung open as the procession began. As usual, all of the faerie races were present, but today they marched with a singular, sad presence. Tears rolled down ivory faces of the night faeries. In the crowd, banshees softly wailed as the faeries took their places around the dais. With long white hair and dark red eyes, banshees were tragic creatures that sensed death and impending disaster, but could do nothing more than keen their foresight to the world around them.

The Handmaids—minus Kaia—flared their wings to impress the crowd and the usual hum of excitement followed their display, but it was tinged with fear. Rumors had been flying around Faeria ever since the imp had been dispatched to bring Kaia back to court, and now all anyone wanted to know was what Zafira would do next.

Kaia had been to two sentencings. She had seen the sad procession, heard the banshees cry for what they could see would happen next, and felt the heaviness that followed. Zafira liked to continue with a celebration after the sentencing, as if to prove the glory of Faeria and all that the sentenced one would leave behind. Tonight, after Kaia’s sentencing, there would be songs and music, dance and tributes made to the queen and the remaining Handmaids.

Not Kaia.

Her chest tightened with fear. She had no idea what awaited her. Would she be banished from Faeria? Something worse? Fear slowly mixed with fury—fury with herself, and fury with a man. A man with sandy blond hair, cold blue eyes, and hands that left her mindless with pleasure.

Damn you, Garrett Jameson, she thought, stifling the sob that threatened to burst from her chest. Damn you to hell and back.

Chapter Nine

The crystal bugle sounded again. Kaia bowed her head, spread her wings wide across her back, and bent one knee as Zafira took her throne.

“Handmaid Kaia. Step forward.”

Bile leapt up in her throat. Kaia closed her eyes for a moment, and did as she was bade.

Zafira looked down on her with a countenance that showed no sign of pity or regret. “Kaia, you know the rules for dealing with men, do you not?”

Kaia nodded.

Zafira pressed forward, thumping her scepter on the ground to punctuate her words. “Never lose control, never yield. Is that correct?”

Kaia nodded again.

“And you, Kaia, did you break this rule when you lay with a man just one night ago?”

Kaia’s heart began to pound. “I did allow a man to pleasure me, but—”

Zafira stamped her staff into the ground and interrupted her with a harsh cry. “Tell me the truth, Handmaid! Did you, or did you not, break my rule?”

“Queen Zafira, I did, but I only allowed him to pleasure my body. I did not yield my heart to him. You must believe me.”

Zafira shook her head, and for a moment her expression softened. At least it seemed that way to Kaia’s desperate eyes. But then it hardened again and all hope of pity or mercy faded along with it.

“You know as well as I do the power men have over the Fey, Kaia. They destroy our birth plants and send the souls of our daughters back into the universe before they have a chance to bloom and be born onto this earth. We have no recourse, no way to multiply or regenerate our numbers once our souls have been lost. We were meant to be guides to men and advisors to help them understand and communicate with the earth, but over the last hundreds of years they have refused to listen to us. They have brushed us aside like leaves in the fall, and only acknowledged us when they had some need of our services. They pray to our dryads when they need the trees to grow, or call to the sirens when they want their ships to survive in a storm. But they do not honor us. They have never honored us.”

Zafira began to stride back and forth across the dais, pounding her scepter as she did. The sylphs took their cue from her anger and they flew higher and faster, the air from their wings sending her hair rippling back so it appeared that she was flying in place. When Zafira reached one end of the stage she spun around and pointed her scepter directly at Kaia. “Like you, I trusted a man once. I yielded to him. When he touched me, I melted with pleasure, and he used that weakness against me, just like this man could have used your weakness against you.”

Kaia shook her head. “No. I would never have let him. I am no fool, Queen Zafira. You have so often told us of the treachery of men that I could not have possibly allowed myself to become vulnerable to him.”

“So you are no fool, is that it?” Zafira said softly. “You would never succumb to a man’s sweet words? His fiery kisses? His hands, his lips, his mouth, all of them telling you how special you are, how different you are from all the others, how much he cares for you?” She smiled and snapped her fingers. The sylphs flew away in a single, fluid wave of feathery wings. “You would never be deceived by the tenderness in his eyes, or the warmth in his touch?”

Too late, Kaia realized what her words had implied. “I didn’t mean—”

“No, no,” Zafira said, her voice calm and mild. “I understand. You don’t believe it’s possible that a man could mislead you like he did your queen, and I am glad for your confidence, Kaia. Truly I am.”

“It’s only that I had the benefit of your wisdom.” Kaia gripped her skirt to stop her hands from trembling. She glanced at the other Handmaids, but their wide-eyed expressions only made her more terrified. She continued on, though she could feel herself sliding into a deeper and deeper pit. “I have dedicated my life to exposing the weakness and perfidy of men. You have seen the pictures and heard the stories of the men I exposed for being liars and cheaters. How could I forget all that I have witnessed? All that I have experienced?”

Zafira nodded. “If you are so certain of yourself, your punishment will be easy.”

Kaia gulped. The moment of truth had arrived. Zafira’s punishments were often harsh, but at least they were swift. “You are a Handmaid, and you have served me faithfully for many years. I do not intend to overlook that service.”

Kaia perked up. This was unexpected. The faeries she had seen punished by Zafira were given no hint of leniency.

“You have explained to me your confidence in your ability to resist a man’s charms, and to expose and punish him for his lying nature.”

“Yes, my queen.” A shard of hope stabbed in her chest.

“What I ask of you will be a simple matter. The man you slept with last night was special to me. I sent you after him to see him brought low. You failed me, Kaia, but you have exposed his weakness. He lay with you despite his better judgment. You had power over him. This pleases me.”

Zafira stepped off of the dais and approached her on the floor, her voice practically purring with warmth. “You will return to Garrett Jameson. You will let him make love to you, touch you, and do whatever he wants to your earthly body. You will make him fall in love with you, Kaia, and then you will break his heart. You will take him to the point of utter vulnerability and you will destroy him. Do you understand?”

For a moment, all was silent, and then the room erupted into noise. The Fey roared their approval of the creativity of the punishment that had been set forth. Kaia swayed on her feet. Make love to him again? Get him to fall in love with her? Break his heart? The commands sounded in her mind, one after the other, but she could not comprehend them.

“My queen, how will I… ”

Zafira held up one pale hand to forestall any further words. A ray of sunlight sparkled across the delicate gold band that encircled her wrist and wound around the back of her hand to end in a single point at the base of her middle finger.

“You are no fool. You will find a way.”

Kaia took a deep breath and nodded. What more could she do? There was no point in arguing with Zafira. Besides, how hard could it be to make a man fall in love? Humans did it all the time. Faeries had little experience with love, but surely it was not much different from lust, or desire.

She tried for a brave smile. “You are as wise as you are merciful, Zafira. I can only hope that my faerie magic will be up for the task you have set.”

Zafira’s face became a cold, mocking mask, and Kaia quivered at the sight. “Oh, but wait. I see I failed to mention one thing. Your weakness is a disgrace to all Fey beings. Until you have proven yourself worthy, you are forbidden from using your faerie magic.”

The room spun, and darkness crossed Kaia’s eyes. “Forbidden?” she whispered.

Zafira nodded with satisfaction. “I will not take your magic away—that process is irreversible—but know this, Handmaid: I expect you to live as a human until you have completed your task. I will be sending my imp to follow you. If he brings me word that you have used your magic in any form, I will consider that you have failed and earned my final punishment.”

“And what is that, your Majesty?” Kaia held her back perfectly straight.

Zafira paused, stroking the smooth wood of the Willow Scepter. “Black Ladies, step forward.”

A soft sound of horror came from one of the Handmaids on the dais. From the corner of her eye, Kaia saw Analise bite her knuckle.

The crowd parted before a trio of creatures clad in long black robes. Their garments hung loosely over bodies of indeterminate size, or, perhaps, no bodies at all. Dark hoods covered invisible faces, while a crimson glow lit the space where eyes might have been.

“Yes, Queen.” They spoke as one, their dry, grating voices blending to form a single vibration that echoed throughout the hall.

No one knew the origins of the Black Ladies. They were not faerie, dakini, or banshee. They existed somewhere between the realms of Fey and demon. Yet for whatever reason, they lived to serve the queen of the Fey, and their powers were terrifying.

“Black Ladies, this creature, this so-called faerie, has displeased me. I am sending her out into the world of man to prove that she is worthy to be Fey. Her time is limited—if she does not return by the night of the summer solstice, you will retrieve her and bring her back to me.”

Kaia felt the first tremor of fear pass over her. The Black Ladies could track a Fey creature anywhere she went. However, their methods of retrieval were so excruciating none would risk trying to escape. They used the darkest of Fey magic to render their prey harmless and obedient. The spells they used were so dangerous, and so painful, they often left their victims mindless forever after.

“And once we bring her back, Queen?” The discordant voices quivered with desire. Those Fey closest to the Black Ladies took an extra step back, for good measure.

Zafira gestured toward Kaia, and a strange sensation rippled through her wings, as if they’d been dipped in an icy river. Tendrils of frost snaked through every inch of the soft, fluid material, and what had previously quivered and flowed with every move of Kaia’s body became still and lifeless.

She craned her neck to look behind her and froze in horror.

Her wings, her beautiful glowing wings, the pride of her heart and the source of her magic, faded from light to black. As they drained of energy, they drooped, lifeless and dark, down Kaia’s back. Finally, the blackened bits turned to ash, and floated away.

“No!” Kaia could not restrain the cry of agony that ripped from her lips. Heartsick, she reached into the air, a single piece of ash brushing against her skin. The weight of her sorrow became too much, and she dropped to her knees. Her mind spun frantically with fear. Were they gone forever?

A moment later, Zafira laughed. “Just a demonstration, Kaia. And a warning of what is to come if you are not successful.”

Breathing deeply, Kaia fought to regain her dignity. She checked over her shoulder and relief flooded her body, leaving her limp. Her wings had returned, full and gleaming with silvery light.

“Black Ladies,” Zafira instructed, “if Kaia fails in her task, you will take her wings.”

She said it simply, but the entire hall went deadly quiet. There could be no worse punishment to a faerie. It was one thing to shapeshift into human form—when a faerie did that, her wings were simply absorbed into her flesh, their magic redistributed throughout her body. To lose her wings was another story, akin to removing her soul. Her magic would disappear and it would take with it the very essence of her being. Ultimately, she would become a dried-out husk of a creature, left to die slowly as her physical body disintegrated around her.

“I see.” Kaia tried to remain calm as a scream built up inside of her. She would not fail. She could not.

“Once you leave Faeria and cross through a Gate, I expect you to take your human form and keep that form until your task is complete.”

“And my punishment… ” Kaia tried to form the words but they were lost as her throat swelled shut. She swallowed hard and tried again. “Have you decided… that is… is there any chance you might reconsid—”

“Reconsider?” Zafira examined the reflection of her face in her bracelet for a moment before turning back to Kaia, a malicious gleam of pleasure in her eyes. “Nonsense. There is no need to discuss such matters. If you complete the task I have set for you, all will be forgiven and you will be welcomed back to Faeria. And if you fail, you may beg the Black Ladies for mercy, if you dare.”

§

The sky was beginning to darken as the Handmaids stepped forward to take Kaia into their arms for one final hug. They stood on the Faeria side of the Gate, far from the great doors and the red-eyed boggles who stood guard on the other end of the hall. She was just beginning to emerge from the fog that had consumed her since Zafira laid out her final threat. Blocking out all thought of the Black Ladies and the loss of her wings was her only hope for sanity. She focused instead on Garrett, and thinking about how she would achieve the task that had been laid out before her.

Analise buried her face in Kaia’s shoulder with a sob. “What will you do?” she cried. “Where will you go?”

“I’ll find Garrett,” Kaia said, trying to sound calm. “We didn’t part on bad terms, after all. As far as he knows, I was just some woman he had a one-night stand with who disappeared the next morning. Maybe he’ll be happy to see me.”

Mina shook her head. “I don’t know, Kaia. Men can be difficult about things like this. They don’t like it when women are in control, and having you walk out like that… well, just be prepared for him not to be happy about it.”

Talia gave Analise a not-so-gentle nudge so she could take her place, giving Kaia a good-bye embrace. “I have no doubt you can make the silly man fall in love with you. The bigger question is, how you will live without magic? You are not a human! What is Zafira thinking?”

Talia’s long nose wrinkled at the tip, and her eyes blinked furiously. She roughly brushed aside the tears Kaia knew she would never shed, for Talia refused to show weakness, even to her sister Handmaids.

“It won’t be easy, Talia, but if humans can do it, so can we. Zafira gave me a driver’s license and twenty dollars.” She held up her tiny leather purse proudly. “I’m well on my way.”

Even as she worked to maintain a confident air, the enormity of her situation ran through Kaia’s mind. She’d always had a credit card before when she entered the human world, and when that didn’t work, she simply used her faerie magic to convince men to give her whatever she wanted. How long could twenty dollars last? Men took money so seriously, and now she could see why. Once it was gone, she would be unable to buy food or a place to stay, and she had no faerie charm to enhance her looks and persuade men to do whatever she asked.

All bravado aside, how would she survive?

“Where will you go?” Talia asked.

“There’s a Gate in the Everglades, close to Miami,” Kaia said.

“That’s in the middle of a swamp. How will you get out? You’re a human now, Kaia. You can’t just fly around like you used to,” Talia reminded her.

“I can walk,” Kaia said staunchly. “Or swim. I can’t very well set myself down in the middle of the Ozarks, can I? It could take me a week to get to Miami from there, and the summer solstice is a little more than one human month away. I don’t have any time to waste.”

All three nodded, looking miserable.

Kaia tried to smile. “Look, I should be able to get to Miami pretty quickly. And I’ll just go from there. I may be a human in form, but I’m a faerie in my heart. I’ll figure it out, right?”

They tried to smile, but all four faces faded back to grim within a matter of seconds.

“Can we come with you?” Analise asked. “We could help you find somewhere to live, at least. Make sure you find Garrett before we go.”

“Absolutely not,” Kaia said firmly. “Zafira would be furious if you interfered and I can’t have that on my conscience.”

“She cannot take away who you are,” Mina hissed. “She can tell you not to use your magic and threaten to take your wings, but you will always be one of the Fey, Kaia. I don’t care what anyone says. You were born a faerie of the light and a faerie of the light you will remain.”

Kaia’s eyes filled with tears for the first time. “Mina, if I lose my wings... ” The thought was too terrifying to contemplate. “What kind of light faerie can I be without my wings?”

Analise let out another loud sob.

Talia elbowed her in the ribs. “’Lise, shut up! You’ll bring that damn imp here with all that wailing. Anyway, Mina’s absolutely right. No matter what happens, wings or not, Kaia will always be one of us.”

The four of them joined hands and gripped each other in silence, each well aware that, despite Talia’s brave words, Kaia would be unlikely to survive long. As if no longer able to contemplate such an event, Mina started to sing an ancient faerie hymn to the earth, and it was mournful and hopeful all at once. Talia joined next, her voice lower than Mina’s, husky and rich. Analise added her sweet soprano in a harmony above the rest, like a bird that wandered in and out of the trees, swooping low and soaring high until it was almost out of view.

When she had cleared the lump from her throat, Kaia added her own voice to the song. She had never considered herself much of a singer, not in comparison to her sisters, but this was a song to each other and to the earth that was their true mother, to the plants that sheltered them and gave them birth. And when it was done, she dropped their hands. Without another look, she walked to the Gate. The door swung open, and she walked through.

Chapter Ten

The door of the Gate Kaia used to enter the human world was in a mangrove tree deep within Everglades State Park, which she knew from past travel bordered the western edge of Miami. She pushed open the door and shifted her shape as she hit the warm, moist air on the other side. The transition hurt, more so this time than usual because she did it quickly, and it was as if her wings were being ripped from her body, her shoulders left naked and raw. She poured her human shape into a white sundress and flats. Zafira had allowed that much—clothing created with faerie magic. One outfit, no more.

As usual, her human limbs felt heavy and clumsy, and today they ached as well, perhaps with the certainty that they would be inhabited for many days to come. Or would it be weeks? How long would she be forced to live as a human? How long could it take to make a man fall in love? She had five weeks. Surely that would be enough time.

As Kaia stood at the threshold of the Gate, her face flushed. Sweat formed in beads along her forehead and the nape of her neck. Ahead of her the sun set in a spectacular display of red and gold.

Kaia didn’t care for the sunset. She’d forgotten how uncomfortable it was when human flesh reacted to the heat.

Faeries did not sweat.

She took one tentative step forward, and instantly lost her footing in the tangle of roots underneath. Sprawled on her stomach, her face inches from the brown water surrounding the thick grove of trees, Kaia took a deep breath and steeled herself not to cry.

Before she could move, she saw a dark shadow in the water, coming straight toward her supine form. Alligator? What horrible creatures lived in these waters? Instantly, she pushed against the roots and prepared to retake her faerie form, to launch herself into the air and out of harm’s way.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

The cool, mocking voice of the queen’s imp froze her mid-move.

“What?” Kaia scrambled to sitting and scooted back toward the trunk of the tree. “I wasn’t going to do anything,” she said, staring down at the water, where the dark shape had merged into the shadows of the mangrove roots.

“Right.” The imp’s familiar cherubic face and curly blond hair appeared in front of her and surveyed her from top to bottom. “Just remember, Faerie. I’m watching. You get one outfit. I’m not sure I would have gone with white, but that’s your choice. And you walk or swim to Miami. No flying.”

“Snitch.” She stuck her tongue out at him, but he did not react, just hovered a few feet above the water and studied its opaque surface.

“Ooh, there’s some interesting things in here,” he said with glee. “You might not want to swim, Faerie.”

Kaia took a deep breath and ignored the treacherous imp. She obviously would have to wait until morning to set out for Miami.

“This won’t be so bad,” she counseled herself. She’d spent most of her life in the wilderness. Of course, that had been as a faerie, not a human. Her first hint of the difference came seconds later, when the first mosquito had the temerity to bite her shoulder, followed seconds after that by another on her arm and a third on her neck. In faerie form, her blood would have killed the creatures instantly. As a human, she was fair game.

Kaia adjusted her position and hunched forward to pull her skirt over her knees. That didn’t help much. Because she only got one outfit, she had tried to hedge her bets with a simple dress of white cotton, which seemed cool and durable yet reasonably attractive. She hadn’t considered bugs. The dress was sleeveless and cut low across the back, leaving an excessive amount of her skin exposed to the hungry insects and giving her legs little protection from the endless, crisscrossing maze of mangrove roots.

Her growling stomach was the next evidence of the difference between faerie and human. Where she only needed to eat the occasional handful of berries and roots in her faerie form, as a human the stomach seemed the most important organ in the body, nearly driving her mad with its incessant growling, whining, and aching.

Resigned to what seemed inevitably to be the longest night of her life, Kaia settled her bottom into the space between two roots, arranged her dress around her legs, and leaned her head back against the trunk of the tree to sleep.

§

She awoke from her first night in the woods with a sore body, more itchy red bites than she could count, and a gnawing hunger in her belly. She started walking as soon as the sun rose high enough for her to see her way around the murky brown water. The imp appeared at regular intervals to mock her and give her reports of fourteen-foot alligators ahead. She didn’t know if he was kidding or not, but she was too tired to be skeptical so she heeded his warnings and generally followed the path he advised.

She wandered around for most of the day, until a park ranger in a motorboat discovered her poking through the swamp. She had a stick to flush out the alligators and a leaf to fan away blood-sucking mosquitoes, both of which she knew did little good, but at least they made her feel better.

Earl, as the ranger introduced himself, gave her water and a gooey foodlike substance he called an energy bar. She made up a hasty story about getting lost while out for a canoe ride, and abandoning her boat when it got stuck in the mangroves. He took her back to the nearest ranger station, and asked the questions she’d been dreading:

“Is there someone we should call for you? Where do you want to go from here?”

Panicked, Kaia realized she had no idea how to answer. I’m here to break a man’s heart, can you help? didn’t sound quite right, and neither did I need to find Garrett Jameson, but I have no idea what his phone number is, or where he lives.

What she really needed, Kaia decided, was to get away from Earl and his nosy questions.

“I’ll just call my friend Analise. She’ll come pick me up.” She pretended to make a phone call, and talked to the dial tone about her experience of being lost in the swamp and how she needed a ride home. “It will be a while,” she told Earl after she’d hung up, trying for some of her old persuasive skills in a small flutter of the lashes. “You’ve probably got to go back out and, er, ranger some more?”

“How long will she be?” Earl asked, removing his hat and wiping the sweat from his bald head with a bandana.

“Two hours at least,” Kaia replied.

“Well, I don’t think I can wait that long,” he admitted. “As long as you’re sure she’s coming?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Kaia nodded. “She’ll be here.”

As soon as Earl left, Kaia headed out on foot to the Gas-n-Git, a small gas station a few miles down the road with two ancient pumps, a graffiti-marked phone booth, and a convenience store with a sign out in front that proudly proclaimed “Night Crawlers Here.”

Kaia started with the phone booth and its tattered phone book, where she discovered that Miami had no fewer than twenty listings for a “Jameson, G.”

For a few minutes, she debated using her twenty dollars to go down the list and start calling each one of them, but it occurred to her that if she showed up at Garrett’s house looking and smelling like a swamp, the last thing in the world he was going to do was fall in love with her. Slam the door and laugh in her face, perhaps. Fall in love? No way. She needed a couple of days to recover from her ordeal in the Everglades, and somewhere to find food, a shower, and a change of clothes.

Unfortunately, she had no idea where she could do any of those things.

With a deep sigh, she decided she could no longer ignore the throbbing ache in her stomach. She walked across the gravel parking lot and pushed open the grimy glass-panel door of the convenience store.

The shop was small, with faded linoleum floors and the odor of cigarette smoke. An ancient, stooped man with a crown of snowy hair and a protruding lower lip stood behind a counter surrounded by tobacco products. Red suspenders held up a pair of jeans around his child-sized waist. He eyed her suspiciously, but did not say a word as Kaia made her way up and down the store aisles.

She surveyed the inventory carefully and pulled down pretzels, cheese crackers, a bottle of water, and a small container of shampoo. She paid for her items, exhaling with relief when the clerk accepted her twenty dollar bill without question.

“Do you have a bathroom?” she asked.

“In the back.” He nodded to the far corner and handed her a key on a large iron ring.

Kaia took her cache into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. She sucked in a breath as she took in her appearance in the mirror. Structurally, she didn’t look terribly different than she normally did when she assumed human form. She was still tall and thin, with rounded hips and breasts, long legs, and brown hair that fell almost to her waist.

Yet where she once made men cry with desire, she would be lucky now not to evoke a cry of horror. Her formerly beautiful eyes were swollen and puffy, with dark circles underneath. Her red, sunburned face was dotted with mosquito bites, and her hair hung wet, limp, and tangled around her blistered shoulders.

She took off her dress and scrubbed her body as best she could, trying to protect the raw skin on the tip of her nose and shoulders while removing as much dirt as possible. Her dress went into the tiny sink next, and she scrubbed the stained garment with the shampoo, cringing when she had to slip the wet fabric, still brown and slightly smelly, back onto her body. She flipped her long hair over her head and ran water over it, mortified by the light brown color of the water running off her head and down the drain.

She shampooed her hair twice and rinsed it as well as she was able. It hardly helped. The impromptu washing in the sink had done little to change the color of her dress, and her time in the woods had left something else she’d never contended with before on her legs and under her arms—stubbly black hair pushing up through the skin.

Hair. Under her arms. How long would it grow? She’d seen hair under men’s arms, of course, but assumed human women were hairless there, like faeries. Worse yet, this hair seemed to be rough and coarse.

It was vile.

Kaia wanted to throw herself down on the floor of the tiny bathroom and sob but there was a mix of sand and mud on the aging linoleum, which she feared had come from her own body. If it had, it likely contained the feces of various aquatic species, and she was damned if she was going to grind it back into her skin.

She gritted her teeth instead, picked up her bag of groceries, and unlocked the door.

“It’s not a shower,” the clerk barked at her, as she made her way toward the front of the store.

Kaia sighed. “You got a shower somewhere else?”

“Of course not. What do you think this is, a shelter?”

She considered his response. “What’s that?”

“A shelter?” He snorted with disgust. “A homeless shelter, lady. What do you think I’m talking about?”

A homeless shelter? Although it sounded like a paradox, from the clerk’s tone of voice, this was clearly something Kaia was supposed to know about. She felt a rush of excitement. If a homeless shelter was a free place to stay that had a shower, she could be in luck after all.

“Yeah,” she said casually, “a homeless shelter. Of course, that’s what I’m looking for. Say, I’m not from Miami. Any chance you can direct me to the nearest shelter? I’m meeting a friend in a few hours, and I could really use a shower.”

The clerk crossed his arms. “I don’t cotton to homeless folk here. You want to buy something else, fine. Otherwise, you better get out before I call the cops.”

Kaia drew back, amazed at the hostility in his voice. Apparently, being homeless in Miami was not something one mentioned proudly.

Good to know.

She held up her bag. “I made my purchase. You saw me. I just had to use the bathroom.”

“Well, you used the bathroom. Now buy something else or get out.”

“Fine.” Kaia tried to maintain her pride, but it was difficult with a four-foot-tall, ninety-year-old convenience store clerk staring at her like she had the plague. She still had $11.35 left, so, in a fit of pique, she threw her arm up over her head and pointed to her armpit. “I need to get rid of this hair,” she said. “You got anything?”

The clerk rolled his eyes. “Razors, aisle three. And then get out, or I’m calling the police.”

§

“Faerie!”

Kaia buried her face in the moss at the base of the giant cypress tree that sheltered her from the world. “Shut up and go away,” she moaned.

“Faerie, it’s eight o’clock in the morning and there’s a police officer headed this way. If you don’t want to get a ticket for loitering, you better get up.”

Kaia pushed to a sitting position and squinted at the imp that hovered a foot above the ground and a few inches from her head. He was just as perky and annoying as he’d been the first time he’d woken her up. Except now she wasn’t in a comfortable hotel bed with a heavy arm falling across her breasts. She was curled under a tree in a city park because she couldn’t afford a place to stay, with a perpetual ache in the stomach that was never quite full, scabs dotting her forehead, and flakes of skin peeling from her shoulders.

And it was all Garrett Jameson’s fault. After three days camped out under a tree, she was thirsty, hungry, and quickly running out of money. The chance of finding Garrett and convincing him to take her in, much less fall for her, were nonexistent. If she knew one thing, it was that men cared about appearances. Garrett had slept with Kaia the gorgeous faerie. He would want nothing to do with Kaia the smelly park-dweller. She might as well call up the Black Ladies right now.

She raised one limp hand to swat at the imp. He easily avoided her pitiful attempt at assault, ducking out of reach with a cheerful wag of his finger and a swoop of his snowy wings. “Now that’s not very nice. What did I ever do to you?”

“You’ve been making fun of me ever since I became a human.”

He pressed the finger to his lips. “You’ve got me there. It’s just that you’re so… spotty. And being near you is challenging to those of us with sensitive olfactory organs, if we’re being perfectly frank.”

Kaia wrinkled her nose. For once, she couldn’t argue with the horrible little creature. Sometimes, in the middle of the day when the air was still, even she couldn’t stand her own scent. She’d washed herself in a public bathroom the night before, but that didn’t seem to make a dent in the overall level of odor that surrounded her. After the gas station attendant’s reaction, she didn’t have the courage to ask anyone for directions to a homeless shelter.

“You’re also well-fed and comfortable,” she grumbled. “And you can go back to Faeria any time you want. So excuse me if I’m not thrilled to have you by my side.”

“I didn’t break Zafira’s rules,” the imp replied, rubbing one horn with a smug smile. “You did.”

Kaia fell back against the tree, the familiar ache of hunger and despair tightening her throat. The imp was right. She had disobeyed Zafira, and now she was going to die in a park in a disgusting human body that smelled like the bottom of a garbage can. “Rub it in why don’t you, you horrible little beast.”

“I see. Grouchy and spotty,” the imp observed. “I hear humans find those characteristics absolutely irresistible.”

“Is that police officer still coming this way? Because if he isn’t, I’m going back to sleep.”

“Oh, by all means. Sleep the day away. If it were me, I’d be doing whatever it took to satisfy Zafira’s command and get my wings back. I know, we’re different. You’re a faerie. Much more important than a lowly imp. You should feel free to lie around under this tree and starve to death.”

Kaia leaned her head against the tree. “What can I do?” she wailed. “I’m ugly!”

“And smelly,” the imp observed. “Not to mention grouchy and spotty. Why let that stop you? Surely you could find out where he lives. Call him. He did sleep with you, after all. Maybe if you looked him up he’d feel sorry for you and give you a shower. You’ve got to start somewhere.”

“You’re nothing but a horrible little spy, and you don’t know the first thing about men,” Kaia hissed, jumping to her feet as she spied the police officer approaching her tree. “The last thing I want is his pity. No one falls in love out of pity.”

By this point, of course, she was talking to the air, the imp having disappeared into the branches of the tree the moment the policeman approached. Humans who didn’t want to believe in the Fey generally found a way to see through them or explain away their presence, but Zafira preferred for her subjects to remain out of sight of humans. She still believed humans, if given the opportunity, would do anything possible to control the Fey.

The officer was tall and heavyset, with darkly tanned skin and a thick handlebar mustache extending below his lower lip on either side of his face. “Good morning, ma’am. Can I help you with anything?”

Kaia straightened her dress nervously. After her first night in the park, she’d learned to avoid the police, who apparently didn’t like people living under trees.

“No thanks, officer.” She gave him the friendliest smile she could manage. “I’m just enjoying the view.” Her attempt to act normal was compromised when a cloud of darkness passed over her eyes. She swayed on her feet—a combination, most likely, of the lack of food and quick rise to standing.

He extended his arm. “Let me give you a hand.”

She brushed him away, taking a deep breath and steadying herself as quickly as she could. “No problem, I’m fine.”

“Sure you are,” he said gently. “Are you sure I can’t help? Do you have anywhere to go? Anyone I can call for you?”

The sound of a voice, at once gentle and concerned on her behalf but without pity or censure, brought a rush of tears to Kaia’s eyes. “No,” she stammered. “No, really.”

“What about friends? Do you have a friend I can call?”

Kaia wanted to send him on his way, but it was hard to think clearly when she was getting dizzy again. “I think I better sit down.”

The officer took her hand and helped her lower herself to the ground. He knelt beside her. “Put your head between your knees.”

She complied, relieved when the second wave of darkness passed. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to laugh. “Skipped breakfast this morning.”

“And dinner the night before, and lunch and breakfast the day before that?” He took her wrist in his hand and held it in front of him, looking between her face and his watch. “Your pulse is elevated, but steady. Can you tell me your name?”

“Kaia Verde,” she repeated obediently. “But I’m not sure… ”

“Do you know what day it is, Ms. Verde?”

Kaia had spent a great deal of her time in Miami reading the newspaper, hoping to find some mention of local business mogul Garrett Jameson, so she was able to say with confidence, “May nineteenth.”

The officer set her hand back on her knee and rose to his feet. “I have no reason to take you to a hospital, and you aren’t doing anything illegal, Ms. Verde, but I do urge you to take advantage of my offer.” He sighed heavily. “Truth is, I saw a young woman, not unlike yourself, on the streets last night. Unlike you, she didn’t have a nice, steady pulse. She was dead. So you tell me, is it worth your pride, staying out here by yourself? Is it worth the fear? If there’s someone threatening you, the police can help. I know it’s hard. I know it seems easier to keep running. But I don’t want you to end up like that girl I saw last night.”

“There’s no one threatening me,” Kaia whispered, her skin crawling at the officer’s words. Nights in the park were more frightening than she’d ever imagined. So far, she’d only been harassed by other park residents, not robbed or anything worse. But she knew what could happen to a woman on her own. She’d fallen asleep trying to ignore her fears, telling herself she’d be all right, but she knew there were no guarantees. As far as Zafira was concerned, Kaia was no longer part of her kingdom—the queen wouldn’t stoop to protecting her from harm.

And the imp would probably stand by and laugh if an attacker cut her throat while she slept.

The policeman must have sensed her moment of weakness, because he leaned forward, his voice more urgent. “Why don’t you let me drive you down to Good Samaritan?” he said. “They can help you there, or at least give you some people you can talk to.”

“What’s Good Samaritan?” Kaia asked suspiciously.

“It’s a shelter,” he replied. “They have beds, showers, clothes, a mail center, and a job-referral program if you need help finding work. No one needs to know you’re there unless you want them to.”

Kaia paused, her brain stopping at one word. “Showers?”

The officer nodded. “Showers. Beds. And jobs.”

Jobs. Kaia hadn’t even considered a job. Jobs, she seemed to recall, paid money. Wasn’t that what men were always talking about? How much money they made at their jobs? Money meant food and a place to live.

“Okay.” She got to her feet slowly, hoping to forestall another wave of blackness. “I’ll go. But I suggest you leave the windows open in the car. It’s been a rough couple of days.”

Chapter Eleven

The Good Samaritan Mission was a large brick structure surrounded by brown grass, a handful of gnarled palm trees, and a collection of men and women who looked as though they’d spent far more time in public parks than they had in homes with beds and running water. Officer Ramirez, as he introduced himself in the car, pulled into a space across the street from the building. He opened the door for Kaia and walked her across the street.

“There’s a day center around the back for people who just need a meal or a place to wait out the heat of the day. Folks who stay at the overnight shelter have a different entrance on the side. If you want to stay at the shelter, you need to go through Jenny.”

“Jenny?”

“Jenny.” Officer Ramirez opened the front door of the building. A long hallway ran down the middle, flanked on either side by frosted, glass-topped doors. They entered through the first door on the right, which led them into a large, open room with ten or fifteen desks, each piled high with papers, files, and binders.

A statuesque woman with midnight-black skin and a colorful scarf wrapped around her long braided hair rose from a desk. She wore dark red lipstick, and had a muscular, athletic frame clad in a sheath-style dress the precise color of her lips. “Who have you got there, Ramirez?”

“Client for you, Jenny.”

Jenny pulled out a stack of papers even as she guided Kaia into a wooden chair and handed her a glass of water.

“First you drink the water,” the woman commanded. “Later, we worry about the forms. You need something to eat?” Without waiting for a response, she disappeared for a minute, bellowed something down the hallway, and reappeared beside a desk piled high with manila folders and reams of paper. She pushed aside a stack of documents to rest her behind against the corner of the desk, folded her arms over her chest, and pinned her dark gaze on Kaia. “It’ll be a minute, but they’ll bring something for you from the kitchen. We can get to know each other a little while we wait. You from Miami?”

Kaia leaned back in the chair, intimidated by the combination of rapid-fire questions and Jenny’s intense stare. She shook her head, hoping she wouldn’t be required to say much, because she doubted she would be able to find the courage to speak.

Ramirez chuckled. “Kaia Verde, this is Jenny Harper. She’s been here at Good Sam as long as I can remember, which means she’s one part saint, two parts crazy person. She can also be a bit overwhelming.”

Jenny chuckled and slapped Ramirez on the back. She was almost as tall as he was, and from the size of the biceps revealed by her sleeveless dress, at least as strong. “That’s very helpful, Rammy.” The smile dropped from her face in an instant. “Now why don’t you leave us girls alone so we can talk?”

He held up his hands in front of his face. “When Jenny talks, I listen.” He tipped his hat to Kaia. “You call me if you need anything, okay? Jenny knows where to find me.”

Not trusting her voice, Kaia nodded. She had no idea why these people were being so kind to her, but it was starting to make her nervous. Faeries didn’t have shelters, or police officers, or anything of the kind. They took care of themselves.

People, apparently, were different. Some of them, like Earl the ranger and Jenny, actually seemed to care for strangers. Which left Kaia utterly confused. These were humans, the race that was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Fey. Officer Ramirez was a man, the sex she’d been trained to humiliate. Yet here they were, saving her life.

As soon as Officer Ramirez left the room, Jenny doubled her attention on Kaia. “Hon, I’ve got some paperwork we’ve got to fill out, and it might take a while. You got any identification on you? Driver’s license? Birth certificate? That will help speed things along. Don’t worry if you don’t, though. Lots of folks don’t, and there are plenty of ways to skin this cat, if you know what I mean.”

Speechless, Kaia handed her the battered plastic card she’d been clinging to ever since she emerged from the Gate. Jenny took it and walked around to the other side of the desk. She took a drink from an enormous coffee cup, leaving a ring of red lipstick around the rim, and jiggled her computer mouse before moving a stack of papers from the center of her desk to a wire tray to her left. Finally, she settled into a dingy brown office chair.

She pursed her wide lips and studied Kaia for a moment before speaking. “You’re from Arkansas?”

Kaia nodded. According to her driver’s license, Kaia lived in Renton, Arkansas. She was five-foot-eleven, 135 pounds, and twenty-eight years old. Of course, in human years she was well beyond a hundred, but since a faerie could live for hundreds of human years, if she did not contaminate her body with elements of the human world, proportionally, the card was probably somewhat accurate.

“Funny, you don’t sound Southern.”

“We moved a lot when I was a kid.”

“Army brat?”

Jenny seemed comfortable with that explanation, so Kaia agreed, though she wasn’t entirely clear what that meant. “Yes.”

“You don’t have a social security card, by any chance, do you? I don’t have to have it now, but you’ll need it when you apply for jobs.”

“Social security card?” Kaia asked, already feeling the heat of a flush cross her cheeks.

Jenny sighed. “I take it you’ve been pretty sheltered. Your social security number is very important. It’s on all your tax forms and all the paperwork you fill out when you get a job. Do you have access to any old tax forms?”

Another thing Zafira hadn’t warned her about. Though to be fair, Zafira probably didn’t know what a social security number might be. “No. I don’t think so.”

“What about your birth certificate—can you get a copy of that? We can always apply for a new social security card.”

Kaia shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

Jenny paused, apparently waiting for Kaia to fill in more of her story. When Kaia remained silent, Jenny said, “Not much of a talker, are you?”

Kaia dropped her gaze to her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said, forcing her mouth to form words. “It’s just that I don’t have much to say.”

Jenny snorted. “If half the men in here lived by that philosophy, my job would be a hell of a lot easier.”

“The truth is,” Kaia said, “I’m not really sure what I’m doing here.”

“No one plans to be here,” Jenny said gently. “That’s the point. Now you tell me what you need. A day? A night? Longer? You should know this is a coed facility. The floor where our women stay is secured, but there are men around the building. If you’re uncomfortable around men, I can help you find another shelter that’s for women only.”

Kaia took a long drink of water and squared her shoulders. She did know why she was here. She was here to find Garrett and repay him for the horror she was now suffering. “I don’t mind having men around. I guess I just need a place to stay for a few days. And I’d really like some help finding a job. I don’t know how to do much. I’ve never had a job before, but I want one. I want to find a way to take care of myself.”

Jenny tapped one long, red nail against her lips. “Never worked before? No job history at all?”

Kaia nodded.

“Do you have any skills? Did you go to college?”

Kaia shook her head. “I didn’t go to college, but I do know a lot about plants.” She thought for a moment about Garrett, and the night he’d called her a plant crusader. Distantly, she remembered his friend Ted telling her about his fiancée, a woman who owned a flower shop. “Maybe I could get a job at a flower shop?”

An idea began to percolate in her brain, leaving tingles of excitement in its wake. She’d already decided that simply calling Garrett wasn’t a good plan. He was a rich, successful businessman with heaps of women at his disposal. The chance of him replying to a phone call from the Good Samaritan Mission was almost nil. She needed a contact, and what better contact than his best friend, Ted? And what better contact for Ted than his fiancée, Rachel?

“I usually tell folks not to get their hopes up about something specialized like that. If you were lucky, maybe—”

All thoughts of Rachel, and jobs, and even Garrett disappeared when they were interrupted by the arrival of a teenage boy wearing an apron and a plastic hairnet. He carried a plate piled high with scrambled eggs and toast in one hand, and a cup of coffee in the other. Kaia stared at the pile of yellow eggs and slightly charred toast. She’d never found animal bodies the least bit appetizing in the past, but suddenly she was salivating at the very thought of consuming them. Even a glimpse of the imp, floating behind Jenny’s head and acting as if he were gagging, did nothing to lessen her desire.

“Thanks, hon,” Jenny said to the boy. “You can set that down on the table.”

She indicated a large conference table across the room under a bank of windows. The boy beamed at her, set down the plate like it was made of precious elven crystal, and backed out slowly, keeping Jenny in his sights as long as possible.

Jenny sighed. “That boy is going to drive me crazy.”

“They are sweet when they’re infatuated, aren’t they?” Kaia said.

“If by sweet, you mean a pain in the ass, then yes.”

Kaia giggled, not realizing until she did how long it had been since she’d laughed. “You don’t like him?”

“He’s a good boy, but since he started volunteering here last fall he tends to hang around the office and stare at me. It drives me nuts.”

Kaia laughed again, but she couldn’t stop glancing at the table as the scent of hot food tickled her nose.

Jenny’s gaze followed Kaia’s to the plate of food. She smiled. “Let’s take a break and have something to eat. We can fill out the paperwork later.”

Kaia gave her a grateful smile and headed straight for the table. She barely waited for Jenny to sit down before shoveling the first forkful of eggs into her mouth. They weren’t good. They were hard in parts, runny in others, and the cook had used far too much pepper. Yet somehow they were the most delicious thing she had ever eaten, and she barely chewed one mouthful before diving into the next.

“I know it’s difficult,” Jenny advised, “but you should slow down. That first meal tastes good, but it’s hard on the system when you haven’t had anything to eat for a while.”

Kaia flushed. She hadn’t realized how obvious her hunger was. She forced herself to put down her fork and pick up the cup of coffee that sat beside her plate. It was full of cream and sugar, and she sank into the chair, a wide smile curving her lips.

“Now that’s good,” she said.

Jenny laughed. “If I had to go without my coffee, I don’t know what I’d do.” She let Kaia take a few bites of toast, and said casually, “So how long have you been in the park?”

“A few days—” Kaia stopped herself. “I mean, I’ve been visiting Miami for a few days.”

“It’s okay,” Jenny said. “And you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. If you want to talk, I’m here.”

Kaia nodded, feeling a fresh wave of guilt for lying to someone trying so hard to help her. She stuffed her mouth with toast so she didn’t say something stupid. Something like, “I’m really a faerie, and I can’t imagine how I’m going to survive in this horrible body long enough to make a beautiful, rich, and powerful man fall in love with me.”

“I do need to know a little about your situation, though,” Jenny continued. “Good Samaritan is a private shelter, so we don’t need to go through any sort of formal application or screening process. We take all people as long as we’ve got the room. We do run a background check because we occasionally have children at the shelter and we need to make things safe for them. Most importantly, we need to know if you have a criminal record.”

“No,” Kaia said, hoping desperately that Zafira would have taken care of whatever a background check might show. “I’ve never been a criminal.”

“Is there anyone who might follow you here? Anyone who might threaten your safety, or the safety of those around you?”

“I’m on my own. I mean, completely on my own.”

“No family? Is there anyone we can call for you?”

Kaia thought of Mina, Analise, and fierce Talia, and had to close her eyes. “No,” she finally whispered.

“What happened, hon? Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

Kaia couldn’t begin to imagine a simple explanation for her presence at Good Samaritan, her lack of knowledge of basic things like birth certificates, tax records, and social security cards, and her absence of a work history.

“It’s hard,” Kaia said. “To talk about it, I mean.”

“Can I take a guess?” Jenny asked. At Kaia’s nod, she continued, “I’m guessing you traveled so much as a kid, you never really had a chance to make many friends or set down roots. And so the first place your family stayed for any length of time, you found a boy who swept you off your feet and became your whole life. You married young, and your husband was very controlling. So much so that you didn’t have to worry about money or getting a job. But that kind of control generally comes with a price. Am I close?”

Kaia felt a wave of relief wash over her. Jenny seemed to have a wealth of information, and was absolutely comfortable making assumptions about Kaia’s life. “That’s amazing. You’re exactly right.”

“You can’t imagine how many women I see, just like you,” Jenny said, patting her hand.

Kaia paused just long enough for her mind to race out in front, filling in the details of the story Jenny had provided for her. “I married when I was sixteen. My folks passed away about a year later in a car accident. Things started out fine with, er, Charlie, but after that first year things just got worse and worse. Eventually he didn’t even want me to leave the house without him.”

“Will he be coming for you?” Jenny interrupted.

“No,” Kaia said. “He’s dead. He died about a month ago.”

“And he left you with nothing,” Jenny concluded. “Nothing but bills, I expect. Did they take your house, honey?”

Kaia mustered a confused expression, which wasn’t difficult since she had no idea how someone could take an entire house. “Yes,” she agreed, because it seemed like what Jenny wanted her to say. “They took it.”

“You can get your papers,” Jenny said confidently. “They can’t keep things without any value.”

Kaia thought quickly. “I threw it all away. I didn’t want any of his things. I just wanted to be gone.”

Jenny touched her hand. “We’ll figure it all out. Don’t you worry. It might take some time, but we can get you new documents. Your license is a good start.”

“I feel like such an idiot.”

Jenny gave her a fierce look. “You aren’t an idiot. You’re a strong person. You’re a survivor. The person you’ve been before now is nothing compared to the person you’re going to be. You’re going to succeed. I know you will.”

Even though Jenny was talking about a made-up Kaia, a fictional person who had walked away from an overbearing husband and a life over which she had no control, and even though she probably said the same thing to every woman who walked through her doors, her words felt like a promise to Kaia.

Unable to speak, Kaia simply nodded. Thank you, she thought, hoping Jenny could read the message in her eyes. Thank you.

§

“Mr. Jameson?”

Garrett heard the voice dimly, in the back of his mind, but as he was engaged in furiously pounding out an email rejecting a lowball offer on a condominium project in Orlando, he didn’t stop to look up.

“Mr. Jameson?”

Garrett slammed out a period and hit send. This time, the voice fully penetrated his consciousness, but rather than respond, he took a slow sip of coffee and studied a bank of dark-bottomed clouds massing on the horizon. His behavior was childish, sure, but he was still hoping at some point his diligent assistant, Milicent Lyons, would walk all the way into his office and talk directly to him instead of lingering by his door and waiting patiently and long-sufferingly to be recognized before she would tell him what she wanted.

“Excuse me, Mr. Jameson?”

They had been playing this game for years. Truth was, Milicent would probably never accede to his wishes and simply talk to him. She would forever buzz around his head like an annoying fly with her soft voice and her “etiquette” that must date back to the 1960s.

“What?” he finally snapped, spinning around in his chair to face her.

“Mr. Jameson, your two o’clock is here.”

Milicent had certain ideas about how a secretary was supposed to function. She would not enter his office unless he had invited her inside. She would not raise her voice in his presence. She would not take lunch unless he was out of the office. She would not let anyone else bring him his coffee.

This all irritated Garrett to no end, but she was also incredibly efficient and had a knack for turning away any visitors he didn’t want to see with exactly the right combination of politeness and firmness. She knew grammar the way only women over the age of sixty knew grammar, and she had a passion for filing.

All of which made it exceedingly difficult to actually make the decision to replace her.

“Thank you. Send him in.”

The man who entered the room next was so nondescript he nearly blended into the woodwork. He was somewhere between tall and short, was neither thin nor heavy, and wore an entirely generic dark blue suit and tie. He refused Milicent’s offer of coffee and slid into one of Garrett’s smooth leather armchairs. Milicent closed the office door behind her, and they stared at each other for a moment before Garrett spoke.

“So? Did you find her?”

“I have found no evidence of a Kaia Verde ever residing in the state of Florida.”

Garrett spun his chair slightly to the left, where he could watch the storm clouds massing. He’d always loved afternoon thunderstorms, and right now, the storm matched his mood perfectly.

“Of course, she said she was from out of town,” he mused, “but I thought I’d find her locally.”

Not that he cared, of course. Finding her had been an afterthought, a way to protect Ted and maybe other men from her avarice. Yet for some reason she remained a constant source of frustration. No matter how many women he saw, her face was the vision that haunted him throughout the day.

“The name’s likely a fake,” the man said.

Garrett tapped his chin. “No driver’s license, birth certificate, or business licenses under that name? No property transactions? Criminal records?”

The man shook his head. “We did find a few Kaias. It isn’t an entirely uncommon name. But no Kaia Verde.” He threw some pictures on the table and Garrett glanced through them, careful not to betray the lurch of his pulse at the possibility that they might have found her. It was for naught. There were two young Latina women, three plump blonde women in their forties, a white woman with a shaved head and a tattoo on her neck, and one light-skinned African-American woman who was very striking, but definitely not Kaia.

“I did mention that she was white, didn’t I? And somewhere in her mid-to-late twenties?”

“I bring all possible matches for you to consider. People can do a lot with makeup. You’d be amazed.”

Garrett held up the picture of the African-American woman. “I guess I would.”

The man in the leather chair did not respond.

“What about the conference?” Garrett continued. “Any record of a plant conference in Miami last week?”

“Nothing of the sort in the Miami region. We did find a home show in Tampa, but I didn’t think that was what you were looking for.”

“No. The whole thing was likely a story.” Garrett turned back to the window. He saw a flash in the sky, and a strike of lightning hit the ground miles away. In a fit of pique, he hoped Kaia was underneath it. “So, I suppose that’s it.”

“Not necessarily. From your description, she was a striking woman. I could certainly ask around at the Avalon and try to find out more information that way. She may be a frequent user. I can also pull some strings at Visa. We might be able to get the address on the card. It won’t be cheap, but it can be done. And it would be easy enough to check around for that name in all fifty states. She lives somewhere. We can find her. I’m sure of it.”

Garrett raised his brows at the confidence in the man’s voice. It made him sound almost human.

“Mr. Smith—I’m sorry, remind me of your first name again?”

“David.”

“David, I had hopes of sending my friend Kaia her bill from the Avalon. Barring that, I had wanted to make sure she didn’t end up back at the Blue Hour, preying on my friend, Ted, while he’s in a weak moment. If she’s not from Florida, or at least is taking significant steps to conceal her identity from us, it is unlikely she will be back.” He stood and walked around to the front of his desk. “I appreciate your time and discretion, but I don’t think I will have further need for your services.”

David pushed back his chair. “If you say so. In my experience, these types of con artists typically have an area they target and they tend to return to that area, regardless of the potential to bump into old friends. They rely on their marks’ need for discretion to protect them from prosecution.”

“Point taken. And if I do run into her? Shall I make a citizen’s arrest?” Garrett grinned at the idea. He didn’t know what he wanted to do with Kaia, but arresting her sounded wonderfully satisfying. Anything that might exorcise her from his memory.

David’s expression did not change. “You’ve got my number. You call me. Anytime, day or night. I take it from there.”

Chapter Twelve

Kaia spent most of her first morning at Good Sam in the shower, scrubbing days of accumulated dirt off her skin, out from under her finger- and toenails, and out of her scalp. She washed her hair several times, meticulously shaved the hair that grew back every damned day on her legs and under her arms, and sat beside a fan with a comb to try to coax some of the natural waves she had once loved back into her long mane.

This was one of the many things about her body that she had enhanced with her faerie magic. When she crossed through a Gate and shifted from faerie to human form, her physical body naturally took a particular shape. She could enhance and change that shape as she wished, but doing so took some effort and a healthy dose of faerie magic.

Magic she could no longer use.

“It’s rather amazing,” the imp mused, cocking his head as he watched her drying her hair.

“What?” Kaia’s hair tangled around the comb and she pulled it out with a growl.

“How boring you are. I mean, I knew humans were plain, but I’d never expected you to be quite so—how shall I put this?—ordinary?” He grinned, exposing perfect little white teeth. “I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure Garrett will love a boring, ordinary human woman.”

Kaia threw the comb at him and stifled a cry of frustration. She had not even realized how much of her human body’s perfection was due to her magic. She had been seducing men for so long, she had unconsciously learned to shape her body to suit their needs. When men remarked that they loved her long, silky hair, her hair became long and silky forevermore. When men praised her tiny waist and exquisitely rounded hips, they became part of the body she always assumed for seduction.

But it was not natural, and it could not happen without magic. So the hair that had once curled in perfect waves around her shoulders and back would, she now realized, hang limp and lifeless to her hips. The fingernails that had in the past assumed the shape of perfect pink half-moons would be broken, uneven, and of indeterminate color. Her skin would have imperfections, her breasts would no longer bounce just so, and her underarms, unless corrective substances were applied, would generate a tremendously unappealing odor.

Humanity was not attractive.

Kaia had known this before, but she understood it now on a far deeper level.

Good Sam had a number of magazines that seemed designed to teach women to deal with all of these problems, so Kaia spent her evening reading and learning. She didn’t have the money to buy the myriad of products that were recommended, but she did read enough to learn that she wasn’t the first woman to be troubled by underarm hair, body odor, pimples, and bad hair days.

She found this fact tremendously reassuring.

Kaia spent day two learning basic computer literacy and how to “surf the Web.” These skills, she quickly realized, were essential to navigating life in the human world. Oh, she’d seen a computer before, and even typed in a key or two, but never actually tried to do anything useful with one. That all changed in the computer room in the basement of Good Sam.

Good Sam had ten computers that had been donated by some insurance company several years before. According to the teacher, they were old and slow, and couldn’t run many of the newer websites with plug-ins and graphics. Kaia didn’t know what any of those things were, and she didn’t care. All she cared about was that when she typed “Garrett Jameson Miami” into the search window she was taught to use, hundreds of websites appeared.

Garrett Jameson, it turned out, was all over the World Wide Web.

Kaia could have spent all day looking at pictures and reading articles about him, but the shelter had strict limits on the amount of time clients could spend on the computers, and there were lines at the doors and sign-up sheets to be honored. Still, in her thirty minutes of free Internet use, Kaia discovered a number of interesting facts about the man for whom she had jeopardized her wings.

First, Garrett Jameson was more than just a businessman. He was a tycoon. That was the word all the newspaper articles used to describe him. A real estate tycoon. Kaia wasn’t exactly sure what a real estate tycoon did, but it seemed to involve buying and selling large tracts of land and buildings. Kaia found numerous local news stories about Garrett brokering high-risk property ventures, everything from ritzy hotel deals to new condominium projects.

He was the oldest grandson of Portia Jameson, a longtime resident of Miami who owned an enormous private company called Jameson Enterprises, which, among other things, owned and managed a chain of luxury hotels. Portia had started out as a maid in a small luxury hotel in Coral Gables. In a classic Cinderella story, she swept the owner of the hotel off his feet and they were married shortly after they met. Garrett’s mother was born a scant eight months later.

When her husband died a few years later in a tragic boating accident, Portia took over the single hotel and managed to turn it into an empire. Portia was now a fixture in Miami, a grande dame who was always shown in pictures impeccably dressed and smiling while someone thanked her for donating money to their charity.

Garrett also seemed to be something of a local celebrity, appearing in numerous pictures in the society pages, each time with a different, perfectly groomed and highly pedigreed woman on his arm. Kaia stared at those pictures for a long time, a frown cutting lines into the sides of her mouth. (Wrinkles, she had learned, were the next thing she’d have to worry about. But hopefully not in the next month.)

Finally, Kaia found her most intriguing bit of information. Garrett was fascinated by green building techniques—ways of minimizing the impact of a building on the environment—and had outfitted his exclusive condominium development and his own penthouse suite with solar panels, a green roof, and low-impact products such as bamboo flooring and natural fiber carpets. Kaia could only hope she’d be able to use her knowledge of plants to somehow connect to his interest in the earth somewhere down the road.

Unfortunately, if she hoped to ever put this information to use, she’d actually have to see and talk to him. Considering his status—and hers—that was going to be a problem.

Kaia spent the rest of the day developing the plan she had begun formulating when she first arrived at Good Sam. Jenny unknowingly furthered the idea.

“Didn’t you say you knew someone in town who ran a flower store?” Jenny asked.

She had invited Kaia to her cubicle over her lunch hour. She said it was for career development, but Kaia liked to believe Jenny just enjoyed her company.

Or perhaps it was simply that she wasn’t an infatuated sixteen-year-old boy.

At any rate, they sat at the conference table and talked about strategies to get Kaia on her feet. Which translated into Jenny giving Kaia a healthy dose of advice about everything from jobs to men. Kaia discovered that Jenny believed in contacts. She also believed in calling in favors and asking for help.

“You said you knew someone in Miami—Ted something or other.” Jenny made notes with one hand while holding a forkful of salad in the other. “He had a fiancée with a flower shop. If you’re ready to find a job, why not call him, or better yet, her?”

Kaia picked at the faded, ill-fitting T-shirt someone had pulled from a stack of donated clothing for her. Even though she knew Ted and Rachel represented her only real connection to Garrett, it was still hard to imagine meeting him looking so—as the imp had put it—ordinary. “I hardly look the same as I did then. Ted might not even recognize me.”

“Oh, that’s a load of crap. You were gorgeous before, you’re gorgeous now. He’ll remember you. Not that it matters, because you’re looking for a job in a flower shop, not as a cover girl.” Jenny glared at her. “You aren’t getting soft on me now, are you? Because your nails aren’t done right? Or your hair isn’t perfect?”

Jenny didn’t believe in letting pride get in the way of getting on your feet.

“No, no,” Kaia shook her head. “It’s just that I don’t know what I’d say, exactly, if I were to call her.”

“First off, you don’t call. It’s too easy to say no to a phone call. You show up.” Jenny grabbed a phone book off the shelf by the conference table, her biceps flexing as she did. Jenny liked to wear tight, sleeveless dresses that showed off her muscles. As she put it, if she was going to run four miles every morning and lift weights three times a week, she was damned if she was going to cover up the results. “Now, what’s her name? The fiancée?”

“Rachel. The flower shop is Rachel’s Roses,” Kaia said.

Granted, the plan was a tenuous one. Step one: get to know Rachel by working in her flower shop. Step two: get to know Ted by knowing Rachel. Step three: get back together with Garrett through his connection to Ted.

Weak, but her next option seemed to be throwing herself in front of Garrett’s car, and she hadn’t yet resigned herself to the pain that would entail.

Jenny flipped through the book and slid one dark red nail across the yellow page. She stopped at a tiny box with a cartoon of a bouquet of flowers and the logo Rachel’s Roses in cursive script across the top. She wrote down the address and took it over to her computer.

“Here’s what you do. You find something decent to wear from the ‘Back to Work’ box and get yourself over there tomorrow morning. You introduce yourself as an old friend of Ted’s. If she asks him and he does forget where he met you, he’ll be too embarrassed to say so. You tell her everything you know about plants. You tell her you’re willing to work on a trial basis to prove to her that you have the skills needed to do the job. And you have her call me if she needs a reference.”

Jenny scribbled down a few more notes on a page and printed out the bus lines Kaia needed to take to get to the shop. She handed the paper to Kaia as Officer Ramirez appeared at the door, a woman beside him. She held a baby against her chest, while a boy of three or four clutched her leg. The woman held her head at a proud, defiant angle, but Kaia couldn’t help but notice that a bruise was starting to form around her eye.

“You got a second, Jenny?” Officer Ramirez said gravely.

“Of course,” Jenny said. “That’s why I’m here.”

§

Rachel’s Roses was a small shop in Northeast Miami a few blocks off Biscayne Boulevard, in an area known as the design district that was bustling with boutique clothing stores, restaurants, and art galleries. Kaia got off the bus a few blocks before the store and walked the rest of the way, marveling at the sheer diversity of life in Miami, where her white skin stood out among the Cuban, Haitian, and other Latino ethnicities.

In Miami it seemed anything was acceptable. People walked by in all manner of clothing—from tiny bikinis to formal business attire, with more of the former than the latter. The only universal seemed to be the healthy tan it was impossible to avoid. Even Kaia’s formerly creamy skin had turned a light gold, and she’d developed a sprinkle of darker brown freckles across her nose and along the tops of her shoulders from her first significant sunburn.

A hand-painted, wooden sign on the sidewalk in front of the store directed traffic inside with a large red arrow. A brightly colored painting of a man handing a rose to a woman hung in the front window. Kaia took a deep breath, pulled the door open, and cautiously stepped inside.

The store was about the size of her bedroom at the Avalon, but unlike the staid, neutral hotel room, this tiny space was overflowing with flowers and colors. A tall cooler stood against one wall filled with roses, lilies, carnations, sunflowers, marigolds, and at least ten other varieties of loose stems in tall black buckets. Teddy bears and other stuffed animals clung to boxes of chocolates and stood beside arrangements of dried flowers in another display case.

A woman with reddish-brown hair falling from a haphazard bun on top of her head stood behind the glass-topped counter by the register. She wore cat-eyed glasses and a spaghetti-strap dress that flowed over her narrow shoulders and blended into a mass of greenery behind her. She held a phone against one ear and tried to smile at a customer in front of the register while barking at the unfortunate soul on the other end of the line. Kaia approached cautiously, pretending to examine an arrangement of Stargazer lilies while she eavesdropped on the conversation.

“No, Ted, I already told you I don’t have time tonight. I have Dana’s wedding to plan, I need to run by the site in Coral Gables to get some new ideas for the Petersons, and there’s the Shelly funeral tomorrow.” She interrupted herself to smile at the customer and hand him a bouquet of exotic tropical blooms. “Thanks very much, please come again.” She turned back to the phone and picked up where she’d left off. “And that means there is absolutely no way I can have dinner with your mother.”

As Rachel launched into a new list of reasons she couldn’t see Ted or his mother, Kaia brushed her finger across the velvety petal of a lily. She tried to tune out their voices and ignore the whisper of dread they engendered. The plan, such as it was, depended on Rachel and Ted being engaged and bringing her in contact with Garrett. What if they broke up? What if she was left with no tie to Garrett at all?

As the panic threatened to overwhelm her and an image of the Black Ladies swam in front of her eyes, Kaia deliberately pictured herself diving into the flower. She imagined losing herself in the essence of it, the fragrance wrapping itself around her, the color seeping into her skin. Flowers soothed her as nothing else ever could.

“Hi, I’m Rachel. Can I help you?”

Kaia jumped and pulled her hand back from the plant. “Oh, I’m sorry, they’re just so beautiful, I was only… ” she trailed off in embarrassment.

Rachel brushed aside her discomfort with a wave of her hand. From this angle, it was apparent that Rachel’s haphazard bun was held in place by a pencil, jabbed into the hair on top of her head, and the dress that cloaked her thin frame was at least two sizes too big. “I know, I adore Stargazers. My favorite wedding flower. You have to be careful of the pollen, though, it stains like the devil. Are you a bride, by any chance?”

Kaia remembered Ted saying that Rachel was in high demand for weddings, and guessed it was a point of pride. “No, I’m afraid not, though I’ve heard you’re incredible. I can only hope someday I’ll be able to get you to do my wedding.”

Rachel pushed back a lock of hair that fell across her cheek and grinned. “I don’t know about that, but I do love to help make the happiest day of a woman’s life as beautiful as possible.”

Kaia glanced around the store. “I haven’t been in before. Your store is lovely. How long have you been doing flowers?”

“I’ve been doing arrangements for about ten years, but I was just doing it on the side for most of that time. I didn’t open the store and start doing it full time until about a year and a half ago.”

Kaia nodded with approval. “Well, it looks fantastic. Congratulations.”

They fell into an easy rapport, and chatted for a while about the city, flowers, and Rachel’s favorite Bridezilla stories.

Kaia had almost screwed up her courage to ask Rachel about a job when the bell over the door tinkled, and a young woman walked in, flanked on either side by an older woman and a man who looked to be in his mid-thirties. Each of the three held clipboards. The woman in the middle wore a lime-green pantsuit with a silk blouse underneath, and despite the heat, her perfect chignon showed no signs of wilt. The older woman wore a yellow dress with matching yellow heels and hat, and the man wore a seersucker suit. All three looked like they had marched out of the pages of one of the magazines Kaia had been studying the day before at Good Sam.

The color fading from her cheeks, Rachel pulled a notepad from her pocket and checked a scrawled list of items. “Oh shit,” she whispered to Kaia. “This is a total disaster.”

“What?”

Rachel swung her back to the door and pretended to be fixing an arrangement of flowers. “That woman in green is the original Bridezilla.”

Kaia gave her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “Anything I can do?”

“I wish! She’s here to talk about her ideas for her wedding. That’s her mom and her wedding planner with her. It’s a huge wedding—big bucks—and if I don’t impress her now, I’ll lose her. But they aren’t supposed to be here yet. I have to do five bouquets for another client’s dinner party. He’s coming by in an hour to pick them up so I have to do it now.”

“Could you ask them to come back later?”

Rachel snorted. “Those three? Never. They consider themselves far too important.”

“Maybe I can distract them,” Kaia offered.

“Sure—any chance you can you talk flowers with them for twenty minutes?” Rachel was joking as she said it, but Kaia heard desperation in her voice and she leaped on it.

“Listen, Rachel, I’ll be honest with you. I came here to see about a job. I know flowers and I know plants. Consider this the best job interview you could ever give me. I’ll keep them occupied. I won’t make any promises and I won’t try to show off. I’ll just listen and if they ask, I’ll make some suggestions. I’ll tell them that I’m your assistant and I’m helping out while you’re with another customer. They’ll like that. It will make them think you’re more in demand if you keep them waiting.”

Kaia looked at the trio out of the corner of her eye. The mother was peering down her nose at a collection of sickly houseplants, while the wedding planner was chatting into a cell phone as he pulled the petals off a daisy. Bridezilla had crossed her arms over her chest and was glaring at them, tapping one pointy-toed shoe on the ground.

“Please?” Kaia asked again. It had seemed like the perfect moment to come clean and ask for a job. She only hoped she hadn’t pushed her luck too far, too fast.

Rachel pulled the pencil from her hair and stuck it in her mouth. She shook her head back and twirled her hair around into a long rope, knotted it on itself, and stuck the pencil back into place. “I can’t pay you anything.”

“I understand. All I need is a chance. You won’t regret it.”

Rachel nibbled the edge of her lip. “Lord, I must be crazy. I guess the worst that could happen is I lose their business, which I’m going to do anyway.” She pinned Kaia with a serious look and began to tick a series of instructions on her fingers. “You make sure they know you aren’t promising anything. And you only take down their ideas. This is just the brainstorming stage. We aren’t getting anything in writing yet. I need to do a budget and give them some sketches before we go any further.”

Kaia suppressed the giant grin that threatened to break across her face. She replayed in her mind all the things she had heard Jenny say about professionalism. Be calm. Don’t be too emotional. Act confident. Make people believe you have everything under control.

“Don’t worry, Rachel,” she said, shooing her new boss into the back room. “It’s all under control.”

§

Kaia returned to Good Sam that afternoon with a grin splitting her face. Even the nasty, sarcastic comments from the imp—“teddy bears? balloons? pink ribbons? are you serious?”—couldn’t diminish her mood. When she arrived, Jenny was locking the front door of the administrative offices. The resident clients, like Kaia, had a separate door they used to get to the dormitory area.

Jenny raised a hand in greeting and smiled weakly. “Hey, girl, where you been all day?”

Kaia didn’t try to hide her glee. “Working.”

“Really?” Jenny stopped mid-step. “It worked? You showed up at the flower shop and she gave you a job?”

“You shouldn’t sound so surprised. It was your idea, after all.”

“Well, I didn’t think it would actually work. I’m always willing to give things a try, but that doesn’t mean I think they’ll be successful.”

“I’m glad I didn’t know that before,” Kaia said with a laugh. She described Bridezilla and her entourage, and how Rachel had been motivated to bring her on as an instant assistant. “I talked to them for almost a half an hour before Rachel came back out. Bridezilla—whose name is Cynthia, by the way—is absolutely set on gardenias and red roses, by the thousands if necessary. She doesn’t care about the cost. Her mother, on the other hand, may actually have a budget in mind. Oliver, the wedding planner, has no idea what’s going on. As far as I can tell, his only job is to write things down and talk on his cell phone.”

“Did you stay around after Bridezilla left?”

“I did. I helped out all day. Rachel said I have a real knack for the job. She really liked the bouquets I did, and I helped her strip a few hundred roses for a funeral for tomorrow and then we got the whole shop cleaned up early so she could get out to Coral Gables to visit a site for a wedding. She’s decided to take me on for a week and see how I do. She’s going to pay me ten dollars an hour. If it works out, we’ll talk about making it permanent. She’s even got a spare room over the flower shop that I might be able to rent from her, if it all works out.”

“That’s wonderful, Kaia. Absolutely wonderful.” Jenny’s smile looked strained.

When Kaia looked more closely, she realized Jenny’s eyes were puffy and streaked with red. “What’s wrong?”

“An old client of mine got beat up,” Jenny replied. “They called from the hospital because she had my card in her wallet.”

“Is she going to be okay?”

“Yeah. It’s just hard to hear.”

“I’m sorry,” Kaia said. “I wish there was something I could do.”

In her short time at Good Sam, Kaia had learned that many of the women there were homeless because of abusive spouses or boyfriends. Fear of attack and reprisal kept them from getting jobs, from moving, and from starting new lives. She’d also learned that Jenny seemed to take each woman into her heart and hold herself responsible, in some way, for helping her get back on her feet, in a life without violence.

Jenny sighed and smoothed back her hair. She tried to smile, but couldn’t hide her trembling chin. “You got a job,” she said. “You’re starting over. You already have.”

Chapter Thirteen

By the following Wednesday, Kaia was becoming very good at her job as Rachel’s assistant, but had made no progress toward her real goal of getting reintroduced to Garrett. Rachel had no problem talking about her work, her house, or her family, but shied away from conversations about Ted. Kaia recalled the fight she had overheard between Ted and Rachel when she was at the Blue Hour, and wondered if her plan might be fatally flawed.

She did not have the luxury of failure any more than she had the luxury of time. Twice, she woke up sweaty and terrified from nightmares about the Black Ladies, and with every day that passed she found herself checking nervously over her shoulder, in case one of them should appear. Two weeks had passed since she’d slept with Garrett, and the summer solstice was only twenty-six days away.

The queen’s imp found her abject failure almost as funny as her newly flawed humanity. His favorite spot to mock her was in Rachel’s supply closet, which also functioned as the staff bathroom. That afternoon, the imp appeared behind her in the mirror as she fixed her hair in a long ponytail.

“I have to hand it to you, Faerie. So far, your plan has been pure genius.” He shoved her aside and preened in the mirror. “Ignoring him, I mean. Men love it when women play hard to get. So tell me again how you’re going to get him to fall in love with you? When you finally do make him so crazed with longing he tracks you down of his own volition, of course. Will you show him how the hair grows under your arms? Personally, I think you should demonstrate that smell you make in the bathroom in the morning. I bet he’d love that.”

Kaia didn’t want to think about how he had gotten into Rachel’s store without attracting human attention. Imps were not the best shapeshifters—in a pinch they could manage to change form, but it took them some time and they couldn’t maintain it for long. They were, however, very good at distracting people with nasty tricks and pranks. They used their talent to cause chaos wherever possible, and still escape human notice.

“Shut up,” she hissed. “I’m working on it. And I’m human now. He knows that. Or he will, whenever I see him again.”

“Maybe you can tell him how you sweep floors, Faerie.” The imp continued, rubbing his stubby horns with glee. “That’s sexy. I’ve heard men are turned on by women who stick flowers into green foam and spray glitter on carnations.”

“We do not spray glitter on things,” Kaia snapped. “And the foam is important. It holds the shape of the arrangement and retains water so the flowers stay fresh longer.”

This promoted a fresh wave of laughter from the imp. “‘The foam is important. It holds the shape of the arrangement,’” he mimicked. “Oh, that’s a good one. I can’t wait to tell the others about that.”

Kaia reached over to smack him on the top of his head, but he flew out of reach, and she cursed, for the millionth time, her lack of wings. “You’ll keep your mouth shut, you little maggot. You answer to Zafira, which means when I’m a Handmaid again, you’ll answer to me. So if I were you, I’d be careful not to piss me off too much. Got it?”

The imp snorted. “You should know that it’s hard to be too intimidating when you’re wearing a pair of old jeans that, judging from the iron-on robot decal on the pocket, probably belonged to some boy about ten years ago. And that T-shirt, I’m sorry, Faerie, but it clings in all the wrong places.”

“Hmph!” Kaia threw her arms over her chest and spun around to look in the mirror. She had to admit the imp was right. Her secondhand clothing wasn’t the most flattering. The shirt’s worn fabric clung to the area just above her breasts and billowed out around her waist, making it look as though she might be hiding an early pregnancy. The jeans, while clean and sturdy, bagged around her waist, clung to her thighs, and ended about six inches above her ankles. Kaia wasn’t a fashion expert, but she was fairly certain no one would proclaim her outfit a winner.

Still, she was passable.

“I’m going to talk to him, you know,” she informed the annoying creature. “I’ve just been waiting for the right time.”

“Really? And how exactly do you plan to manage that one? Invite yourself to dinner at his mansion?”

Kaia studied her reflection in the mirror. She wondered how much money it would cost to get one of those curling irons she’d seen in magazines. Maybe if she used one of those, her hair wouldn’t be so straight and limp at the end of the day. “I’m working on Rachel,” she said. “It’s just not going quite as quickly as I had hoped.”

The imp sighed and rearranged the golden-blond curls on his forehead. “Oh, Faerie, are you really this pathetic? Look, you should try to plan a dinner with Rachel and her fiancé. She’d have to invite someone for a fourth, so dinner wouldn’t be so awkward, and who better than her fiancé’s best friend? You’d have to be subtle about it, because you obviously don’t have a place to invite her to, and you don’t have the money to go out to dinner, so you’ll have to maneuver an invitation to her house. She’s probably feeling a little guilty that she hasn’t invited you over yet. She’s underpaying you terribly, and she knows it. Dinner is the least she can do.”

“She knows I already met Ted, so it won’t seem odd to invite me, I guess,” Kaia said, as hope began to stir in her chest.

The imp rolled his eyes. “Of course, genius. Why do you think I suggested it?”

Kaia stared incredulously at the tiny wings whirring silently on the imp’s back. “Wait, are you actually helping me?”

“If I wait around for you to figure this all out on your own, I’ll be stuck in Miami forever,” the imp replied. “Besides, I hate watching the Black Ladies at work.” He shuddered. “Those three give me the creeps.”

“So you’re helping me because I’m hopeless,” Kaia said.

“Basically, yes.”

Kaia paused to contemplate his response, and shrugged with resignation. “Works for me.”

§

Rachel watched as Kaia emerged from the bathroom and immediately set to work misting the pathetic spider plant Rachel had given up for dead weeks ago. Kaia seemed to have developed a particular relationship with the plant, and with the rest of the houseplants, for that matter. She spent hours repotting them, cleaning their leaves, watering them drip by drip, and rotating them on their stands so each side of the plant would get equal light throughout the day. The results were stunning. Though she’d only been there a few days, she’d already coaxed new life into Rachel’s half-dead plants, and even the bouquets and cut flowers seemed more vibrant after Kaia worked on them.

She had an incredible knowledge of plants. She didn’t know as much about the hybrids and hothouse flowers, but she always knew which wildflowers needed to be misted throughout the day and which liked to be kept dry. She had an uncanny sense for which would open after they’d been cut and which would wither and turn brown days after they had been delivered.

In just three days, her presence in the shop had taken a load of stress off of Rachel’s shoulders—more stress than Rachel had even been aware she was carrying. The shop had been so busy for so long, she’d basically cut off her ability to think about anything else.

Including Ted.

Rachel paused for a moment, staring down at the glass counter in front of her. Poor Ted. She knew she owed it to him to make a decision about the wedding, and she would. Soon. But things had been so much better ever since she’d put everything on hold. At least for her.

Ever since he proposed four months ago, she’d been in a tailspin. Sure, she loved him. Who wouldn’t? Ted was like a furry, warm Muppet—five-foot-ten inches of kindness and love. When he held her, all she wanted to do was sink into him and let him take care of her forever.

Once they’d gotten engaged the pressure had become overwhelming. Thinking about the wedding had been such a nightmare she hadn’t been able to enjoy anything—even being with Ted. After she’d decided to put it off, everything seemed to feel better. Everything except for Ted, of course, who still gazed at her with those puppy-dog eyes when he thought she wasn’t looking.

Ted wanted a wedding, and he wanted one soon.

Rachel wasn’t sure if she wanted one at all.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like weddings. She loved weddings. She loved weddings so much she could practically burst into tears just making her brides’ bouquets. Every profession of love seemed to her like a fairy tale come true. And it wasn’t that she didn’t love or want to spend the rest of her life with Ted. She did. That was why she couldn’t marry him.

Because Rachel had a terrible secret. Once she married Ted, she was genetically programmed to turn into a horrible, frightful bitch.

She saw her future every time she visited her parents. When they were married, they’d done things to each other that would make your head spin. People wouldn’t treat friends—wouldn’t treat enemies—the way her parents had treated each other. Being married had turned her mother into a controlling harpy and her father into a helpless victim. Over time, his victimhood had made him bitter, and eventually he’d started to fight back by sniping, whining, and complaining. He’d criticized her mother’s every move while her mother treated him like a naughty preschooler.

Rachel was just like her mother. Everyone said so. They’d been saying it for years. They tried to make it nice; they said she was ambitious, headstrong, and driven. They said she was a good leader. She knew what those traits really meant. She was a bitch. Or she would become one, once she got married.

Some nights she could actually watch it happening. She saw herself bossing Ted around, telling him what to cook and what to wear to dinner. It only got worse once they started the wedding planning. She’d turned into a commando. And she saw Ted following orders like a good soldier.

Kaia snipped off the brown tip of a leaf and gave Rachel a quick smile. “Do you have any plans tonight?”

“Me?” Rachel cocked her head. “Ted and I have tickets to a concert. Something folksy. I don’t know exactly what. Why do you ask?”

“Well... ” Kaia looked down and snipped another leaf. She seemed nervous, and a hint of a blush had colored her cheeks. “I don’t mean to intrude in your life. I just thought maybe you might want to have dinner sometime?”

Kaia had a quiet sort of energy about her, but there was something sad, too. The something, surely, that had led to her living at a homeless shelter and being willing to accept the tiny salary Rachel was able to pay.

After her initial conversation with Kaia’s caseworker, Jenny, Rachel hadn’t asked many questions. She knew there was something painful in Kaia’s past, and Jenny had implied that it had to do with her dead husband. The same dead husband who had something to do with Kaia having no job references or identification other than her driver’s license.

Rachel’s smile widened. “I’d love to have dinner. What about Thursday? You’re off on Friday, and there’s a little Cuban restaurant I love that’s—” she stopped herself when she realized that Kaia was unlikely to have the money to go to many restaurants.

Kaia shook her head, apparently understanding Rachel’s reticence. “No, really, it’s okay, I’ve been saving up. I can afford a dinner out.”

“Oh, but I’d much rather have you over to my place,” Rachel said. “We can grill on the patio and drink lots of lovely toasts to the Anderson wedding. Their check cleared. We’re both getting a bonus.”

Kaia dropped her pruning shears and held up her hands. “Uh-uh,” she said firmly, her cheeks stained pink. “I am not inviting myself over to your house.” She took a deep breath and shot Rachel an embarrassed glance. “Though I suppose now that you mention it, it would be good to save my pennies. If you didn’t mind, that is.”

“Of course I don’t mind. And you didn’t do any inviting. I did.”

Kaia buried her face in the plant. “Any chance you’d want to invite Ted? It would be nice to see him again.”

Rachel cocked her head. “Well, now, that’s a great idea. I’ve been wanting to have a little dinner party at my place. Ted would love to see you again—I mentioned that I’d hired you and he remembered you right away. He said he was thrilled you’d come back to Miami. He said he felt terrible about leaving you at the club the way he did.”

“I seem to recall that he was very worried about you that night,” Kaia said. “He was so sweet. Couldn’t stop talking about you, actually.”

“I know. He’s always sweet,” Rachel grumbled. “Sweetest guy in the world. He came racing home when I told him that I needed some time to myself. Sweet, right?”

“I don’t think you can blame him for that one,” Kaia said. “Garrett told him to go home.”

“Garrett?” Rachel said, straightening with surprise. She paused. “Garrett Jameson?”

Kaia’s flush deepened. “Ted’s friend. He came to the club that night.”

Rachel paused. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? “You met Garrett? What did you think of him? They’re best friends, you know. They’re like the odd couple. My little Ted, sweet as the day is long, and Garrett, Miami’s Most Eligible Bachelor.”

Kaia laughed, and Rachel couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t respond to her question. A little flare of excitement started in Rachel’s chest. She knew Ted would hate her for it, as would Garrett, but what if… ?

“You wouldn’t mind if I invited him, would you?” she asked casually. “To dinner, I mean?”

“Garrett?” Kaia looked down, her hair falling in front of her face, but her voice betrayed more than a hint of excitement. “Of course not. It would be nice to see him again.”

Bingo, thought Rachel with satisfaction.

Chapter Fourteen

As Garrett turned up the driveway of Rachel’s modest, two-bedroom, adobe-style house, he wondered who she might be trying to set him up with this time. She had been deliberately vague on the phone when he asked her what the occasion for dinner was, yet implied there was some sort of emergency which required his presence. He figured that meant there was no occasion and Rachel’s matchmaking tendencies had gotten the better of her once again.

“We just thought it sounded like a nice night to eat out on the patio,” she’d said. He could almost picture her, waving her hand in the air as she hurried around her kitchen, Bluetooth in her ear, cell phone in the pocket of her apron. “It’s supposed to be cooler. Breezy. A really perfect night for dinner.”

“Should I bring someone?” he’d asked.

“Oh no, no, no,” she’d replied, far too quickly. “I have a friend coming. We’ll have four. It’s okay, you don’t have to worry about it.”

Garrett had discovered long ago that Rachel was impossible to bully, intimidate, or even sidetrack. When she got something in her head, she was like a freight train—you either got out of the way or got run over. He’d been the subject of enough blind dates to know when he was being set up. And to know the futility of trying to protest.

“I’ll bring the wine,” he’d said, swallowing a sigh. “Would you prefer red or white?”

Rachel believed that Garrett was destined for true love and a happy marriage. Then again, Rachel believed that all people were destined for true love and a happy marriage. Why that did not translate into Rachel’s own true love and happy marriage, Garrett would never understand. The wedding had been “on hold” for two weeks now. Ted told Garrett she still wanted to get married, but needed a little break and some time to clear her head. The wedding planning had gotten too much for her, and she didn’t want it to affect their relationship.

Garrett thought it was the worst case of cold feet he’d ever seen. He’d initially thought it would only last a few days, but things seemed to stretch on with no end in sight. Hard to believe Rachel had actually called off the wedding on the night he’d met Kaia.

Kaia.

He threw the car into park and revved the engine, frowning as he imagined again the bill he’d held in his hand and that exquisite face, shuddering to a climax in his arms. What had she said to him? “I always settle my bills.” What did that mean? Had that been her clue that she’d never meant to pay her bills? Was that some sort of signal from the start that she was going to leave him holding the bag—or rather, the bill?

More importantly, what kind of idiot would still be thinking about her, two weeks later?

He got out of the car with a bottle of wine tucked into either hand, and shut the door gently with one hip. Rachel’s house was surrounded by verdant life, from the tall palms that cast shade over the screened back porch to the shiny green vines that grew over a lattice arbor at her door, their tiny bell-shaped flowers filling the air with a seductive scent. There were stately plants with purplish leaves and dark red flowers, and bunches of grasses lining the path, their catkins heavy with seed.

Garrett didn’t know the names of any of the plants, but he loved coming here because they were real. Nothing at his condo felt real. Not that he didn’t like his place. He’d built it after all, and it was state of the art, low-impact, and environmentally friendly. But it was the fortieth-floor penthouse of an enormous tower, and sometimes he could picture the air circulating through a hundred other condominiums before reaching his.

He pushed the bell with a knuckle and turned around, admiring the landscape one more time. As much as he loved plants, Garrett had no green thumb—not even a green pinkie. He did have a plant lady who came to water and fertilize his houseplants, but even her loving touch couldn’t rescue his suicidal bunch. He could swear they knew they were unloved by their owner. They died in spite of her care, throwing their dried brown leaves in masses on the floor of his balcony and hallway.

No, no matter how hard he tried and how much money he dumped into it, his place never looked anything like this.

“…Can you get the door?”

He heard Rachel’s voice from inside, and turned around, steeling himself for the inevitable intellectual “she’s got a great personality” do-gooder at the door. Not that he had anything against public-interest attorneys who wore sensible shoes and didn’t shave their legs, or even passionate tree-huggers who wore their hair in braids and eschewed makeup and the trappings of femininity. But it would be nice if Rachel could branch out a little. Try something different.

The bright sunlight cast a shadow on the screen door, so at first all he could see was a tall figure with long hair draped over the front of either breast. She was willowy, and wore cheap flip-flops, a tank top, and a skirt that ended just above her knees.

A good start. He’d have to reserve judgment until he saw the underarms, of course, but so far so good.

Not that he would seriously consider seeing her. While he appreciated the sentiment, he had no intention of going out on a date with some stranger who just happened to be a friend of Rachel’s. At least he could relax with the parade of hopefuls his grandmother liked to trot before him. They knew his position and had their own reputations to protect. As Portia would say, this one was the daughter of a senator, and that one was a new associate in a prestigious law firm, and this one graduated from Harvard summa cum laude. He knew how to handle women like that.

Unlike Kaia. Clearly, he knew nothing about handling women like Kaia.

Aaaand there he was, thinking about her again. Damn it.

“W-would you like to come in?”

The voice, nervous with just the hint of a stutter, was vaguely familiar. Garrett narrowed his brows. Odd accent, unclear origin, husky tones, surely not… ?

She pulled the door open and he stepped inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimmer light, but not nearly that long for him to recognize the woman standing in front of him.

Kaia.

She looked different. Completely different. Some of the changes were blatant. Her expensive, barely-there silk dress had been replaced by a threadbare knit shirt and cheap cotton miniskirt. Instead of flashy, high-heeled sandals, she now wore the ubiquitous half-flattened flip-flops Portia thought heralded the end of Western civilization. Other changes were more subtle. The hair he remembered flowing over her back in thick waves, dark honey sparkling with gold, was now a more uniform brown, just a few hints of lighter highlights at her temples and around her face. Her skin no longer had the same unearthly golden glow; her eyes were still green, but they lacked some sparkling depth, some emerald quality that had made it impossible to look away. Where before the skin around them had looked perfectly smooth, he could now see tiny wrinkles in the corners, and even a blemish on one cheek.

Her body looked different as well. She was thinner now, her hips still round and her legs impossibly long, but she no longer resembled a living Barbie doll. Her curves were less pronounced, her lines were more angular.

In short, she had gone from heartbreakingly perfect to… imperfect.

Human.

Garrett stepped back as a sizzle of hot fury raced through him. Had it all been an act? Fancy makeup? Padded bra, special undergarments? Had he been drugged? Did that explain his bizarre behavior that night?

“What the hell are you doing here?” he managed to say calmly.

She blinked and took a step back, seeming surprised by the level of animosity in his voice. Her hands twisted in front of her. “I’m working for Rachel now. In the flower shop.”

“Working for Rachel?” Garrett shook his head. “Rachel doesn’t have anyone working for her. She’s been complaining for months that she needs someone but she can’t afford to pay a decent wage.”

Kaia tried to smile, though it emerged as tremulous. “I suppose decent is in the eye of the beholder.”

“You’re trying to tell me you’re working at Rachel’s Roses? For minimum wage?”

She bit her lip. “I needed the job, and Rachel—”

“Rachel has no idea what she’s doing.”

As if on cue, Rachel’s voice rang out from the kitchen. “Are you two all right out there? Ted and I are out back wrestling with the grill if you need us.”

Garrett twisted his lips into an approximation of a smile. “We’ll be right there,” he called back.

He stared at Kaia, still unable to fully comprehend the image of her standing in Rachel’s living room, surrounded by Rachel’s hodgepodge style of interior decoration, which mainly entailed buckets of shells, black and white photographs of brides holding bouquets, and mismatched pieces of furniture covered with handmade quilts. At the Avalon, Kaia had been a walking fantasy—a woman who lived in haute couture fashion and slept on silk sheets at the finest hotels. Now, with her chin up and hands betraying her nerves with the hint of a tremble, she was so changed, it was as if she had become an entirely new person.

He couldn’t say that she’d somehow become plain, or even that she looked entirely comfortable in Rachel’s house. She was too tall, too striking, her eyes too exotic, her features too captivating. Looking at her was like finding a single rose in a garden filled with daisies.

Yet this was not the same woman he had known.

As he continued to stare, her chin jutted nervously forward, and he realized the true difference between the Kaia he’d known and this new Kaia: her air of vulnerability. The woman he met just two weeks ago had been supremely self-assured, wearing an air of confidence in everything she did and every move she made. This woman was vulnerable. This woman did not know how she would be received.

This woman, amazingly enough, did not know how beautiful she was.

Yet somehow, now that she’d lost that air of otherworldly perfection and confidence and her flaws had been revealed, she had become even more attractive.

It was devastating.

And infuriating.

“You’re a fraud,” he said pleasantly, fighting to maintain his tightly controlled smile. “A fake and a fraud. You can stick me with a gigantic hotel bill, but I’m not going to let you do it to my friends. I want you gone by tomorrow. Out of Rachel’s life, out of Ted’s life, and out of mine. I don’t want Rachel hurt or embarrassed. You disappear like the trash you are. Understand?”

Kaia’s hands fell noiselessly to her sides and the color fled from her cheeks. “Stick you with a gigantic bill?” she whispered.

“Don’t try to play dumb. I may be an idiot, but I’m not that big an idiot. I talked to the front desk after you left the Avalon. When they ran your bill, your credit card was rejected. Perhaps you didn’t notice that you didn’t receive a charge for the Avalon? Perhaps your bills are so high every month, you don’t notice a couple thousand extra here and there?”

White-faced, she shook her head. “I used my husband’s card. I didn’t know it was… er… rejected.”

Bile filled Garrett’s mouth. “Dear God, you’re married, too?”

“No, no!” She took a step toward him, looking panicked. “He’s dead. Oh, it’s complicated. Very complicated.”

Garrett crossed his arms over his chest. “This ought to be entertaining.”

“I’m not sure this is the right time.” Her gaze darted to the back of the house. “Maybe later, I could—”

“Now.”

“We don’t really have time. Rachel and Ted, they—”

“Give me the short version. If I’m feeling generous, I’ll let you fill in the details later.”

Kaia took a deep breath, and her lashes fluttered down to hide her eyes. “I was married very young. I tried to leave him a few times but he controlled everything. For the last few years I barely saw him. I think he had other women. He died in a car accident about six weeks ago.”

She spoke quickly and unemotionally, as if trying to get everything out before he could interrupt again. “I spent a couple of weeks after he died trying to figure out what to do with myself. I went a little crazy, I think. I traveled around, trying to clear my head. And that’s when I met you. I thought the credit card worked. I never paid the bills. He always did that. When I got back home there were creditors calling and I had no money to pay them. I had no job, no skills, and no one to help.”

“Sounds rough.” Garrett narrowed his gaze. Her story was far too polished to be true, and his gut told him something about her didn’t add up. On the other hand, he had no idea what to think about the genuine look of shock on her face or the very odd turn of events that had landed her back in his life after what had appeared to be a clear case of take-the-money-and-run.

In either case, he knew trouble when he saw it. “What I said earlier still goes. I want you gone. Tomorrow.”

“You can’t mean that,” Kaia said. “I’ll pay you back. Just tell me how much I owe you and I’ll pay you back, I swear.”

“Five thousand bucks, give or take a few dollars,” he drawled. “You got that in your checking account?”

Kaia closed her eyes and whispered something to herself. She opened them again and said carefully, “It will take a while. I just started working for Rachel. Maybe we can work out some kind of payment plan.”

“Payment plan?” He laughed. “I have no interest in becoming your banker. I just want you out of our lives.”

For a moment her lower lip trembled, and he thought she might cry. She stuck out her jaw and said firmly, “I’m not going anywhere. Rachel and I have become friends. She’s given me a job and I’m keeping it. For the first time in my life I’ve got my own money and I’m in control of my own destiny. I’m not giving that up just because you don’t like me.”

Garrett took a step closer to her, marveling at the feeling of meeting a woman’s gaze so close to his own, just like he had when they’d danced together at the Blue Hour. She crossed her arms defensively. Like the rest of her body, her arms were tawny-colored and lean, with long, sinewy muscles. He pictured for a moment unwrapping those arms, dragging her body against his, and kissing her until she writhed with pleasure.

Instead, he forced himself to laugh. “Don’t like you? Darling, I’m not sure you understand. This has nothing to do with like or dislike. This has to do with protecting my own.”

There was a clatter on the back deck and a yelp from Rachel. “Don’t worry, everything’s all right! We’ll just be another minute. Help yourself to drinks!”

Garrett ran his fingers through his hair and sighed at the painfully obvious attempt Rachel was making to leave them alone together. He pinned his gaze on Kaia. “As you may recall, when we first met, you were wrapped around my very engaged friend, Ted. After sleeping with me, you disappeared in the middle of the night with absolutely no explanation, and left me with a very expensive hotel bill. Now you’re back, claiming to be friends with Ted’s fiancée, who has been kind enough to give you a job. Forgive me if I question your motives.”

Kaia furrowed her brow. “I can understand why you’re upset, but I swear, I didn’t mean things to happen the way they did. I had no idea about the credit card, I really didn’t.”

“So why did you take off? Where did you go?”

“I told you, I wasn’t myself that weekend. Charlie had just died. I never intended to sleep with you, or anyone else for that matter. I guess… ” She met his eyes, and something electric sparked between them. The memory of that night, and the feeling of her body beneath his all came back in a rush. “I guess I got carried away.”

“And then?” he prompted. He hated the fact that he was bothering to ask. He shouldn’t care, damn it. She had left. It didn’t matter why.

Suddenly, the answer to that question had become vitally important.

She turned her back to him and walked to the wicker entertainment console that held Rachel’s stereo and television. A row of starfish decorated the top, interspersed with giant conch shells. Kaia picked up one of the large pink shells and gently rolled it in her hand.

“I panicked,” she said finally, her voice soft, with just a hint of hesitation. She set down the shell and faced him once again. Her eyes darted around the room. She was nervous, her chest rising and falling at a rapid rate. “I’d never done anything like that before, especially not with a man like you. You made me feel something I’d never felt before, and it terrified me. I didn’t know what else to do. So I ran.”

He studied her, from her trembling hands with their uneven, broken nails, to the tip of her nose, which looked like it was recovering from a recent sunburn. She was not what he had thought, but what was she? Thief and hooker? Innocent victim of an overbearing husband? Didn’t he owe it to her to at least try to find out?

He heard the voices of Ted and Rachel as they entered the house and leaned forward, dropping his voice. “I’ll give you a week. And I’ll be making some calls to see if your story checks out. If you lied to me about anything—anything at all—I’ll personally march you out of town. And this time, I’ll make sure you never come back.”

Chapter Fifteen

Kaia spun around, unable to look any longer at Garrett’s beautiful, cold face.

She was screwed. Plain and simple, no way out. She might as well give up now. The imp was somewhere laughing hysterically, she was certain. What questions would he ask? What answers would he find? She hadn’t existed until a few weeks ago. Now, she had a driver’s license. That was all.

Would that be enough? Would that answer his questions? How could she prove she had a husband? A dead husband, for that matter?

Questions bubbled up with increasing speed and terror. She suppressed them with a firm, internal shake to the shoulders. Now was not the time to panic. Later, when she was alone on her cot at Good Sam, she could panic. But not now. Now, she had to focus on seduction.

Or rather, on love. She still didn’t entirely understand the difference, but for now at least, it probably didn’t matter. For now, she had to focus on convincing Garrett to let her stay in Miami. She couldn’t think about how ashamed she was to be doing exactly what Garrett thought: defrauding Rachel and Ted and disappointing everyone who’d gone out of their way to help her.

Rachel came into the room, a speculative look on her face as she noted Kaia and Garrett standing so close together. “Kaia, can you give me a hand with dinner?” She turned to Garrett. “Ted’s out back grilling the steaks. Kaia and I are going to whip up a salad. Feel free to make your escape from the kitchen now, if you’d like.”

Garrett flashed her an easy smile. “Rachel, this has nothing to do with escape. You know as well as I the danger of leaving Ted in charge of a delicate piece of equipment.”

Kaia winced at the sound of his voice. He spoke casually, as if totally unaffected by her story. He had a hint of a Southern accent, and regardless of his words, it sounded as if he was mocking her.

She hadn’t even known credit cards could be rejected, whatever that meant. Did that happen every time she left the human world and traveled back to Faeria? Did the credit card disappear along with her? Or had it been a trick of the imp’s? She could just imagine the annoying creature messing with her credit card, just to amuse himself.

As they entered the kitchen, Rachel handed her a head of lettuce and a wooden cutting board. She waited until Garrett joined Ted on the back deck before speaking. “Are you sure you’re okay with Garrett being here? I know you haven’t dated much since Charlie died.”

Kaia carefully rinsed each leaf of lettuce. “Not at all, actually. But this isn’t a date, is it? More like a dinner party.”

“You call it whatever you want,” Rachel said as she pulled dressing and salt and pepper from a cabinet over the stove. “I think you’re incredibly brave to be getting out at all, given what you’ve been through. If you don’t mind my asking, how long were you married?”

Kaia finished chopping the lettuce before she spoke. “About ten years too long.”

“Oh.” Rachel bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s okay. It’s still a bit raw, though. I hope you don’t mind.”

Kaia generally avoided questions about the fictional Charlie. Talking about him only exacerbated her guilt over what she was doing here. She had no choice but to break Garrett’s heart; Zafira and the Black Ladies would show her no mercy if she failed. Lying to women like Rachel and Jenny, who seemed so intent on helping her start a new life, felt wrong.

“How long have you known Garrett?” Kaia asked, hoping to change the subject.

“About two years. I met him when I started dating Ted.”

“He seems very nice.”

“Nice?” Rachel snickered. “Nice isn’t the word I’d use. And by the way, you two seemed pretty intense out there. Are you sure you and Garrett just shared a cab back from the Blue Hour?”

“We left right after Ted,” Kaia said, trying not to sound defensive. “Garrett had a lot of work, and a meeting in the morning.”

She tried to imagine how Garrett would characterize their meeting. Surely he wouldn’t tell anyone they’d slept together.

Surely not.

“I’ve never known Garrett to shy away from a late night,” Rachel said. “Odd combination of things, is our Garrett. Gentleman and satyr, business mogul and frustrated artist, all wrapped into one.”

Kaia paused to consider the image of Garrett as a satyr. Somehow, it wasn’t too difficult. “What do you mean?” she asked as she threw the lettuce into a bowl and started slicing a bright red pepper.

“Only that Garrett’s life hasn’t always been easy. The way Ted tells it, Garrett’s grandmother, the one who raised him, is a real piece of work. She kept him on a really short leash when he was growing up, and you know what happens when you do that.” She shook her head knowingly. “Instant rebellion.”

“Rebellion? He doesn’t look very rebellious to me. He helps run the business, and he lives close by. He seems to be the perfect grandson.” Yet another reason why Zafira’s quest to break his heart seemed odd. Why target a man like that? There must be some skeleton in his closet, but what?

Rachel flashed her a knowing look. “So you know a little something about Garrett?”

Kaia’s cheeks burned. “Oh, um, he mentioned it. While we were in the cab.”

Rachel nodded, though a tiny smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. She pulled a stack of plates out of a cupboard. “Well, you’re right, he didn’t go out and get a bunch of weird tattoos or piercings, and he’s definitely a moneymaker. It’s more the subtle things. He refuses to be seen with the same woman for more than a night at a time, when he knows darn well his grandmother wants him married and settled down. He helps with the business but he won’t become an executive. I think he’s in management or something.”

Rachel waved her hand in confusion. “I don’t exactly know how it all works, but as I understand it, Portia keeps trying to get him to become vice president, or CEO, and he keeps refusing. The one thing she did manage to beat out of him was his art. Ted tells me when they were kids, Garrett was a heck of a musician. Grandma let him play up until high school and then she cut him off. Decided it was time to focus on business. So no more music. I don’t think he’s played since.”

Kaia froze, her knife inches above the pepper. She recalled their conversation at the Blue Hour, Garrett’s impassioned description of jazz and blues and his confession about his dream of becoming the next Wynton Marsalis. “No more music? That’s horrible.”

“I know. What can you do? She held all the cards. Did you know he’s got a younger brother?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yeah, they both went to live with their grandmother when they were really young. Not clear exactly why, but something happened to their mom. So whenever Garrett would act out, Grandma would threaten not to let him see his younger brother.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Kaia said. She peered out the kitchen window, where Garrett relaxed against the side of the deck, holding a beer in one hand and laughing. “What a horrible woman.”

She turned to Rachel, who had carefully stacked silverware and several jars of condiments on top of the plates and headed out the door. “Are you sure you should be telling me all this? Isn’t this private stuff?”

Rachel pushed up her glasses with her shoulder. “It should be private, but the truth is, if you dig hard enough, you could probably find it online. Garrett’s whole life is like that. Private stuff that everyone knows.”

“Rachel, why are you telling me this?”

Rachel gave her a sad smile. “I just wanted to warn you. He’s not always the nicest guy in the world, but there’s a reason why. I’d love to see him happy, but it will take a special kind of woman to do it. Someone strong. Someone different. Maybe someone like you.”

It occurred to Kaia for the first time that Rachel hadn’t needed much prodding or maneuvering when Kaia had suggested having dinner. She’d even come up with the idea of having it at her house, and inviting Garrett.

Goosebumps pebbled Kaia’s skin. Rachel wanted her friends to fall in love. How could Kaia have missed that? She’d been so excited that her maneuver had worked that it never occurred to her that Rachel might be doing some maneuvering of her own. The question was, how could she use Rachel’s scheming to further her own goal?

The thought both thrilled Kaia and made her sick with shame. She chuckled weakly to hide her discomfort. “Rachel, if I thought for a minute that you believed Garrett and I… well, I would have to die laughing.”

Rachel lifted her nose in the air, but grinned in return. “Fine with me. Just don’t die until after the Peterson wedding, okay? You’ve got about fifty centerpieces to do.”

§

The rest of dinner passed mercifully quickly. Garrett was polite, but she caught a hint of cold mocking in his eyes when Rachel and Ted were looking the other way. Once, when her foot accidentally brushed against his under the table, he raised a sandy brow in arrogant question. She ignored him and tucked her legs underneath her, flinching every time they made contact. His coldness was almost as frightening as the thought of what she had to do next. She had to seduce him, make him want her, make him fall in love.

But how?

And could she hold back the next time? Could she keep from losing control all over again?

As dinner came to a close, she thanked Rachel and Ted and said her good-byes. Ted offered her a ride home, but it was still early and she had no intention of letting him drop her off at Good Sam. She wasn’t ashamed of where she slept, she’d just changed so much since she’d met him. Dealing with the look of sympathy and concern that had flashed across Ted’s eyes when he first recognized her was hard enough. She didn’t need to see the pity that would follow if he knew she was staying at a shelter.

She told them she was going to walk down to Biscayne Boulevard to do a little shopping, and that she’d take a cab from there back to her place. She had the feeling Rachel knew she was lying, but didn’t want to intervene. Rachel, at least, was tolerating her lie out of kindness.

Garrett’s suspicious eyes followed her to the door. Kaia worked to maintain her smile as she told herself that she had nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing to worry about. He wasn’t going to follow her and kick her out of Miami for taking the bus.

She walked down to the bus stop in the bright sunlight and concentrated on not panicking.

Breathe. In and out. Breathe.

She’d seen a show on television in the mornings where an instructor in a lime-green leotard and striped leg warmers did yoga poses and told the audience to breathe. Oddly enough, Kaia found it soothing.

Breathe.

It would be okay. She had less than four weeks before the Black Ladies came for her. She just had to keep working.

She looked down at her tank top and skirt, the best she could afford from a secondhand shop, and sighed. She’d have to do better next time she saw him. She would have to find a way to make him look at her with the longing she’d seen at the Blue Hour. It wouldn’t be easy, but it had to be possible. It simply had to be.

“Nice work, Faerie.”

Kaia stared at the pavement, studiously ignoring the blur of movement she could see in the corner of her eye. “Leave me alone.”

“No, seriously,” the imp said, zipping around her face. “Stellar performance. I think it was when you said you were married that you really got him. I was impressed.”

She beat at the air in front of her, only stopping when it became clear she had no hope of landing a blow. “I’m not trying to impress you, maggot.”

“I’ll have you know there’s nothing wrong with maggots. At least they grow into something with wings.” Snickering at his own joke, the imp flipped sideways in the air.

Kaia groaned. “I talked to him, didn’t I? Isn’t that what you were bugging me about the last time? Not talking to him?”

“Yes, but that’s before I saw how pissed off at you he was. Now I realize we’ve got a much bigger problem on our hands.”

“We’ve got a bigger problem?”

The imp rolled his guileless blue eyes. “Whatever. You’ve got a bigger problem. Tomorrow morning, Mr. Jameson is going to start checking out your story, Faerie. And what is he going to find? Nothing. No marriage license. No birth certificate. No record that Kaia Verde exists.”

“I’ve got my driver’s license,” Kaia said, her stomach dropping at his blunt assessment.

“That’s all you’ve got,” the imp replied. “You’ll have to find a way to keep him guessing. First off, don’t tell him where you were born. Birth certificates and marriage licenses are filed by state. If he wants to find yours, he’ll have to check all fifty.”

“My driver’s license says Arkansas,” Kaia said. “I already showed it to Jenny and Rachel.”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s where you lived, not where you were born.”

“Oh.” She thought through other potential problems. “Rachel wanted my social security card. I told her I left it behind after Charlie died—”

“Charlie?” the imp interrupted.

“My dead husband.” Kaia motioned impatiently. “Can you try to keep up, please?”

“Oh, right. Sorry, go ahead.”

“Anyway, she said I need to get a new card so she can fill out some forms. She hasn’t mentioned it for a few days. I guess she thinks I’m working on it. Is that something Garrett’s going to want, too?”

“He’ll want it. Whether he’ll be able to figure out that you don’t have it is another story.”

“Damn.” Kaia twirled her hair into a loose knot on top of her head. She’d learned the trick from Rachel. She liked the way it felt, when her hair was off her neck and the air brushed the sweat away from her skin. She’d always left her hair down in the past. Men seemed to like it better that way, and her life before had been about attracting men. Now it was about surviving Florida’s oppressive humidity.

“Things like social security numbers are supposed to be private, but our boy is rich enough to pay for the information he wants. The only question is how long it will take him.”

Kaia swore she could feel the icy breath of the Black Ladies on the back of her neck. She braced herself and walked faster. “So what you’re saying is that I’m going to have to find a way to step it up. Not only do I have to get him to fall in love with me, I have to do it quickly.”

The imp chuckled. “Think of it as a challenge, Faerie. You’re up for a challenge, aren’t you?”

§

“Are you sure she’s okay?” Ted stood by the door, watching Kaia walk down the path and turn the corner of the driveway. “Why wouldn’t she let me give her a ride?”

Rachel gave him a steady look, though her gaze flicked over to Garrett as she spoke. She wasn’t sure what to think about dinner. A layer of tension had hung over Kaia and Garrett that was difficult to read. On one hand, Rachel was thrilled by the obvious connection between them—something she’d never seen before between Garrett and one of her friends. On the other hand, the tension didn’t seem particularly warm and fuzzy. If anything, Garrett had looked angry. With Kaia. Which was not a good sign. “I don’t think she wants to have anyone see where she’s living.”

“What does that mean?” Ted asked.

“She’s a private person, and her living situation is… well… difficult.”

Garrett narrowed his brows. “How much do you really know about her, Rachel? I must admit, I’m concerned about her working for you. She doesn’t strike me as the most trustworthy sort. Besides, if she’s so private, how do you know where she’s staying?”

“Because I had to call the shelter to talk to her caseworker when she didn’t have a social security number or an address for me to fill in the I-9 forms,” Rachel said meaningfully. She didn’t want to share Kaia’s secrets, but she didn’t like the implication in Garrett’s words, either.

Garrett drew back. “The shelter?”

“What shelter?” Ted added.

“I’d rather not say. Don’t expect me to be too hard on her, Garrett. Let’s just say I had a conversation with someone, and I have a pretty good idea that she’s been through a lot. We’ll need to get the paperwork together eventually, but for now, I’m just glad she’s off the street.”

“Off the streets?” Ted’s soft brown eyes clouded. “I don’t understand. She looked pretty well off when we met her before.”

“You’ll have to talk to her about what happened between now and then,” Rachel said. “All I care about is that she’s doing a great job. She’s a hard worker, she knows plants like you can’t imagine, and she has a real knack for working with flowers. If it weren’t for her, this would have been a horrible week for me. Kaia’s been a godsend. So don’t you start telling me about her not being trustwor—”

She started to shake her finger at Garrett, but he had already jumped out of his seat. Rachel watched, amazed, as Garrett gathered his keys and wallet and headed to the door.

“Thanks for dinner,” he said. “Sorry to eat and run, but I just remembered something I need to do.”

“No problem,” Rachel said. “Thanks for bringing the wine.”

Garrett’s sleek black car roared out of the driveway a few seconds later, and tore down the street with a screech of tires.

Ted shook his head. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen him do that before.”

“You think he’s concerned about Kaia?” Hope surged through Rachel.

“Where else he would be going on a Friday night? You know, there definitely seemed to be something going on with him at dinner, but I thought he was just pissed at you for trying to play matchmaker again.” Ted sank down into the sofa. “You really have to stop doing that.”

“I want to see him happy,” Rachel said loftily.

“Because you’re such an expert in relationships?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Are we getting married or not, Rachel?”

Her heart dropped at the heaviness in his voice. She headed for the kitchen and started filling the sink. “Don’t rush me, Ted. I’m just enjoying where we’re at right now. Can’t you enjoy it, too?”

He gathered empty wine glasses and set them on the counter. “No, I can’t. I want to get married.”

“Well I… I… ” She trailed off, not knowing what to say, and grabbed the wine glasses, plunging them in the steaming water and scrubbing them furiously.

“You what? Do you or don’t you?” he asked. “I’m trying to be patient, Rachel, I really am. But it’s been weeks. I thought when you said you needed some time, you meant a few days.”

“I needed a little space. Things have been so busy lately, and I haven’t been able to think straight.”

Ted walked to her and put his hands on her shoulders, drawing her toward him. “That’s nonsense and you know it. I love you. I think you love me. We should be getting married, Rachel, not putting our lives on hold.”

Ted’s hands on her shoulders were heavy, pressing her closer to him, and his soft, sad eyes tugged at her, pulling her in like a hypnotist. She blinked furiously, trying to break the spell. “Of course I love you,” she whispered. “That has nothing to do with it.”

He leaned forward and caught her mouth in a gentle kiss. Rachel had never experienced a kiss like that before she’d met Ted. His kisses were seductive even while they surrounded her with love and caring. She’d never felt so cherished or needed before she’d met Ted.

How long would it last? How long could that kind of love survive the kind of woman she’d someday become?

Rachel pushed him away, breaking the kiss with a muffled cry. “Please don’t. Please let me go.”

He threw down his hands. “Fine. You call me when you’ve made your decision, Rachel,” he said, a finality in his voice she’d never heard before. “I’m not going to wait forever. I love you and I want this to work, but even I have my limits.”

She watched him as he walked out the door. “I know,” she said quietly. “I know.”

Chapter Sixteen

Garrett pulled out of the driveway with a screech of tires. He didn’t see Kaia, but in the time he’d been talking with Ted and Rachel, she could have gone several blocks in any direction. Rachel’s words buzzed around in his brain. Shelter… on the streets… what she’s been through…

Was she serious? Was Kaia really in such a desperate position?

Abruptly, he slowed the car. It wouldn’t do him any good to catch up with her now. He’d have to follow her and see where she went. That was the only way to know if she’d been lying to Rachel like she’d lied to him.

He drove slowly in the direction of the nearest bus stop. If she were truly in desperate financial straits, she’d be headed for a bus. Sure enough, halfway down the street he saw her, long hair now piled on top of her head in a kind of rough bun. Loose tendrils fell down around the nape of her neck. The warm red light of the setting sun turned her skin an even brighter golden color than she’d been that night at the club.

Her back was to him, and he couldn’t help but notice that her shoulder blades stood out in sharp relief beneath the thin cotton of her tank top. She’d lost weight since that night. That, at least, explained some of the change in her appearance.

She got to the corner and sat down on the bench beside the sign for the bus. He pulled the car into a spot across the street, halfway down the block.

Lord, she was beautiful. Even though she was too thin and wore cheap, ill-fitting clothing, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her all throughout dinner, and even now, all he could do was imagine that night and think about how extraordinary her eyes were and how full her lips.

The bus arrived a few minutes later. Garrett followed it, and the next bus that she transferred to. By the time she got off the second bus, the sun had set, leaving the streetlights to illuminate the dirty street.

She only walked four blocks from there, but they were the longest four blocks of his life. He hadn’t spent much time in this section of Miami—he had no reason to come here. Just a night or two before, he had heard about a gang-related shooting a few blocks away, and the boarded-up houses on either side of the street seemed to hold the ominous promise of drugs and violence.

At least it was still early and cars were driving by somewhat regularly. A few older women passed Kaia on the street carrying grocery bags. Then a man with a long beard and a backpack approached, his gait unsteady. Garrett almost drove his car into the vagrant when he started to raise his hand in Kaia’s direction. But he only waved.

She waved back as if she knew him, and the sick feeling in Garrett’s stomach intensified.

He stopped the car and got out to follow her on foot. If something did happen, he didn’t want to be stuck behind a locked door while she was attacked. A block later she reached her destination. A brightly lit sign on the corner proudly announced “Good Samaritan Mission,” with a caption below that read, “All are welcome in these walls.”

Was it possible that she had been telling the truth? As Kaia started to walk around the outside of the building, Garrett’s body took over for his stunned brain.

Not a shelter. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—let her stay at a shelter.

Barely realizing what he was doing, Garrett began to run, his heart beating in his ears. He grabbed her arm as she spun around to look behind her. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. “Why are you here?”

She froze with panic until she recognized his face. “What the hell am I doing? What the hell are you doing?”

She tried to shake free her arm but he maintained his hold.

“I’m trying to figure out what you’re trying to prove.” He gazed up at the entrance to the four-story building, where a security guard stood idly smoking and paying little attention to the drama playing out twenty feet away.

The scene was too familiar. Even as he fought to keep them in check, memories began to assault him. Memories of noises, of Max crying, of people yelling. Of his mother, looking desperate, trying to hide her own tears as she rocked Max against her chest.

He could not let her stay here.

“Did you know I was following you? Is that why you’re here? Is this some kind of weird game you’re playing to impress me?”

Kaia’s mouth dropped open. “Are you insane?”

“Of course not, I was just—” A hint of embarrassment entered his voice as his vision cleared. He had to get himself under control.

She interrupted him with laughter, grim at first and then with increasing hysteria. For some reason this seemed to strike her as funny. She flung out her hand to indicate the shelter as her shoulder blades shook with laughter. “You think this is all for your benefit? Your benefit. That’s a good one. Oh, you have no idea, Mr. Jameson. No idea!”

“Calm down,” Garrett said.

She ignored him, managing to squeak out between peals of laughter, “Coming to Miami. Starving. Staying at a shelter. Mosquitoes. Yes, you’re right. It is all for your benefit. Ha! How did you guess? How… could… you… possibly… have… guessed?”

Garrett frowned. “You’re not well. Are you taking drugs?”

She sobered at that. “Oh for goodness sake, Garrett, do I really seem like an addict?”

He had to admit she didn’t. Her eyes were clear, she was obviously not high, and her face, though thin, looked healthy. He shook his head. “Still, you shouldn’t be staying here. Jesus, Kaia, don’t you know how dangerous these places are? Can’t you get an apartment?”

Kaia wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes. “Oh yes, I just love the view from the fourth floor. And my cot. I’m very partial to my cot.”

“Be serious,” he said. “I realize they do the best they can here, but the fact is, this is a very tough neighborhood. Did you know there was a shooting down the block a few nights ago?”

“I did, actually, and it was almost a mile from here. I have a friend who’s a police officer who takes our safety very seriously.” She threw back her hair and continued before he could respond. “Look, it’s very kind of you to worry about me, but I don’t have a penny to my name. You know that better than anyone.”

“Don’t you have anyone who can help? Family? Friends?”

Kaia rounded on him, hands on hips. “You know, I’d love to understand why people ask that question. You think perhaps I forgot to ask someone for help and your asking will jog my memory?” Without waiting for a response, she continued, “I already told you, I have no family. No friends. The answer is no.”

She gestured toward the door where the security guard, having finished his smoke and apparently turned his attention back to his job, gave Garrett a baleful eye. “Can I go to bed now? Alfred gets testy when I come back after ten, and it’s almost that now.”

“You shouldn’t be staying here.” Garrett knew he was repeating himself but couldn’t seem to get past the image of Kaia sleeping on a cot in a room full of people. He could almost picture their faces, hear the fear and frustration from the parents, and the boredom and anxiety in the children.

“This is where I live,” Kaia said.

She started to push past him, and he grabbed her around the waist. Deliberately, he shook off the images in his mind, focusing instead on the feeling of his fingers slipping under the edge of her tank top and resting against the warm skin at the top of her skirt.

“No,” he said. “You don’t.”

The dark pink flesh of her lips was like a talisman and he focused on it, letting it fill his brain. He pictured the woman he had known before, with the gold dress and diamond earrings, lying on smooth satin sheets at the Avalon. That woman had not slept on a cot at the Good Samaritan Mission. He would bet his life on it. How was he supposed to imagine her here now?

“It isn’t you,” he said.

She tipped her face toward his, her eyes at once sad and inviting. “Sometimes life changes us,” she whispered. “This is what I am now.”

There was something mysterious in her statement, something important that he was missing, but the words didn’t fully register in his brain. All he knew was that he needed to kiss her. He needed to taste her, to figure out who she was and why she filled him with this desperate, aching need.

He dove into the kiss and felt her lips part beneath his. She was wet and open, soft and deeply hungry. Their lips slid across each other. Her tongue licked against his, drew him in, and sucked gently. They teased and taunted in a power play of sensation and then dove in again, letting their bodies submit where their minds could not.

Helpless to resist the growing need, he pushed on, harder. He caressed her mouth, turned from aggressor to seducer and back, and she followed every step. He trailed his hands across her back, pressed her body against his, and slid his hands under her shirt to touch the bare flesh below. The remembered feel of her body was too much. She moaned softly into his mouth and he shuddered, wanting to drive into her with all the reckless abandon they’d shared back at the Avalon.

“You need some help, Ms. Verde?” the guard called.

The voice was surprisingly close. When Garrett lifted his head, he saw the man had walked off the porch and was standing only a few feet away, baton in his hand. Garrett’s breath came in short pants as he struggled to regain control over his body.

Kaia took the opportunity to pull away. She fixed a brilliant but unsteady smile on her face. “We’re fine, Alfred,” she said. “Just having a hard time saying good night.”

The guard nodded. “That’s all right, but you know the rules. No men on this side of the building. No men past the door. You might want to speed up that good-bye.”

Garrett straightened. Alfred’s presence was a flush of cold water to his overheated brain. He narrowed his brows and scrutinized the man again, realizing with surprise that his earlier assessment might have been inaccurate. Right now, Alfred looked anything but idle or uninterested in Kaia’s welfare, as he tapped the baton against his right hand in a deliberate I-know-how-to-use-this-weapon gesture.

Garrett made a quick decision. “Kaia, go get your things.”

She cocked her head. “What? What are you talking about? Perhaps you didn’t hear me. I don’t have any money.” She emphasized each of the last few words slowly and deliberately. “I can’t afford a hotel.”

“We aren’t going to a hotel.”

“Then why am I getting my things?”

“I’m taking you home with me.”

§

Kaia didn’t have to fake her look of utter astonishment that followed Garrett’s bald pronouncement. She also didn’t have to fake the panic that came next. “Going home with you?” she sputtered. “To your apartment?”

Though his expression was difficult to read, Kaia had the impression that Garrett was as surprised as she was by the statement he had made. Just as quickly, his air of smooth authority returned. “No,” he said. “I don’t think that’s wise. On the other hand, I do want you somewhere I can keep an eye on you. So that means”—there was the barest hint of hesitation before he completed the thought—“the Manor.”

“The Manor?”

“My grandmother’s house. It’s not far from Miami.”

It was all happening too fast. Her heart was still racing from his horrible, perfect kisses, the ones that reminded her exactly why she had lost control with him once before. Somehow, when he touched her, everything inside her body turned hot and cold at the same time, and her rational mind dissolved. And how was she supposed to react to this... this... pronouncement? She didn’t even know if it was good or bad.

In general, she was finding it surprisingly easy to act out her role as Kaia Verde—a human woman with a history of being controlled and smothered. She figured it came from her years of dealing with Zafira. Kaia the Human turned out to be strikingly similar to Kaia the Faerie. Perhaps a little more independent. A little less obsessed with her looks. And a little more concerned with the lives of the beings around her.

Garrett had presented her with an altogether different sort of dilemma. What would Kaia the Human do now? Or perhaps more importantly—what should Kaia the Faerie do to get Garrett the Human to fall in love with her?

She crossed her arms over her chest and made a quick decision. Kaia the Human had worked too hard to stake out her own piece of independence. She wasn’t going to yield so easily. Even if Kaia the Faerie was dying to get into Garrett’s bed.

“Look, I appreciate the offer, I really do, but I’m staying here.”

“Perhaps I wasn’t clear. It’s not an offer.” Garrett checked his watch. “It’s late. Portia will be annoyed as it is. If you want to get anything before we go, you better do it quickly.”

Kaia flung out her arms in frustration. “You aren’t listening to me. I’m not going.”

“If you want to stay in Miami and keep working for Rachel, you’ll come.”

“How am I supposed to get to work every day? You said the Manor is outside Miami. Are you going to buy me a car, too?”

Garrett sighed. “I’ll drive you. My niece is staying at the Manor until Tuesday, so I thought I might need to be there anyway. After that we’ll work something out.”

“Why? Why are you doing this?”

“You aren’t staying here,” he said flatly. “That’s simply not an option. And I’m not paying to put you up in a hotel. You’ve cost me enough already. So my options are to have you at my place or at the Manor. If I take you to my place, it will invite all manner of speculation and gossip, not to mention that I’ll have to worry about you walking out with my silver. If I take you to the Manor, on the other hand, you’ll be overseen by one of the most terrifying creatures known to mankind.”

Kaia shivered as she imagined the Black Ladies stepping forward, their strange, harmonic voices full of anticipation at the thought of disfiguring a faerie. What could humanity have that rivaled them? “What do you mean? Who guards the Manor?”

Garrett grinned. “My grandmother, of course.”

§

The Manor was at least forty minutes from Miami, though Kaia didn’t know the roads well enough to tell how long the drive might be during the week. The farther from the city they got, the darker it became, and the road narrowed to two winding lanes divided by a double yellow line.

Garrett switched off the air conditioning and rolled down the windows. Warm, moist air filled the car. Kaia leaned her head against the seatback and closed her eyes, trying not to think about the huge, male body at her side. After collecting her tiny armful of belongings and throwing them into the trunk of his small black car, Garrett paid her little attention, checking his voice mail and leaving some messages without so much as another look in her direction.

They drove down miles of a dark, silent road that was flanked on either side by enormous old palms, and though her nervousness about Garrett and his dragon of a grandmother increased, the farther they got from Miami a deeper part of Kaia slowly unwound. In the eleven days since she had stepped through the Gate into the Everglades, Kaia had learned to exist in an environment with few hints of the natural world. Good Sam, Rachel’s Roses, and Miami had become familiar, even comforting places. Yet they were still jarring somewhere close to her soul. Though she could not see what surrounded her on either side of the road, the very thought that it was not more buildings or concrete was an enormous relief.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” she finally asked.

“I told you. We’re going to my grandmother’s place.”

“Forgive me for not being up on my Miami business tycoon family history, but I’m afraid that doesn’t really mean much to me.”

He sighed. “My grandmother bought this place back in the seventies, a few years before I went to live with her. She had just opened her second or third hotel and the money had started rolling in. I suppose you could call it a symbol, her message to the world that she had arrived. After a while she absorbed the lots around her so she’d have more room. When I was young, they raised horses on the property. Now she just keeps a few for riding.”

“Does she still ride?”

“She never rode,” Garrett said.

As Kaia puzzled over his words, they turned down a stone driveway and stopped at a sculpted iron fence. Garrett punched a series of buttons on a keypad. The gate retracted and they sailed through. The wind ruffled Garrett’s sun-kissed hair. A few stars were out but there was no sign of the moon. Only the lights of the dashboard illuminated his face, sending his already square-cut jaw and prominent cheekbones into high relief.

Rachel’s comment earlier that night about Garrett being a mix of businessman and satyr had an eerie ring of truth. He did have the cool, savage beauty of a satyr, though he—unlike a satyr—seemed to have a firmly developed moral code. Real satyrs rarely bothered with ethics. Luckily, their faerie side kept them focused on relatively harmless pleasures—most notably, music, art, and sex. Despite his stunning looks, Garrett held the weight of responsibility far too heavily on his broad shoulders to truly resemble a satyr. If she were seeking to make a comparison with one of the Fey, it would be more accurate to think of an elf—an austere creature of superior intelligence and cutting wit.

Kaia almost laughed aloud at the thought of comparing Garrett to an elf. Tall, with an ethereal beauty in their silky hair and sculpted features, elves were doubtless male, and could even couple with a woman to produce a child. But there was always an ambiguity to the sexuality of an elf. There was no ambiguity about Garrett. From his air of authority and power to the raw sensuality that flowed irresistibly through his chiseled form, Garrett Jameson was all man.

Definitely more like a satyr.

“Hopefully, Portia won’t wake up when we get in. She gets even grumpier than usual when she’s woken up. I learned that lesson when I was in high school.”

“You came in late a lot?” Kaia said.

She wasn’t sure how to read the strange, humorless smile Garrett flashed her, or the way he squared his shoulders as he drove to the apex of a circular drive in front of an enormous white house.

The bulk of the house was shrouded in shadows, but when they pulled up in front lights turned on, illuminating a wide porch with rocking chairs along the length and a set of double entry doors set off by smooth columns on either side.

The night air caressed Kaia’s skin as frogs and cicadas called in the background. Garrett opened her door and offered his hand. “As often as I could.”

They stood for a moment and gazed at the house.

“It looks very old,” Kaia said.

“It’s from the twenties. A genuine Redland Pioneer family home complete with Dade County pine floors. At least, that’s true for the front of the house. Portia added about fifteen thousand square feet over the years, in no particular order, so it’s a bit of a maze. There are ten bedrooms, six with adjoining sitting rooms and baths, two dining rooms, an entertainment room, a library, and full ballroom. The house sits on forty acres with pond, stable, servant quarters, and miles of riding trails. There’s an avocado grove on the back twenty acres Portia still harvests every year.” His voice had the tone and cadence of a bored tour guide.

“It sounds very impressive,” Kaia offered.

“It’s obnoxious,” he said.

Kaia peeked at him from the corner of her eye. His face was cold and hard. He put one hand in his pocket and ran the other through his hair, his posture deliberately relaxed.

“I suppose you could say that,” she said. “You could also say it’s beautiful.”

“It’s necessary. They do corporate retreats here. Portia entertains all sorts of diplomats and politicians. We bring our international partners to the Manor when we’re ready to close a deal.”

“And you hate it.”

The smile dropped off his face. He stared at the house and shrugged. “It’s just a house,” he said evenly. “How could anyone hate a house?”

Chapter Seventeen

Sunlight streamed through a tall, multi-paned window as Kaia rubbed her eyes and slowly sat up in bed. She surveyed the room around her, still finding it difficult to believe she’d been transplanted in one fell swoop from her cot at Good Sam to this luxurious mansion. They’d wandered down what seemed like endless halls of polished wood floors before Garrett had left her here, in the bedroom he had described as the “sanatorium.”

Though she hadn’t understood what he meant by that name last night, in the morning sun the white walls, white eyelet curtains and matching bedspread, and thick white sheepskin rug left no doubt that he was right. A lamp beside the bed had a white shade decorated with bleached white shells. The only hint of color came from the dark oak of the four-poster bed and matching dresser in the corner.

“Nice move, Faerie,” a voice cackled in her ear. “It’s a big step up from the cot, isn’t it?”

Kaia swatted aimlessly in the air near her head. “Why do you have to bother me first thing in the morning?” she groaned. “Can’t you at least let me have some coffee first?”

The imp easily avoided her hand and sat down on the bed next to her, patting the lightweight down comforter. “Four-hundred thread count, at least. Very comfy. I’m not sure how you’re going to get past Grandma, though. That’s going to be a neat trick.”

“Have you seen her?” Kaia asked. “Is she as… difficult as he makes her sound?”

The imp paused and scratched his head. “Let’s just say she reminds me a little of Zafira. When she’s in a good mood.”

Kaia dropped back into bed. “I’m screwed.”

“But comfy,” the imp reminded her.

She smiled. “Very comfy.”

“So you must be Garrett’s… friend,” a disapproving voice called from the doorway.

The imp disappeared under the bed in one quick motion. Kaia sprang to her feet. If this woman was anything like Zafira, she didn’t want to meet her lying down.

Garrett’s dragon had thick white hair pulled back into a perfect French twist. She was tall, with a rigid posture only marred by a slight rounding of age in her back and shoulders. Though her face had a few wrinkles, her skin was an unblemished shade of peach, as if she had never been touched by harsh sunlight. “Dear God, put something on, girl.”

Of course, Kaia had forgotten she had fallen asleep wearing nothing but her tank top and tiny string bikini underwear. Kaia’s face flamed and she grabbed the sheet from the bed to throw around her waist.

“Um, yes, hi, I’m Kaia Verde. You must be Garrett’s grandmother.” She stepped forward with her hand outstretched.

The older woman held a dark mahogany cane, and she rested both hands on the head of it as she surveyed Kaia. Her lips were pulled in a tight, disapproving scowl. She did not shake Kaia’s hand. “I wish I had known you were coming. I would have prepared the room for you.”

Pulling the sheet tightly around her hips, Kaia dropped her hand and tried for a smile. She couldn’t imagine what preparation needed to be done to a spotlessly clean room with no decoration or art. Dust would not be so bold as to settle on anything in this woman’s house.

“I really appreciate you letting me stay here,” Kaia said. “The room is lovely and so comfortable.”

“Hmph. I don’t see that I had any choice in the matter. You showed up in the middle of the night and made yourself at home. I suppose that’s how young people act these days.”

Kaia floundered, unsure exactly what she could say in her defense. Of course, she was only at the Manor because Garrett didn’t want her at Good Sam. But did she really want to tell this woman she’d been staying at a shelter? Kaia could imagine her reaction would be similar to the man at the Gas-n-Git. She tucked the sheet more snugly around her. “I’m sorry about that, but it was late and we didn’t want to wake anyone up. Garrett said he would talk to you about it in the morning.”

“Well, Garrett’s gone to work and all he left me was a note saying you were in the guest room. So why don’t you tell me? Exactly what do you think you are doing here?”

Kaia’s eyes widened. Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t the direct attack. She straightened. In her book, direct attack required direct response.

“Your grandson brought me here,” she said flatly, “because I was staying at the Good Samaritan Mission and he didn’t think it was safe. Which is actually ridiculous, because at least at Good Sam, I don’t get verbally assaulted first thing in the morning by someone who won’t even tell me her name.”

The woman narrowed her eyes. “My name is Portia Jameson. I prefer to be called Mrs. Jameson. And I happen to be a major contributor to the Good Samaritan Mission. I don’t know what on earth my grandson is talking about. We take the safety of our clients extremely seriously, especially in our shelter for women and children. Is Alfred still working there?”

Astonished, Kaia stared at her.

“Well, don’t look at me like a fool. Alfred, the security guard. Is he still there?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m sure you were perfectly safe. However, I suppose now that you’re here we can find some way for you to earn your keep.”

“Excuse me?” Kaia’s head was still spinning with the concept that Portia knew Alfred.

“Earn your keep,” Portia barked, her bright blue eyes sparking fire. Kaia could see in the lines of her face the origin of Garrett’s strong jaw and high cheekbones. She must have been a gorgeous woman when she was young. Even now, she radiated a kind of stern, unforgiving beauty. “Do some work. If you’re staying, you can’t expect to lounge in bed all day.”

“Oh, I see.” Nonplussed, Kaia leaned back on her heels. It would actually feel good to have something to do other than worry about whether Garrett was already checking on her nonexistent birth certificate. “Sure. I mean, I have to be back at my regular job on Tuesday, but I’d be happy to help out while I’m here. What needs to be done? I’m pretty good with a garden. Or animals. I like animals. I can clean, but it looks like you’ve got that covered.”

This response seemed to mollify Portia somewhat, her tone changing from aggressive to mild disdain. “I have a gardener, plenty of stable hands, and more maids than I know what to do with. What I need is someone to entertain my granddaughter. She’s staying here while her father is traveling on business and her mother is gallivanting off at some spa. I have far too much to do and she needs someone to keep her out of trouble. You’ll need to get dressed and showered first.”

She turned to leave, hesitated a moment, and spun back around. With a tap of her cane she said, “I will expect you in the breakfast room in twenty minutes.”

Head raised high, she stamped down the hall, a long silk scarf swirling over one shoulder. Kaia watched her go, the sheet falling from her fingers until she stood, half-naked, in her bedroom.

“Nice job,” the imp snickered.

“I think she likes me,” Kaia said.

“Do you know where the breakfast room is?”

Kaia raised her hand to her mouth in horror. “No.”

“You better make that a quick shower. This is a big house, and I have a feeling the dragon doesn’t like it when people are late.”

§

Kaia took a shower in the bathroom that adjoined her bedroom and dressed as carefully as she could, matching a pair of threadbare-but-clean khaki shorts with a pale pink linen camp shirt that had been ironed so many times it was shiny. The bathroom had an assortment of soaps and lotions, and for a moment she almost felt like the old Kaia, getting ready for a night out on the town as she rubbed scented lotion into her smooth, freshly shaved legs.

Aware that she might have to spend some time searching for the breakfast room, Kaia set out into the hallway, where she wandered the cool, air-conditioned halls for at least ten minutes before she grew truly nervous. She went down two long hallways, through a formal sitting room with a grand piano and a set of brocade furniture, and past a library with walls of books and matching cherry wood desks on either end.

Eventually, she found herself in a breezeway that connected the main house with some exterior building. Aware that she was now hopelessly, completely lost, Kaia’s curiosity nonetheless compelled her to keep exploring. Everything she had seen thus far mirrored her bedroom—it was dustless, sterile, and entirely lacking any sign of human habitation. She tried to imagine a young Garrett growing up there, or for that matter, Garrett’s niece, but could not.

Did they put the child in the basement?

She found a set of double doors that led out to a wide concrete veranda, encircled by a low balustrade. Beyond the patio was thick green grass surrounded by a variety of palms, cypress, and mature oak trees and, beyond that, fields crisscrossed with picket fences. She saw a pair of horses at the edge of one field, but the rest of the fields were empty. Pristine. Everything was carefully manicured, and she had the feeling that each plant had been specifically chosen to harmonize with the others. The landscaping was beautiful, but in an empty sort of way, as if all the living creatures were holding their breath, waiting to see what would happen next.

Kaia sighed with relief at the relatively cool morning air. She had still not grown accustomed to the way her human body reacted to Miami’s heat and humidity. Though it was only May, stepping outside in the middle of the day left her eyes squinty and her blood rushing to her face. Even the buzz that signaled the arrival of the first mosquito of the day couldn’t convince her to rush inside, where the hum of air conditioning would quickly drown out the hum of dragonflies zipping past her head, apparently headed toward a pond she could see in the distance.

She walked over to a bench positioned under an oak tree with wide, spreading branches. As she started to lower herself to sitting, a wad of moss fell on her head.

She looked up and saw a scrap of beige fabric and heard the giggle of a child.

“Excuse me, is there someone there?” Kaia called.

The giggle came again, and then a voice from somewhere in the branches above. “Shhh. You mustn’t tell Aunt Portia I’m here,” the invisible child whispered.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I doubt I’d be able to find her again.” Kaia leaned closer to the tree and squinted up through the branches. “What are you doing up there? And did you want this back?”

She held up the wad of grey-green moss.

A child’s face emerged through the thick foliage. She must have been six or seven, and she had huge eyes that radiated the same intense blue as Garrett and his grandmother. “I’m making a house for a faerie,” she said. “And yes, thank you, I would like that back.”

As Kaia gaped at her, the child emerged from her hiding place just long enough to scamper down the trunk of the tree a few feet, lean out from a low-hanging branch, grab the moss, and disappear back into the leaves.

“A house for a faerie?” Kaia repeated. She couldn’t tell if the child was serious or not, but in her experience, if anyone knew about the Fey, it was the younger humans. They weren’t as good as their adult counterparts at shutting out the things they didn’t want to see. “In a tree? Do faeries like to live in trees?”

“I don’t really know,” the child admitted. “My friend Miranda got a book for her birthday with pictures of faeries hanging around flowers, so I think they like flowers better than trees. Aunt Portia wouldn’t let me make a house for faeries in her flower garden, so I thought I’d make one up here. My name’s Alexandra, but all my friends call me Lexi. What’s your name?”

“Kaia.” She studied the trunk of the tree and the small, black-booted leg that was now visible, propped against it. She directed her voice toward where she supposed the child’s head would be. “What are you making the faerie house out of?”

“Moss and sticks—you know, the usual sorts of things. I’ve got some flowers in it, too,” the child’s voice continued as she disappeared from view. “And I made a little bed out of leaves and grass. Do you think they’ll like that?”

Kaia herself would never have lived in a spot frequented by humans, but she supposed some faeries would, or maybe a sprite or a pixie. Humans couldn’t tell the difference between the races. “I’m sure of it.”

The leaves above her head rustled, and a small branch snapped. A moment later one leg, then two, emerged into the space next to Kaia. The child swung from a branch about five feet off the ground and dropped with a thud. She wore snug riding breeches, a black hat, and a white button-down, long-sleeved shirt. When she straightened, she studied Kaia with an intense gaze.

“Do you think fairies get cold at night?” she asked. “Maybe I should make them a blanket.”

“They probably aren’t like humans,” Kaia replied, looking up with a deliberately thoughtful air, as if considering the question. “They probably don’t get cold or hungry the way you or I do.”

The child’s face fell. “I don’t think they’ll like my house at all,” she said sadly. “If they don’t get cold or feel things, why would they need a house?”

“Just because faeries aren’t like people doesn’t mean they don’t like to have a place to live. I expect a faerie would love the house you built, especially because you made it of natural things. Faeries are from the earth, you know, so they like to be surrounded by living things.”

“You know a lot about faeries,” the girl said, her voice filled with respect. “Most grown-ups don’t even believe in faeries.”

“I used to live in a place where they still believed in faeries,” Kaia said. She wanted to keep her tone light, but an unexpected tug of emotion tightened her throat. She cleared it and forced a smile. “A long time ago.”

§

Kaia let Lexi direct her to the breakfast room. They spent the rest of the day together, visiting the stables, watching cartoons, playing with Lexi’s dolls, and reading hundreds of books. After a rest in the air-conditioned house, Lexi insisted they spend almost two hours in the swimming pool before Portia insisted Lexi got bathed and tidied in time for dinner.

By that time, Kaia was exhausted. Sprites had nothing on six-year-old humans.

Kaia and Lexi ate dinner together in the “family” dining room. Portia appeared to criticize Lexi on her table manners and to bark a series of questions to Kaia about what they had done all day. After that she disappeared, remarking that she wished she could spend all day playing with ponies and lounging beside a swimming pool. Kaia wanted to ask if she’d heard from Garrett but decided against it. No sense poking the beast.

After dinner Lexi went off to bed, and there was still no sign of Garrett. Kaia rolled around on the bed in her room, looking at magazines and flipping through a book of poetry she found on an end table, until the sky began to darken and quiet settled over the house. That was when she realized with surprise that it was the first time she’d had a chance to be outside, by herself, in a garden since she’d come to Miami.

Feeling just a little naughty, though she couldn’t say exactly why, Kaia dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and pants, covered any exposed skin with DEET—she’d learned something from her trip to the Everglades—and headed for the breezeway and the garden she’d found earlier that day.

The air was warm, with an intoxicating fragrance of vanilla and almond that seemed to originate from a slightly gangly plant with dark green leaves and small white flowers. Kaia felt a sense of peace steal over her as she settled down amidst the plants. A flowering butterfly bush swayed gently in the breeze above her. Nestled alongside it stood a fire bush with dark red flowers.

Kaia tucked herself into a ball and stared up at the sky, willing her human form to sink into the soil the way her faerie body used to. She breathed deeply, forgetting about Zafira, Garrett, and all the things she was terrified she’d never be able to accomplish, and focused instead on the fragrance, the feeling of the moist air on her skin, and the sounds of life all around her. The scent of sage and the sweet presence of petunias calmed her, and for a time, she slipped into a deep meditative state.

She could have been there for hours, she really didn’t know, but her next conscious thought was that the sound of the saxophone made her feel like she was back in Faeria.

The saxophone? She straightened and turned her head to locate the origin of the sound. Not more than twenty feet away, on a concrete bench, sat Garrett, playing softly on a brass instrument that glowed in the reflected light of the house. The sound was smooth and mournful, wrapping itself around Kaia like the air and the breeze and settling in her stomach like a glass of rich red wine.

The sound was haunting, and if she closed her eyes, she could imagine she was surrounded by magic. The music touched her soul, fitting perfectly alongside the creak of the frogs and the hum of the dragonflies. Kaia was captivated. She sat and listened until he stopped and laid the instrument in his lap. Feeling like she had eavesdropped on a private conversation, Kaia cleared her throat.

He leaned forward, clearly struggling to make out her face in the dim light. “Kaia? Is that you? What the hell are you doing down there?”

She got to her feet reluctantly, dusting off her bottom and stretching up to the sky for a second before meeting his gaze. “I was just sitting.”

“In the dirt?” he said incredulously. “For how long?”

She shrugged. “A while. I don’t really know.”

He shook his head. “Portia can drive people to all sorts of strange behaviors, but I haven’t seen this one before.”

“It’s the garden,” she said. Kaia brushed her hand against the velvety petals of the flowering fire bush. “I wanted to be in the garden. It’s beautiful. I don’t get to spend much time outdoors anymore, especially not someplace like this.”

He eyed her for a moment, and patted the seat beside him. His face revealed none of his emotions. “I talked to Rachel this afternoon.”

Kaia gulped. “About what?”

“You.” His eyes glittered. “I’m not sure what you’ve done to her, but she’s turned into quite a fan. She didn’t like the idea of me looking into your background.”

Kaia closed her eyes and held her body rigid. “You talked to her about my… my background?”

“You’re her employee. I figured she ought to be involved.”

“What did you say, exactly?” Kaia could feel the iron grip of Zafira’s hand closing around her throat. If Garrett turned Rachel against her, she had no hope. None at all.

“I told her that when I’d met you before, you seemed to be living a different sort of life. I told her if I were her, I’d be very careful to find out as much as I could about your past.”

Kaia cringed at his open mistrust of her. “And?”

“She told me to butt out.”

Kaia opened her eyes and was shocked to find that Garrett now had a smile lurking in the corner of his mouth. “That sounds like Rachel.”

“She also told me that you had a perfectly good driver’s license, no criminal record, and were getting the rest of your documents for her but it could be some time before you had copies. All of which, she said, was none of my business.”

“I see. And did you agree with her assessment?” Kaia asked carefully.

“Not particularly,” Garrett said with a lazy shake of the head. “But Rachel can be very determined. I told her I’d back off on my investigation. For now.”

“Of course. For now.” They sat in silence. Kaia’s head spun with relief, though she wondered how long she’d have before his patience ran out. She gestured toward his sax. “So you still play? I thought you gave it up when you were younger.”

“I don’t really play,” he said. “Not for anyone to hear.”

She wrinkled her forehead in confusion. “Why not? You’re incredible.”

“Hardly. I’ve always had more style than technique. I stopped taking lessons in high school and it’s been downhill ever since. No reason to let anyone hear that. Besides, it drives Portia nuts.” He flashed a grin. “Although on second thought, that might be a darn good reason to do it more.”

Kaia watched as he stared into the darkness, the grin slowly fading from his face, his long fingers still moving on the keys. She thought about how Rachel had said Portia forbade him from taking lessons, and wondered at the pain that must have caused.

“Why do you work for Portia?” she asked. Any other time, she had the feeling he wouldn’t have answered her. Tonight, some of the restraint that normally characterized Garrett seemed to have loosened. Maybe it was the sax. Or the garden. Whatever it was, Kaia intended to exploit it. “I mean, if she drives you so crazy, why stay in Miami at all?”

Garrett flexed his fingers, picked up the instrument, and played a few more notes before looking at Kaia again, a rueful twist to his brows. “I didn’t plan to. I thought I would leave right after college. But then Max got his wife pregnant, and Portia sucked him into the business as a vice president. Poor kid was in over his head from the start. I took a job in the commercial real estate department to keep an eye on him, but I swore I’d never take over.” He gave her a grim smile. “I’ll never give her the satisfaction.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “You’re working a job you hate just to keep an eye on your brother?”

“I never said I hated the job.”

“You said—” She realized he had apparently lost interest in their conversation and was examining her face with a new intensity.

“I don’t know quite what to make of you,” he said. “I expected you to be lying in a bubble bath, not under a plant getting bitten by mosquitoes.”

“I used a lot of DEET,” she replied, unsure how to respond.

He chuckled. “Smart girl.”

Suddenly, there was a sound like the shriek of a child, but louder, with more intensity and strength. It started low and rang out and echoed across the garden. Kaia jumped, her hand coming to rest on Garrett’s arm. “What’s that? Is that Lexi?”

He caught her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “It’s only a peacock. Nothing to worry about. Portia keeps them to catch snakes.”

Her sudden lurch of the heart slowed, only to be replaced by a new sensation, a new rush of blood to the surface of her skin where his warm fingers brushed against hers.

“It’s a terrible sound,” she whispered, her throat tightening.

He frowned in the direction of the invisible peacock. “I’ve always hated them. When I was a kid, I would wake up terrified by their screaming. In Chicago, where I lived before I came to the Manor, if you heard something screaming at night, it wasn’t a peacock.”

Kaia wrapped her fingers more tightly around his, struck by the moment of bleakness, the hint of vulnerability she had never seen in him before. Like lightning it disappeared, replaced by a cool sensuality. He tugged her gently forward until she tumbled, off-balance, into his chest.

Kaia sucked in a breath. Every time she thought she had her feet under her, Garrett knocked her off balance. He was like a shapeshifter in human form; there was so much lurking underneath his surface, but she had no idea how to access it, much less control it. She forced herself to relax, to lean into him, but her heart was thumping fast and she could no longer control her physical responses. She didn’t know if the feeling in her stomach was panic or desire, but she suspected it was both.

“I can feel your heart beating,” he said, his voice a low rumble in his chest. “What are you scared of, Kaia?”

What could she say?

I don’t know?

You?

She watched a muscle flex in his cheek and felt the steady beat of his heart under her hands. She pressed the palm of her hand against his chest as she came to her feet, her knees unstable.

“I should go,” she said, even though she knew she should stay. She should try to use this moment to seduce him, to tempt him with her body, imperfect as it was, but she didn’t know how to control this feeling inside of her. She hadn’t expected to find him here, in the garden, and she hadn’t expected to feel so raw and vulnerable.

Tomorrow would be better, she promised herself. She would be in control tomorrow.

He turned away and picked up the sax, a low chuckle floating over his shoulder. A long, haunting note filled the still garden.

Kaia fled.

§

Garrett felt it the moment she disappeared. He forced himself to keep playing and to ignore the way the loss of her presence left him feeling somehow bereft. As if he had missed an opportunity he might never get again.

He hadn’t wanted to see her tonight. He wasn’t feeling like himself—he never did when he was at the Manor. Portia drove him to behave in odd ways, like pulling out his sax when he knew he should just have a drink and go to bed. And to see Kaia in the garden, to see her appear from under the plants like some kind of magical, woodland creature… well, it was obvious he’d been working too long. He was starting to lose his mind.

He blamed it on the need, this damn need that continued to pulse through him with a steady, thrumming beat, poisoning his mind and making it impossible to think clearly. He wanted her. Badly. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her all day, and the need to hold her, to feel her warm and pliant in his arms, had simply been too much. If she hadn’t pushed him away his body would have taken over and all his good intentions would have been for naught.

He needed distance. He needed to go to work tomorrow and forget about her. Forget about those incredible eyes, the long, smooth column of her neck, and the way it had felt when he buried himself inside her two weeks ago at the Avalon.

He would be in control tomorrow. And when he looked at her he wouldn’t have to battle this overwhelming need to pull her into his arm and kiss her senseless.

Yes, tomorrow would be better.

Chapter Eighteen

“Can we go find the faerie ring now, Kaia?” Lexi bounced up and down on a chaise longue beside the pool. The hot blue skies of morning had been covered by the usual afternoon storm clouds, providing some respite from the driving heat. A striped towel, wrapped around Lexi’s body sarong-style, covered her swimsuit. “Linda said if you go during the full moon, you can see the faeries dance. My dad won’t let me go at night so we should go now, don’t you think?”

Kaia looked around to ensure they were alone. Lexi had been talking all day about a little ring of mushrooms on the south side of the pond. She said Portia kept trying to destroy it, but the mushrooms kept growing back, sometimes by the very next day. Lexi had overheard a couple of the maids talking about it. They called it a faerie ring.

Kaia had been trying to distract Lexi, but the girl was relentless. Meanwhile, Kaia hadn’t seen Garrett all day. Though it was Saturday, Portia had loftily informed her at breakfast that Garrett was a busy man and had to work over the weekend. It was uncanny—at Good Sam, Kaia had been in a tiny room, but surrounded by masses of humanity. Here at the Manor she was in the midst of endless green, open spaces, but they were empty. Other than Lexi and the occasional maid, the Manor was frighteningly devoid of life.

“Faerie rings aren’t something to play with,” she said, her voice serious. “They’re real things—dangerous things.” Lexi’s eyes got big as Kaia continued, “A real faerie ring can take you to the land of the Fey, Lexi, and to Faeria.”

Lexi clapped her hands and squealed. “What’s that? What’s the Fey? What’s Faeria?”

“Faeries are a kind of Fey creature. There are lots of other Fey creatures, too—sprites, imps, pixies—but faeries are the most important. Faeria is like their castle, where their queen, Zafira, lives.”

“I want to see the faeries, Kaia. Can’t I go to Faeria?”

“No, honey,” Kaia said seriously. She didn’t know if a real faerie ring existed somewhere at the Manor—they were extremely rare, after all, and even the Fey didn’t know where they were all located—but if it did, she could not bear to think of little Lexi getting trapped in it.

Ordinarily, Kaia wouldn’t worry about whether a human child would wander into a faerie ring. But Kaia had never had an opportunity to get to know a human child before. Surprisingly, the creatures she thought were just smaller adults seemed more like an endearing species of their own. Lexi had an innocence Kaia had never seen before in a human—or in a faerie, for that matter. Even in the face of Portia’s disapproval, she was open and loving. She lived in a state of constantly changing emotions, her smile dropping like a rock when Garrett failed to appear at breakfast, and lighting up like a happy imp when Kaia offered her hand and walked with her to the stable to visit her pony, Sugar.

“Faeria is no place for humans. There are dakini and boggles and dark creatures who live there and can do terrible things to people. And once you’re in Faeria, only the Queen of the Faeries can release you. ”

“Oh.” Lexi sat still for a moment. “I didn’t know that. Are faeries mean, Kaia?”

“No, they aren’t mean. They just don’t like humans very much.”

“Why not?”

Kaia looked at the child, with her earnest face and bright blue eyes, so much like her uncle’s. “A long time ago, people tried to control the faeries and make them their servants. A human king made a fool out of the faerie queen and hurt her feelings. People started building cities, cutting down forests, and putting houses on top of the places where the faeries used to live. All of that made the faeries sad. Now they don’t like it if you go into their world because it’s all they have left.”

“I didn’t know people hurt the faeries.” Lexi wrinkled her brow. “Can we just tell them we’re sorry?”

Kaia smiled. “I wish it worked that way.”

“Mrs. Burns says it’s important to tell people when you’re sorry. And it’s important to forgive someone when they say they’re sorry.”

“Who’s Mrs. Burns?”

“My old preschool teacher. She said sorry’s a very important word. When I spilled grape juice on Peter’s head because he took my ball, she made me say I was sorry to him, and she made him say, ‘I accept your apology.’”

“Mrs. Burns sounds very smart,” said Kaia, smiling at the girl’s serious tone.

“She doesn’t know about faeries. Neither does Aunt Portia or Uncle Garrett.”

“Well, they’re in charge here, Lexi. I’m just a guest. What they say goes.” Kaia spoke firmly, relieved to have an excuse to change the subject. She was on shaky ground saying as much to Lexi as she had. Zafira didn’t actually forbid the Handmaids from telling humans the truth about the Fey, but she didn’t encourage it, either.

A flash of khaki at the entrance to the pool deck alerted her to Garrett’s presence. The sight of his spare, broad-shouldered form sent a familiar shiver of nervous anticipation across her spine. She glanced nervously at her white string bikini—the only one she could find in the pool room—and the all-too-human body beneath it. She could only hope that Garrett would find some beauty in her long legs and narrow waist now that her lush curves had gone the way of her wings.

“Uncle Garrett!” Lexi dropped her towel and launched herself at him with a happy squeal. He threw her up in the air and caught her in a hug. “You’re back!”

“I decided to make an early day of it. What are you girls up to?” Garrett asked, setting Lexi down onto the chair beside Kaia.

“We were talking about faeries,” Lexi said. “Kaia knows tons about them, and they have a queen named Zafira, and there’s a faerie ring here at the Manor and we’re going to find it!”

“Lexi,” Garrett cut off her excited babble with a stern voice. “You know Portia doesn’t like it when you talk about faeries.”

“I know,” Lexi said, eyes downcast. “She says they aren’t real, and I shouldn’t believe in them or talk about them.”

Kaia cringed, imagining Portia saying the same sorts of things to a young, impressionable Garrett. In that moment, she saw a window into Garrett’s past and it left her with a deep well of anger for Portia.

He nodded. “That’s right. And the same goes for me. You mustn’t listen to those stories. There are no such thing as faeries, or faerie rings.”

“Mary said she saw a faerie ring by the pond,” Lexi said stubbornly. “She said Portia keeps trying to get rid of it, but it keeps coming back.”

Garrett rolled his eyes. “It’s just a bunch of mushrooms. You know how Portia is about anything that grows without her permission. There’s nothing magic about it.”

“I want to see it!” Lexi stamped her foot.

Garrett bent down, putting his hands on Lexi’s shoulders. “You’re not allowed near the pond. There are gators in there, and they aren’t friendly. You girls forget all about this faerie ring, all right?” He shot Kaia a serious look, and she had the idea that this wasn’t a joking matter. He turned back to Lexi. “Listen, I’ve finished my work for the day. What do you say we go get some ice cream?”

Lexi jumped up and erupted into a cheer. “Kaia, too? Is Kaia coming, too?”

Garrett’s jaw tightened. “I’m sure Kaia has other things she needs to do.”

Lexi clasped her hands together and turned to Kaia. “Oh, won’t you come? Please?” she implored.

Kaia backed away. The thought of imposing herself on Garrett and Lexi left a bad taste in her mouth. “No. You go along. I need to take a shower.”

Garrett did not argue, but watched Kaia speculatively. “Lexi, why don’t you run and change before you go? You can come find me in the front hall when you’re ready.”

Lexi shrieked a happy assent and bounced off. Garrett watched her go and turned back to Kaia. He looked pointedly at her bikini-clad figure. “I think you’re burning.”

Kaia adjusted the string around her neck. She’d layered the sunscreen on that morning, and again after lunch, but after hours in the pool her shoulders and chest were starting to turn a delicate shade of pink.

“Thanks,” she muttered, snatching her T-shirt from the back of her chair.

“Portia doesn’t like make-believe,” Garrett said, as she tugged her T-shirt over her shoulders.

“I see.”

“She thinks it’s akin to lying. Portia doesn’t like to be lied to.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kaia asked, her lips tightening.

“Nothing,” he said. “I just thought you should know. She isn’t a pleasant enemy to have.”

“Thanks for the warning,” she snapped. “I’ll try to remember that.”

She picked up her bottle of sunscreen and towel and turned toward the house.

He sighed. “You might as well come for ice cream.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Lexi wants you there,” he said.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the first cool breeze of the day stirred the hair around Kaia’s face. She turned toward it and closed her eyes. “You don’t, and Lexi will figure that out. She’s a child, not an idiot. And frankly, I don’t have the stomach for being humiliated in front of her.”

She should have thrown herself at him and begged him to take her with them, but she was hot and tired. After their conversation the night before she had hoped maybe some barriers between them had broken down. The fact that they hadn’t left her frustrated and angry.

The smile froze on his face. “I never said I didn’t want you to come, and I certainly had no intention of humiliating you in front of her.”

She pushed past him, heading for the back door of the pool enclosure. “Whatever.”

He grabbed her arm, staring down into her face with an odd, tight expression. “How long were you at the shelter?”

She shook her head, confused. “What?”

“The shelter. How long were you at the shelter?”

“About a week.”

“And before that?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“What was your husband’s name? Where were you married? Why were you in Miami that weekend?” The questions flew at her in quick succession. “There was no plant conference. I checked.”

A nervous, edgy feeling sprouted in her stomach. “I thought you promised Rachel you’d stay out of it.”

“I said I wouldn’t send out my man. I never said I wouldn’t ask questions.”

Kaia tightened her towel around her waist and thought about what the imp had said about the information she should and shouldn’t give. “I did a lot of traveling after Charlie died. I made up the story about the conference because I didn’t want to talk about what was really going on. We lived in Arkansas.” She figured he’d get that much information from Rachel, at least. “I don’t owe you any more explanations.”

“You can’t expect to tell me a story like that and not have me ask questions.”

“Well, you can’t expect me to answer questions like that just because you don’t trust me. It’s my life, and if you don’t believe me, it’s your business.”

He sighed impatiently. “I’m not exactly asking for a blood oath. Just some basic information. Where you were born. Your real name. When you were married. If you’re telling the truth, I’ll leave you alone.”

A wave of despair passed over her. He wasn’t going to let go of this. He didn’t trust her and never would. How could she capture his heart if he was convinced she was a liar? “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

“I need to know that you won’t lie to Rachel or Ted. They’re good people, and I can’t let you hurt them.”

“I just want to start over,” she said, feeling the irony in the dual truth of her words, as Kaia the Faerie’s need for redemption intersected with Kaia the Human’s need for rebirth. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

The breeze came again and she leaned into it, pressing the backs of her hands against her hot cheeks. More lies, of course. Hurting him was exactly what she had to do. She had no choice. She answered to Zafira, and Zafira had commanded it. If she wanted to come out of this horrible experience with her wings intact, she had to press on.

“Tell me the truth. Tell me the truth and I’ll leave you alone.”

“I already did,” she said stubbornly.

He opened his mouth as if to say more, but closed it again and gave a short, tight shake of his head. “Fine,” he said. “You’re expected at dinner. Don’t be late.”

§

“She is playing a dangerous game.”

“We will have her wings before long.”

Kaia blinked and jerked to sitting, pulling the thin cotton blanket over her breasts. Less than an hour before, she’d left Garrett and gone to her room to sleep off the long day, drawing the blinds tightly against the afternoon mix of sun and clouds. Now, a trio of dark forms clustered in the corner of the room, three shadows illuminated against the blank walls.

“Who’s there?” she called, though she knew the answer.

“You cannot escape us,” the voices hissed in unison. “We watch you no matter where you go.”

Damp, cold air rolled off them in waves, sending goose bumps dancing across Kaia’s exposed skin. She steadied herself and called out confidently, “I am doing as Zafira commanded. I have more than three weeks left. You have no reason to be here.”

As her vision adjusted to the light, the dim outline of faces shrouded by the black hoods came into view. She had never been this close before, and could now see the skeletal outlines of pointed chins and prominent cheekbones, colorless flesh, and gleaming lights where eyes should have been. Their hands were exposed as well, bony fingers with pale skin stretched taut.

“We watch. We wait,” the Black Ladies sang, violence inherent in the clashing tones of their three intertwined voices. “We will return for you, Kaia Verde. Do not try to escape us.”

Their outlines faded slowly. When they were gone Kaia threw the blanket over her head and curled into a ball. She imagined pulling her wings around her like a cape and stroking the delicate, feathery tips. And she cried for all that she feared would never be hers again.

§

Sunday dinner at the Manor, Kaia discovered, was surprisingly formal—perhaps because it was the first night that Garrett would be joining them. Someone had actually gone through her belongings, decided she lacked sufficiently respectable clothing, and produced a dress for her to wear for the occasion. The fabric was a lovely teal-green chiffon that cascaded in tiers from her waist to her knees and floated around her upper arms in two loose waves. It was the nicest garment she’d held since she re-entered the human world, and for a moment she sat on her bed in the sanatorium and stroked the soft fabric in mute appreciation. She’d worn fancier dresses, to be sure, but it was a far cry from the ill-fitting T-shirts and worn jeans she’d scrounged from bins at Good Sam.

She took special care with her appearance, styling her hair with the curling iron that had been left for her in the bathroom and applying a light coat of mascara as she’d been practicing ever since Rachel had invited her over for dinner.

She wasn’t sure what to do about the angry words she’d exchanged with Garrett. Clearly, she’d have to find some way to get him over his distrust, and yelling at him wasn’t going to do it. Wearing a beautiful new dress and looking her best certainly couldn’t hurt.

Once she was dressed, she stared at herself in the mirror for a few minutes and tried to think about seduction. She tried to remember what it felt like to be a faerie, when she’d been so sure of her power to overwhelm a man with lust.

It didn’t feel the same.

She sighed and pushed her hair back behind her ears. She’d simply have to find a new path.

Portia and Lexi were already standing beside the massive oak dining table when she arrived. Portia nodded stiffly. She wore a fitted ivory dress and matching jacket, her hair caught in its usual sleek chignon without a strand out of place.

Lexi brightened when she saw Kaia. “I got a peppermint sundae, Kaia. Do you like peppermint ice cream? You should come with us next time. Uncle Garrett said he didn’t think you liked ice cream. Is that true?”

“Oh, no, I do like ice cream,” Kaia said. “But I don’t think I’ve ever had peppermint ice cream.”

Lexi looked appalled. “Never had peppermint?”

“Now that is a crime.” Garrett entered the room with a lazy smile. He wore khaki trousers and a navy jacket. His hair rumpled over his forehead in a loose blond wave. “We’ll have to take you when we go tomorrow.”

“Garrett, why did you take Lexi out for ice cream? You know you spoil her dinner if you give her a treat after five.” Portia pursed her lips with disapproval.

“Portia.” Garrett acknowledged her with a nod of his head and sank down at the end of the table. He ignored her comment completely. “Shall we eat?”

Portia gave a long-suffering sigh and sat down at Garrett’s right. Lexi sat on his other side.

“Kaia, sit next to me,” Lexi called, patting the table next to her.

“Lexi,” Portia reproved. “Modulate your voice.”

Kaia wasn’t sure if she was allowed to do as Lexi requested, but the girl looked so crestfallen at Portia’s rebuke, she didn’t really care. She sat beside the girl and gave her a friendly smile. “I’d love to sit next to you, Lexi. Maybe you can tell me more about peppermint ice cream. Does it taste like those peppermint candies? The red and white swirly ones?”

“Oh, it’s pink and has little pieces of candy in it,” Lexi explained. “It’s even better than hard candies, though. Mr. Netti doesn’t like ice cream. He says it’s too sweet. I like anything sweet. You can ask my dad.”

Before she managed to get herself into further trouble with Portia, Kaia gently nudged the girl’s knee and made a point of delicately removing her napkin from the table and placing it over her lap. Lexi’s eyes widened, and she copied Kaia’s moves precisely. She shot a nervous glance at her great-grandmother, who was giving some instructions to a servant, and mouthed “thanks” at Kaia.

Kaia gave her a wink and reached for her glass of water. When she looked up a moment later, she caught Garrett’s eye and realized he was watching her. Heat stole into her cheeks and she looked away, unsure exactly what she was so embarrassed about except that for some reason, any time Garrett looked at her with that square jaw and those firm lips, she seemed to flush.

The meal was not unlike many Kaia had eaten at four-star restaurants. Portia’s staff served fine wine, soup and salad, and a main course of filet mignon, twice-baked potato, and asparagus. The food seemed, however, completely inappropriate for a child. Lexi picked at her food and tried not to clink her silverware on her plate, wincing every time she did and shooting horrified looks at Portia.

For the most part, Portia ignored everyone but Garrett, asking him questions about his business activities, the status of various real estate deals, and charity activities they seemed to work on together. He put her off with clipped, monosyllabic responses.

Once Lexi had been dismissed from the table, Portia turned her growing irritation on Kaia.

“So, Miss Verde,” she snapped, sipping from a cup of coffee, “where are you from?”

Kaia cleared her throat. Portia’s eyes were a particularly intimidating shade of blue when she was irritated. Which, Kaia was rapidly discovering, was most of the time.

She gave her standard response. “I moved around a lot.”

“Where, exactly?” Portia demanded. “Your accent is very unusual.”

Kaia thought about what she had said on the subject already to Garrett and what she could actually defend. She knew England, because she had spent the first decade of her life there before she was recalled to Faeria, and she had visited Mina’s old home in Ireland on a number of occasions. Other than that, she had spent most of her time studying and seducing men in the United States and traveling from Gate to Gate. She’d been alive for more than a hundred human years, but other than her first ten in England, she’d never stayed in one place for more than a month.

“England,” she said slowly. “Ireland, California, Texas, New York, Arkansas.”

“Goodness. Why did you move so much?”

“My dad was in the army.” The story came easily now, and she silently thanked Jenny for giving her the idea.

Garrett raised his eyebrows. “Really? I hadn’t realized we were sending troops to Ireland these days. Or New York for that matter.”

Kaia realized too late she had no idea where there might be military bases, or where her imaginary father might have been stationed. Panicked, she sipped from her cup of coffee and forced a casual smile. “Oh, my parents sent me to school in England when my dad was stationed abroad. I traveled from there.”

“You lived in England?” Portia pressed. “You don’t sound English.”

“Like I said, I moved around.” Kaia waved a hand in front of her as if she were bored by the topic. “My mom sent me to boarding school when I was young so I would have some stability in my life. For high school I moved back to the States to be with her.”

“Hmmm.” Portia took a delicate sip of her wine. “I assume you are unmarried?”

“My husband passed away about six weeks ago.”

“Really?” Portia drew back. “How long were you married?”

“Ten years.”

“No children?”

Kaia squirmed. “No.”

“I see.” Portia sniffed her disapproval. “How old are you?”

Kaia started to sink down in her seat under the weight of the questions. “Twenty-eight.”

“So you married when you were eighteen.” Portia’s expression made it clear what she thought about that choice. “What about college. You did go to college, I assume?”

“No.”

“You worked, then. You must have some job skills.”

“My husband didn’t want me to work.”

“So you have no husband, no children, no job skills, and no education. I suppose it’s a good thing we have Good Samaritan. For people like you.” Portia’s disapproval was so strong, so virulent, Kaia actually considered leaving the table.

Even as shame rose up in her throat, she caught a glimpse of curly hair and the tip of a horn under the sideboard on the far side of the room. Slowly, the imp rose into view, and she realized he was rolling, actually rolling with laughter.

And that did it. She was not some lowly human to be humiliated in front of the imp by a mean old woman who had to fill her days with tormenting her great-granddaughter, pestering her grandson, and interrogating a woman she barely knew about her life’s choices. Kaia was—or someday she would once again be—a Handmaid to the queen. She did not have to grovel at the feet of Portia Jameson.

She raised her chin and let her remembered dignity flow through her. Faeries were not slave to any man, and she was not subject to Portia’s judgment.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I had thought I was a guest in this house. It was my pleasure to do my part and help look after Lexi, but I am not your servant or your child. I am an adult and I expect to be treated with respect. If I am instead to be a creature of scorn, I would be more than happy to leave.”

She set her napkin down on the table and pushed back her chair. Imagining herself walking down the aisle toward Zafira’s throne, she assumed the same regal posture. “Thank you for the place to stay, but I would much rather return to Good Sam than stay here. At least there, I am treated with respect.”

For a moment, there was silence. Kaia turned and walked a few paces to the door. She would have to find some other way to keep Garrett’s attention, she told herself. Even with the Black Ladies breathing down her neck, staying here at the Manor and debasing herself in front of Portia was simply not an option.

Garrett whistled softly. “Portia, I believe you have been put in your place.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, girl,” Portia said. “Don’t be such a goose. I was only asking a few questions.”

Garrett snorted. “Is that your attempt at an apology?”

“She’s staying at our house. I thought I ought to know a little more about her,” Portia said.

“And you were quite successful,” Garrett drawled. “In fact, you’ve gotten more information out of her than I ever managed. However, I must second Kaia’s statement. I brought her here because I assumed she’d be safe. I did not bring her here to be insulted. If anyone is leaving, we both are.”

He strode from the table and took Kaia’s elbow at the door. Kaia quivered at his touch. Could he actually be… defending her?

“Now you’re both being ridiculous,” Portia snapped, coming to her feet. “No one is leaving over a few silly questions.”

Garrett leaned in toward Kaia. “I apologize,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to endure that. We can stay at my place in town.”

Kaia’s heart leapt at the prospect of being alone with him, and then dropped as she thought about Lexi. “I can’t let you do that,” she said. “Lexi needs you here with her. I couldn’t be responsible for taking you away.”

He bowed his head slightly and she thought she saw a glimmer of respect in his eyes. “Are you sure?”

She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure at all. What was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to get this man, this difficult, complex man, to fall in love with her?

Why did being human have to be so damn complicated?

“Of course she’s sure,” Portia boomed. “Now leave her be. No one is going anywhere tonight.”

Chapter Nineteen

They left the dining room a few moments later. Garrett asked Kaia to wait outside while he said something in private to Portia. Kaia didn’t know what he said but suspected, based on the bleak look on his face, that it wasn’t friendly. He walked her back to her room with a grim set to his jaw.

“She is often difficult,” he said. “But rarely openly rude. I honestly would not have brought you here had I known that would happen. I did not intend to humiliate you, Kaia. I hope you know that.”

“Are you sure about that?” Kaia asked.

Garrett sighed. “Actually, no, I’m not. I was angry when you walked out that night, and I honestly don’t know now whether to trust you or not. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but it’s the truth.”

Kaia inclined her head. At least now, they were getting to honesty. “I understand. It’s not easy to trust someone who let you down.”

Garrett gave a short laugh. “Story of my life.”

Before she could ask him what that meant, he continued. “Regardless, I haven’t been very nice to you, and I’m sorry. Hearing Portia ask those questions was a bit of an awakening for me. You didn’t deserve to be treated that way. No one does.”

Garrett pushed open the door to her room and Kaia preceded him inside. He gently closed it behind them. Her eyes flickered instantly to the bed in the corner and back to Garrett.

“He didn’t… ” Garrett began. “Your husband, I mean. He didn’t, er, hurt you, did he?”

Kaia sank down on the soft bedspread. “No. By the end I barely saw him. He lost interest in me. Please, can we not talk about him? I want to forget all of it.”

Garrett sat down beside her and gently brushed her hair back from her face. “Then let’s talk about something different,” he said. “Something other than the past. I know so little about you other than your apparent love of flowers. And I recall thinking you were a bit of an environmental crusader the night we met.”

It was the first time he had mentioned that night without a hint of malice, and Kaia knew that their relationship was finally starting to heal. The tension between them had loosened, like the petals of a rosebud just beginning to open.

“I don’t think I’d call myself a crusader. I do wish there was some way to protect the wild lands. I see animals and plants disappearing from the earth and it breaks my heart. Your company is doing something about that, isn’t it?” She thought about the article she had read about him, on the computer back at Good Sam. “You’re doing things with green building techniques, and using renewable energy at your new condo projects, aren’t you?”

Garrett raised a curious eyebrow. “Been reading about Jameson Enterprises, have you?”

Kaia flushed. “I found one of the Tanforth Tower brochures in the library. It’s really remarkable, with the landscaping, the solar panels, the high-efficiency cooling system… ”

“I admit, it’s a passion of mine,” he said. He grabbed a pillow and placed it under his head, relaxing against the wall behind them. “Miami is already one of the greenest cities in America. I just want to see how far we can take it. And it isn’t as if it’s a charity. Green buildings are incredibly popular right now. I sold every unit in that tower six months before we started construction.”

“Well I’m impressed,” Kaia said. “I’d love to learn more about it someday.”

“I’ll have to give you a tour.” Garrett took her hand in his, gently tugging her toward him. “So, if you like growing things so much do you like to camp? Do a lot of outdoor sports—hiking and whatnot?”

Kaia shuddered at the memory of her experience in the Everglades, with the dark shadows lurking in the waters, the feeling of the dirt under her fingernails, and the carnivorous mosquitoes. “I like to hike, but I’m not sure I’m much of a camper. I think I prefer my outdoor activities from the safety of a nice hotel.”

“A day of scuba followed by a warm shower and hot meal,” he said with satisfaction. “Sounds perfect to me.”

“What about you?” she asked. “Tell me something new. Do you prefer plays or movies?”

“Definitely plays. Never cared much for the big screen.”

“What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”

He stopped to think for a moment. “The Christ of the Abyss.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a statue of Jesus, submerged about twenty-five feet underwater off the coast of Key Largo. It’s a tradition for divers to visit it, whether you’re religious or not. I saw it on one of my first solo dives. When I was down there, it was just so incredibly quiet and peaceful. I don’t know how to describe it. Nothing about my life back home seemed important. I could have stayed there forever, just floating.”

Kaia leaned into his arms. The way he described the statue reminded her of the way she felt when she was lying beside her birth plant, wholly at one with her place in the world and at peace with the life all around her.

They lay together for several long minutes, just listening to each other breathe.

“Tomorrow will be different,” he said finally. “I talked to Portia. I hadn’t realized she had turned you into Lexi’s nanny. You don’t have to work while you’re here. You’re our guest.”

“You don’t have to protect me. I can take care of myself.”

He laughed, a hint of wonder in his voice. “You know, I wouldn’t have thought it before, but the way you looked tonight—well, it was like being in the presence of royalty. I don’t think even Portia would have the guts to insult you now.”

“Let’s not talk about Portia anymore,” Kaia said, her pulse beginning to race. Something in the room was changing. Garrett was studying her again, looking at her face as if he’d never seen her before, examining her eyes, her nose, the curve of her neck, and finally her breasts.

“You’re driving me insane,” he said.

His voice paralyzed her. “What do you mean?”

“You look so different,” he said, half-aloud, half-whisper. “I picture you in my mind and then I see you and it’s different. Makes me wonder what you look like underneath.”

“Underneath?” she repeated, her voice husky.

Before she could react his hands were at her waist, outlining her ribs through the thin material of her dress.

“Underneath,” he repeated, sliding his hand higher, to the top of the neckline, tracing with one long finger the skin hidden below. She froze, hypnotized by the touch of his hand and the intensity of his stare. He found the delicate skin at the base of her neck, lowered his head, and sucked gently. She closed her eyes and surrendered to the riot of sensations running through her body.

“Damn,” he murmured between kisses. “Damn you, Kaia. I hadn’t intended to do this.”

“Don’t stop,” she whispered. “Please don’t stop.”

Before she could catch her breath he had moved her onto her back and was covering her with his length, pressing deep, intimate kisses into her mouth and trailing them down her neck to the V at the top of her dress.

“I don’t think I can,” he said in wonder, moving higher to nibble on her earlobe. “You have no idea how hard I’ve been trying not to touch you.”

She cupped his jaw in her palms and pulled his mouth back to hers for another long, deep kiss. She wanted to dive into his mouth, to suck and lick and thrust against him. He was warm, his cheeks clean-shaven and smooth. She tugged off his jacket.

In an instant, she had forgotten everything she had ever known about Zafira, her punishment, and the impossible task of getting Garrett Jameson to fall in love. All that mattered was his skin, their bodies, and the burning need to bring them together in the most intimate way possible.

“This can’t go anywhere,” he said between breaths. “I don’t want to mislead you.”

She drew his hands along her hips. “The last thing I can handle right now is a relationship. I’ve had enough marriage to last a lifetime. Just touch me, Garrett. That’s all I want.”

“Thank God,” he exhaled. He slid his hand down her side, found the zipper in her dress, and tugged it.

She pushed him back and rolled to her feet, undid the zipper, and slid the thin material over her head.

He sucked in a breath and stared. She knew she was different now. Her waist was narrower, her breasts and hips smaller. A flush covered her cheeks as she wondered what he might be thinking. She was too thin. Not curvy enough. Her nipples were too prominent, her skin too pale. She wore a cotton bra that was slightly too small for her, something she’d found on sale at a discount store the week before. It was her first new piece of clothing, clean and white, but nothing compared to the lacy, silky confection she had worn on the night they met.

Silently, he stood and ran his hands over her shoulders, and cupped her breasts in his hand. She closed her eyes and let out her breath on a ragged sigh.

“Beautiful,” he said. “But different.”

“It’s been a long time since you saw me,” she managed to say, working to collect her thoughts as his fingers traced a lazy path back and forth over her nipples.

“Your body feels different.”

She paused, catching her breath with fear that he’d suddenly become suspicious. “I’ve lost weight.”

He nodded, and she hoped he would believe that was the reason she had changed. She lost all control of her ability to think or reason when he placed his mouth where his fingers had been a moment before. With a quick, indrawn breath, she clutched his shoulders and arched her back. His hands dropped lower, and he cupped her buttocks and pressed her lower body against his. He was hard, erect, and she widened her stance without thinking, wanting him against the source of her growing need.

“Hell, Kaia. How do you do this to me?”

How did she do this to him? Kaia wondered foggily. How did he do this to her? Why was it that when he touched her she lost all hope of control? He cut through hundreds of years of conditioning with a single touch, as if some ancient part of her had come alive that night in the Avalon and now refused to be silenced.

She grabbed his head and pulled it back to her mouth, her hands dipping lower to capture his narrow waist. Her hips thrust against his and she ground their bodies even closer together.

“I want you,” she breathed into his ear. “I need you.”

They collapsed onto the bed. He grabbed her buttocks and tugged her tightly against him. She slowly undid the buttons of his shirt, one by one, luxuriating in the smooth muscles that bunched and flexed as he moved. Then she slid lower, her fingers grazing the top of his slacks.

He pushed her hand aside. “You’re a witch.”

She laughed. He had no idea how far that was from the truth. If she used her magic, the imp would be on her in a second. He was probably watching right now. She couldn’t think about that. Not when there was an urgent, throbbing need pulsing between her legs.

Zafira couldn’t blame her for losing control. She wasn’t a Handmaid anymore—she was banished from Faeria, confined to human form until her task was complete. And this was an important part of her task.

She opened the button and unzipped his fly, running her hands along his hard length as she did. He groaned and pressed his face against her neck.

“Not so fast. This time I want to remember you,” he said. “You won’t fool me again.”

His unknowing challenge left her chilled even as her hips pushed up for greater contact, her nipples begging for attention. Her entire body quivered and trembled like the string of a lute left to vibrate after the queen’s concert.

She could not hope to compete with his mastery tonight. Tonight, Garrett controlled her pleasure, taking her to the brink of release and back, leaving her aching for more and denying her until she was practically weeping for him to go deeper, to take her higher.

From slow, wet strokes of his tongue across her nipples to leisurely kisses on the back of her thighs, he discovered every line of her flesh, and every sinew and muscle. He caressed her naked bottom, tickled the delicate crevasse below the base of her ribs, and tested the weight of each breast.

When he did finally abandon himself to their wild, glorious mating, she wrapped her legs tightly around his waist and clung to him with all her might, urging him to go faster, harder. He exploded and she did, too. Together they left the earth behind and sailed away.

And even without wings, Kaia found she could fly.

Chapter Twenty

Intense sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the study, spilling in golden waves over the huge antique cherry desk Garrett always used when he was at the Manor. It was Monday morning, Memorial Day, so the office was closed and he was working remotely. Since he’d left Kaia’s bed two hours before he’d managed to go for a run and work through a pile of email before Portia appeared, Miami Herald in one hand, porcelain cup of tea in the other. One might think, in a house with over 20,000 square feet and two separate studies, that he might be able to find a little solitude in the morning. Of course, to think that, one must not know Portia.

“She’s not for you. You know that, don’t you?” She handed him the paper and sat down on the couch across from his desk.

Garrett accepted the paper and studied the headlines. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“You heard me.” Portia took a calm sip from her cup of tea. “The girl. She’s not for you.”

Not for him? Nothing could be further from the truth. Since Saturday night, Garrett had been able to think of little beside Kaia and the way her wild abandon brought him to a deeper, more intense level of pleasure than he’d ever experienced before. If it hadn’t been so phenomenally enjoyable, it would have been vaguely discomforting.

“I can’t imagine what you mean,” he said, turning back to his paper and keeping his voice deliberately offhand. “I was worried for her safety. That’s the only reason she’s here.”

“Unless you’re finally ready to run for that Senate seat, stop trying to play politician, boy. You know full well what I’m talking about. You’ve been following her around all weekend like a lovesick puppy. Riding. Swimming. It’s sickening.”

“She’d never ridden before. I wanted to teach her.” He took a calm sip from his coffee, squirming for just a moment at Portia’s use of the word ‘lovesick.’ All he cared about was the sex. That was all.

“She’s never even gone to college,” Portia reminded him. “She’s homeless. She has no job skills. She is not for you.”

Garrett almost laughed at Portia’s vehemence. Of course, he had no intention of having any sort of serious relationship with Kaia. They’d both been clear about that Saturday night. That was what made everything after so sweet—passion, with no threat of complications to follow.

At least, he hoped that was still clear. Sometimes, women had a funny way of forgetting things they’d said just a few days before.

“I thought you wanted me to get married,” he said. “You keep saying it’s time for me to settle down. Maybe she’s the one.”

Portia’s mouth dropped open with horror. “You’re joking.”

Garrett chuckled. “Of course. But I enjoyed seeing the look on your face when I suggested it.”

“Garret, be serious for once. You know this family needs you to settle down and start acting like a grown-up. I can’t run this business forever and Max is barely keeping his head above water. We can’t afford to have you play Peter Pan all your life, and we certainly can’t afford to have you fooling around with some floozy who happens to look good in a bikini.”

“You noticed that?” Garrett smirked. This was not the first time Portia had started on one of her Garrett-must-grow-up rants. Over time, he’d learned to ignore them. “Max does just fine in his job, and you’ve got a whole gaggle of vice presidents to do the rest of the work. You could retire any time you like.”

“Max is a mess and you know it,” Portia retorted. “His wife is a tramp and he’s trying to raise Lexi by himself.”

“Leave Lexi out of this,” he said, the barest hint of a threat in his voice.

“Max wasn’t meant for the CEO job, Garrett. You were. It’s time you stepped up.”

Garrett sighed and put down the paper. When Max had asked him for help six years ago, and Garrett had reluctantly accepted a job at Jameson Enterprises, he found to his chagrin that he actually enjoyed the business. Seemingly without trying, he’d built a thriving real estate practice and turned his sleepy department into a profit center for the company. Portia had been thrilled, but she’d been clear that she wasn’t stopping there. Again and again, she’d tried to lure him into the executive ranks. Garrett had to admit that even without a title, people had come to rely on him and sought his advice on decisions that he had no authority to make. Yet he refused to accept further promotions. On this one point, he was absolutely unmovable. Life might have forced him into the family business, but it would not force him into the role of CEO. Once there, he would never be able to walk away.

Never.

“I’m not taking over for Max. If you want a CEO, you’ll have to make do with him. Besides, I thought we were talking about Kaia. Remind me what Max has to do with any of this?”

She practically hissed through her teeth. “If you aren’t going to do your duty to me and to this family than at least you can give Max a little security. He needs to know you aren’t going to throw it all away because you’ve suddenly become bored, or found something more interesting, or decided to take up with some ragtag woman. He needs stability, Garrett. We all do. And we won’t get it if you insist on taking up with her.”

“I fail to see how my sleeping with Kaia is going to bring down the mighty Jameson empire,” Garrett said.

“Your ‘sleeping with Kaia,’ as you so elegantly put it, is simply the start, Garrett. She’s beneath you. She can’t accompany you anywhere. How do you expect people to take you seriously if they see you with her? You need someone like Elizabeth Lovell or Sara Gentry. Girls with breeding. That’s how you’ll succeed.”

Garrett tapped his chin, feigning an air of thoughtfulness. “The funny thing is I don’t have breeding,” he said. “My mother was knocked up when she was sixteen. I certainly never went to Harvard Law School like Sara Gentry. And you were cleaning toilets in a hotel until you met my grandfather. I’m nothing more than a mongrel with money, and you know it.”

Portia gasped. “That’s ridiculous. You’re a Jameson, son of one of the finest families in Miami. Not a mongrel.”

“Where’s my mother, then? If we’re such a fine family, why did I spend the first eight years of my life living on free school lunches and charities like Good Sam?”

Portia stiffened in her seat. “The past is over and done. You aren’t part of that anymore. You’re different. You and your mother are worlds apart.”

“Of course.” He snapped the paper open in front of his face.

“You didn’t want to see her any more than I did,” she reminded him.

“She abandoned her children. She disappeared from our lives for ten years without a word. What was I going to do, welcome her back with open arms?”

“Exactly my point,” Portia agreed. “She’s not worthy of you. She never was.”

Garrett stopped. There was a fleeting, almost nervous look in her eyes that puzzled him. They never talked about his mother. Once, as a child, he’d asked if she was ever coming back for him, and Portia had simply stared at him with a cold, dark look and said no. He’d never asked again. But something in her was off today. She was trying to act as if everything was business as usual, but something had upset her. Kaia, perhaps. Portia wouldn’t like having been set back a few notches.

Garrett lowered the newspaper. “I have no intention of getting married to anyone at all and certainly not to our dear Ms. Verde. That, at least, should ease some of your fears. I am also not going to take over as CEO of your precious Jameson Enterprises. Now, unless you’d like me to provide some very intimate details about exactly what I do plan to do with Ms. Verde, I suggest you drop this conversation immediately. Agreed?”

Portia huffed. “Agreed.”

“I thought so.”

§

Rachel hit the gas on her 1995 Toyota Corolla and pulled onto the entrance ramp to the highway, painfully aware that her little blue car’s ‘get up and go’ got up and went a few years back. Despite the fact that it was early afternoon on a Tuesday, an endless line of traffic stretched out in front and behind her. Miami didn’t wait until rush hour to get crowded, and Rachel knew she was relying, as she always did, on the kindness of strangers for someone to let her onto the highway. She would get up to speed eventually, but it would take a while. Right now, the best she could do was forty, and that was pushing it.

She had a load of gardenias in the back for a dinner party out in Horse Country, and the heady fragrance exacerbated the headache she’d had ever since her conversation with Ted Friday night.

To marry, or not to marry. That was the question.

A question she had no idea how to answer. If she married Ted, she would destroy their relationship. If she didn’t marry him, she would lose him forever.

“Stupid car.” She slammed her fist down on the steering wheel as the speedometer refused to creep above forty-five. Horns blared as she attempted to merge from the entrance ramp into a lane of traffic, and she winced as cars zipped past, swerving to avoid her.

“Learn how to drive!” A man swore at her, passing by with his windows down and middle finger raised over the top of his car.

“Go f- yourself!” Rachel yelled back, not caring that her windows weren’t automatic and there was no way she could roll them down fast enough to yell out. The only thing to hear her swear was the box of gardenias.

Basically, her car sucked and her love life sucked more. On the positive side, she had air conditioning. With the weather hovering around ninety-five degrees and counting, that was nothing to sneeze at.

And she had Kaia. Her new assistant had shown up for work that morning in Garrett’s car, looking far less disheveled and sweaty than she usually did after her hour-long bus commute. Rachel was, of course, dying to know why Garrett had driven Kaia to work. She was far too polite to ask, but the private little smile and the lilt to Kaia’s voice said volumes. Something was going on.

Rachel allowed herself a smug grin. She liked to believe she had something to do with that, but she could hardly take all the credit. Most of the credit, perhaps, but not all.

She glanced into the rearview mirror and steeled herself to take a full lane of traffic, even though her car was bucking and sputtering at forty-nine miles per hour. In the corner of her eye, a half a mile or so behind her, she saw a red sports car zooming between lanes. As the car got closer, she saw that the driver was also talking on a cell phone, and there was a woman in the seat next to him, gesturing with her hands as if the two were having a fight.

Rachel sighed. She hated sports car drivers almost as much as she hated weddings where they asked her to decorate with wildflowers because they thought it would be cheap and natural, and then got irritated when they discovered real flowers wilted if they weren’t in vases and dropped pollen on bridal gowns.

Ted would never drive a sports car. Ted was gentle and kind. Ted understood that women didn’t need to be bullied to be loved. He understood that you could buy groceries, cook dinner, do laundry, and still be a man.

Though there were times when she wished he wasn’t quite so sweet. His sweetness was going to kill their relationship, in the end.

“I hope you get a ticket, you bastard,” Rachel muttered. She looked in the rearview again. The red sports car had to have been going at least ninety, and it was swerving wildly between lanes. In one quick motion, the driver darted across three lanes of traffic, from the far left lane to right behind her, and started to merge back into the middle lane to duck around a slower-moving SUV.

Rachel gasped as she watched a disaster unfold behind her. The SUV driver sped up just as the red car started to change lanes. The sports car tried to pull in back behind Rachel, but by that point she was going too slowly and he was going too fast, and it was too late. They collided with a grinding clash of metal. All Rachel felt was the sensation of the wheel being ripped from her hands. Her body lurched forward into the seat belt before everything went black.

§

“Thanks for coming by, Mr. Etherly,” Kaia said, handing the elderly man his single red rose. “You tell Mrs. Etherly happy anniversary for me.”

“I will, and maybe I’ll bring her back next week, dear. She’d like to meet someone who loves flowers as much as she does.”

“I’ll look forward to it.” Kaia ran around and opened the door for the wizened man, who leaned heavily over his cane as he shuffled out of the store. A wave of hot, humid air hit her like a wall, and Kaia pulled the door closed as quickly as she could behind him.

She still couldn’t quite believe that there were humans like Mr. Etherly, who had been buying his wife a single red rose every year for seventy years. Just a week ago, she would have sworn that marriage was a farce and men couldn’t ever remain faithful to a woman, or love one woman all their lives.

But then she’d met Mr. Etherly, and before him, Mr. Blaustein, who asked her to make a bouquet for his wife’s funeral. Mrs. Blaustein had died of cancer at the age of sixty-five. They’d married in their twenties, and Kaia had never seen a man so devastated by grief. She didn’t know anything about their relationship—Mr. Blaustein could have cheated on his wife hundreds of times—but she doubted it. He’d loved her deeply. It was evident in every line of his face and every bone of his body. He’d known exactly what flowers she’d wanted: a simple mix of lavender roses, phlox, and sweet peas. He said the flowers were just like her—gentle, soft, and elegant.

Kaia almost wondered if Zafira had placed on her some kind of curse, which was making her care more and more about humans even as she was being forced to scheme and plot ways to use their capacity to love against them.

Garrett’s weakness, Kaia had realized, was his niece, Lexi. He was unguarded and relaxed with his niece in a way that he wasn’t with anyone else. There was also Garrett’s relationship with Portia. On the one hand, he joked about her being a dragon, a cruel creature who tormented his niece and made her life miserable while she was at the Manor. On the other hand, he was still in Miami, and still working in the family business despite the obvious fact that he was an adult now, as was his brother, Max, who he claimed to be protecting. And though Garrett complained about Portia, he also seemed to take a strange sort of pleasure when they sparred.

If she didn’t know better, she’d say Garrett loved his dragon of a grandmother, though he’d never admit it, maybe not even to himself.

As if Garrett had known she was thinking about him, the bell at the door of Rachel’s Roses tinkled and he walked in, his expression unusually somber.

Though he’d dropped her off less than eight hours before, her pulse leapt at the sight of him, tall and lean in a pair of pinstripe pants and tailored blue shirt that made his eyes gleam. He still made her shiver every time she saw him. If anything, sleeping with him for the past two nights had only made it worse.

It was early, about four-thirty, and he’d said he wouldn’t pick her up until six-thirty or seven. That was about as far into the future as they’d planned that morning. Max was back in town the following night, so Lexi could rejoin her father. There was no reason for Garrett to stay at the Manor beyond tomorrow. Kaia had no idea what that meant for her future with him, but guessed it wasn’t good.

“Kaia, I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

She looked into Garrett’s eyes and saw deep lines at the corners and a heaviness to their depths. A new fear ran through her. He’d found something out today. He’d traced her birth certificate, or that blasted social security number, and found it meaningless. The game was over. Kaia remembered the agony of her wings freezing and turning to ash the day Zafira sentenced her. Would it be like that when the Black Ladies had their fun? Would the pain ease over time, or would the searing wound stay with her, torturing her until she finally faded away? She pictured the eerie glow of their eyes and the skeletal outlines of their bodies, and nausea roiled in her stomach.

“Okay,” she said. “I was just going to start locking up anyway.”

Garrett leaned back against the counter, hands in his pockets, tapping his foot as she turned the open sign to closed and locked the front door. Apparently, he couldn’t wait to throw her out.

She stopped and assessed his impatience with a heavy heart. “Do you want to wait until I close the shades and lock the register, or should we talk right away?”

He didn’t answer, just took her arm and steered her toward Rachel’s office. “I think you’d better sit down.”

Kaia raised one hand to her chest. Her hands began to tremble. Her mind raced, trying to come up with excuses, new lies, anything to explain away whatever Garrett had discovered “You’re starting to scare me. What’s going on?”

He waited until she had sunk down into Rachel’s tattered office chair, behind the industrial metal desk with its clutter of old coffee cups and invoices to be filed.

“A couple of hours ago Rachel was in an accident. A serious one.”

Kaia sucked in her breath. A flood of relief for her own reprieve mixed with horror that Rachel had been injured. “Is she all right?”

“They think so, but she’s pretty banged up. It looks like she has a concussion, broke both of her legs, and bruised her ribs. They were still waiting for results from a few tests when Ted called. She’s in surgery right now.”

Hot tears stung the backs of Kaia’s eyes. They thought so? How could she have felt even a moment of relief for herself when stubborn, hardworking Rachel was suffering? Rachel, who’d taken a chance on Kaia when she was nothing more than a homeless woman with no references and no job history. Rachel, who was generous enough to share her home, invite Kaia to dinner, even try to set her up with her millionaire friend. “Is Ted with her?”

“Yes, Ted’s with her, and we’ve got the best trauma surgeon in Miami working on her. Regardless of what happens, though, it’s going to be a long time before she’ll be able to come back to the store.”

“Oh.” Kaia blinked. She tried to process what Garrett was saying. No Rachel at Rachel’s Roses? Impossible.

Garrett’s frown became more pronounced. “Yes, oh. Ted’s barely keeping it together. He called me right after he got to the hospital. He’s beside himself with worry that Rachel is going to haul herself out of the intensive care unit just to come to work. Apparently, she kept muttering something about a wedding, even while they were putting her in the ambulance.”

“Well that’s ridiculous. How is she going to come to work with two broken legs and a bunch of cracked ribs?”

“This is Rachel we’re talking about, Kaia. She’ll find a way.”

Kaia gave him a weak smile. She glanced down and saw Rachel’s planner book open on her desk. The rest of the week was a mass of red lines, circles, and squiggles. Wednesday was marked with a few anniversaries and a couple of centerpieces. Thursday was a dinner party in Coral Gables, Friday they were making bouquets for the opening of a ballet, and the weekend was… the Peterson wedding.

“Oh no… ” she whispered.

“What?”

“The Peterson wedding. That’s what she was talking about. We’ve got a huge wedding this weekend. We were going to be up all night as it was, with the two of us. Rachel was counting on the wedding to help her land a couple of other deals. She needs this to go well, Garrett. Things are so precarious for this store.”

“What do you mean, precarious? Ted’s always saying how busy she is.”

“She does everything on a shoestring. She barely has money to keep the business running. I know it seems like she’s doing really well, and she is, but her rent is incredible, and she’s got these huge loans she has to pay for the coolers and the fixtures, not to mention the computers and flowers.” Kaia shook her head. “She tells me it’s always this way when you start up a business, but I don’t know. You can’t imagine how hard she works.”

“I know she shouldn’t have been driving that piece of crap,” Garrett said, staring at the planner with his mouth tight. “I offered to buy her a new car. She should have let me help. I’d give her a loan in a second to keep this place running. It’s one thing to be independent, but Rachel would rather put herself in a hospital than let someone help her.”

“So what do we do?” Kaia asked. She’d never felt quite so small and helpless before. Humans had such intense lives, filled with so much purpose and stress. The Fey existed in a different time, in a different space. They existed to enjoy the beauty of the earth, to celebrate music, and seek pleasure. That all felt so petty now, when considering Rachel, hurt and in the hospital, confronting the loss of her beloved business.

Not to mention Garrett, who worked so hard to take care of his niece and manage his irascible grandmother. Garrett, who would surely have done anything to help Rachel had he been given the chance.

“Ted wants you to take over.” Garrett glanced sidelong at her, gauging her reaction without looking her full in the face. He turned to a schefflera on top of a filing cabinet and fingered one of the leaves. “He said Rachel has confidence in you. Apparently, Rachel raves about the way you put flowers together. She says it’s like you’ve got some kind of magic touch.”

Heat poured into Kaia’s cheeks at the compliment but she shook her head. “That’s really nice of them, but I don’t think I can do it. I want to help, I really do, but I don’t know how to run a business. All I do is put together the flowers and clean the store. I can run the register, and I lock up sometimes when she sets up for an event. I have no idea how to handle the program Rachel uses to run the store and balance the inventory.”

Garrett waved away her concern. “I’ll find someone who knows the flower business and send them in here for the week to worry about the computer. I’ll throw money at them if I have to. I’m not worried about it.”

“And Rachel will be okay with that?”

“Rachel is in the hospital, Kaia. I don’t really think she’s in a position to argue, do you?”

“I suppose not,” she said, staring reluctantly at the red-lined planner. “If that’s the case, why not just find someone to run the whole thing? You don’t really need me at all.”

Garrett frowned. “I can hire someone to run the business end of the store. I can’t hire someone to duplicate Rachel’s style. If Rachel trusts you to keep her clients happy, the work of keeping this store going is really in your lap. The only question I’ve got is whether you’re up for the job.”

Kaia leaned back against the chair, her head spinning with the list of things she would have to figure out before 9:00 a.m., when the store was supposed to open. Rachel called around to wholesalers each morning to place orders for delivery. She’d have to do that. She’d have to figure out what flowers to order, the length of the stems, and how many of each she thought she’d need for the day. She’d have to contact the delivery service Rachel worked with to find out what their availability was for later that week, now that Rachel’s car was unavailable. She’d have to…

“So?” Garrett prompted.

“What?” She looked up, confused. “Oh, well, yes. I suppose I’m up for the job.”

Garrett cleared his throat. “Are you sure?”

Kaia deliberately strengthened her voice. “Yes. Absolutely. I’d do anything to help Rachel. Anything.”

“Good. Now, what else do you need to do tonight before we leave?” he asked.

“Well I can’t leave tonight.” Kaia turned back to Rachel’s planner and started flipping through the pages. “There’s far too much to do. I’ll have to stay here at the store. Rachel told me that there’s a bedroom up above.”

She pulled open the desk drawer and rifled through the contents until she found a silver key with a small handwritten label. She held it up with a triumphant smile. “See? It says spare room. Rachel stores extra supplies up there and sleeps there during the big holidays—Valentine’s Day, Easter, and whatnot. This way, I can work all night long if I have to.”

Garrett frowned. “I don’t like that idea. You don’t know this neighborhood. What if there’s an emergency?”

“I’ll call 9-1-1.” Kaia stood and crossed her arms over her chest. “It makes perfect sense. You can’t be expected to wait here for me to figure out what I’m doing, and Lexi’s going home in the morning so there’s no reason for you to stay at the Manor. I’ll stay here, and you can go back to your apartment.”

Her voice quailed, just a little, when she told him to stay home. She had only been with him for two nights—why did it seem so impossible to imagine not having him there tonight?

“You don’t have any of your things. And Rachel doesn’t know you’re staying here.”

Kaia planted her feet and raised her chin an inch. She was not, absolutely not, going back to the Manor. That much was clear. “If you can insist that Rachel accepts someone to help out with the books, I can insist on staying at her store.”

Garrett looked as though he were trying to figure out what to say in opposition. He stared at her, his mouth opening and closing several times. “Fine,” he said. “If you’re staying here, I’m staying with you.”

Chapter Twenty-One

By the time Garrett got in his car and headed toward the hospital, it was after nine. He had taken Kaia out for dinner, but she was too distracted to do much more than stare into space and mumble about wire services and how many dahlias and zinnias she needed to order the next morning. He finally dropped her off at the shop just to avoid the rabid light in her eyes. As he drove across town, a light drizzle started to fall, and he lowered the windows a few inches to smell the rain as it soaked the warm asphalt.

He remembered running in the rain once, with his mother, back in Chicago. He must have been six or seven, and they’d been at a park together and neither of them had coats. The rain had come down in sheets and his mother had been laughing as they ran to the car. She’d picked him up when they were halfway there and spun him around.

He didn’t have a lot of memories of her, and the ones he did have were clouded with time and resentment. He remembered her messy car littered with fast-food wrappers and crumbs. The way she’d show up at his school sometimes, with her heavy makeup and ripped clothes, looking so much like a teenager that no one would believe she was his parent. He remembered how fierce she’d looked when she left him and Max at the Manor, and how he loved and hated her all at once. She’d told him she loved him but wasn’t a good-enough mother to keep him. He remembered her mascara running down her cheeks, and the way Max cried after she left.

Despite all that, his memory of spinning and laughing in the rain remained untouched. Pure.

The water sprinkled on him as he trotted from the car to the glaring lights of the emergency room entrance. The wide doors parted automatically, yielding sterile halls and endless, identical corridors. By the time he reached Rachel’s recovery room, Ted was just leaving, his face haggard, the top button of his shirt open and his tie askew. As the door closed, Garrett caught sight of Rachel stretched out on the hospital bed, her legs wrapped in bulky bandages with metal sticking out of one side. Her face was a ghastly shade of grey, IV tubes stretching from one of her arms while a machine beeped in the background. An older woman, who he assumed was Rachel’s mother, slumped in a chair beside the bed.

Nausea rose inside Garrett at the sight. “What did the surgeon say?”

Ted wiped his hands over his face and slumped against the door. “She’s going to be fine,” he said, letting the air out of his lungs with a whoosh. “She’s going to be fine.”

Relief coursed through him. Garrett grabbed Ted’s shoulders and shook him gently. “Well, that’s good. That’s really good, man.”

Ted looked up, his dark eyes dazed. “I know. If she hadn’t...”

He didn’t speak again for a moment, his exhaustion palpable. He shook himself and took a deep breath, pressing his thumbs hard against his eyelids. “The surgeon says there’s no internal bleeding. They had to put in some pins to reconstruct her right knee. It’s going to be a long time before she’s up and about again, but she’s going to be all right.”

Garrett took Ted’s arm and guided him to a waiting area with three matching armchairs and a sofa with orange plastic cushions. “I think you better sit down.”

Ted obeyed, swaying slightly as he walked. “When her mom called me… ” He choked up again and closed his eyes. “Never mind that. You don’t want to hear about that.”

Garrett found a box of Kleenex and handed it to him. Ted stopped again to breathe and Garrett had to look away, unable to watch the emotions cresting on his friend’s face. It was as if Ted’s heart had been opened up and made visible, each new wave of fear and self-reproach displayed in painstaking relief. “Sure I do.”

“I just hope you never get that call, you know? You can’t imagine what that feels like. Not knowing. It’s the not knowing that kills you. And the regret. What if? Why didn’t I? That crap. It’s like someone burning a hole in your gut.”

Ted blew his nose fiercely and continued. “Anyway, after the surgery Rachel was really out of it, but she did wake up long enough to remind me that she needs Kaia keeping up the store while she’s out. So tell me—is she going to do it?”

“She said she would. I’m not convinced it’s a great idea, but she said she would.” Garrett left out mention of his own plans to hire additional help to keep the books in order. Ted and Rachel would figure it out soon enough.

Ted ran his fingers through his curly hair and sighed with relief. “Thank goodness.”

“Who’s in there now?” Garrett asked, pointing toward Rachel’s room.

“Her mom. She’s staying the night with her. Her dad was here before, but they can’t be in the same room, so he left.”

Garrett had never met his own father, but he knew what it was like to listen to people try to tear each other apart. His mother had had a series of boyfriends that would come and go and there was always fighting, especially when the drugs wore off and there was no food or money. Once he’d moved in with Portia the fighting had stopped. Portia didn’t fight. Fighting was beneath her.

“So what’s your plan?” he said, shaking off the unwanted memories. “You headed home?”

Ted leaned his head back. “Are you kidding? I’m just going to get some coffee. She’s resting now. So far she hasn’t had any bad reactions to the anesthesia, which is good, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t going to be in a lot of pain when she wakes up. She’s been through hell.”

“Where are you going to sleep?” Garrett indicated the plastic sofa. “That thing’s hardly big enough for Lexi.”

“I don’t know. I just want to be close by. My place is all the way down in Pinecrest.”

“Why don’t you stay at my condo? It’s only a couple of miles from here.” When Ted looked prepared to argue, Garrett said, “At least you can go take a shower and get in a nap before you come back.”

Ted sighed. “I suppose a shower would feel good. I hate to impose. I know you’re busy.”

“Don’t worry about me. I won’t be there. You can have the place to yourself. Stay there all week if you need to.”

“Where are you going to be? Not the Manor?” Ted managed his first real smile of the night. “You and Portia getting along better than usual these days?”

Garrett shrugged. “Kaia wanted to stay at Rachel’s shop. I thought I’d stay with her. Keep an eye on things.”

Ted sat up and raised his eyebrows. “Keep an eye on things—or keep an eye on Kaia? What happened after you left on Friday? I never heard the story. Where’d she go?”

“She was staying at a shelter,” Garrett said. He didn’t want to talk about Kaia. In retrospect, he wasn’t sure why he’d felt such a strong need to whisk her away from Good Sam. Obviously, he should have given her a hundred dollars and put her up at some lousy hotel instead of taking her to the Manor.

For the last two days, he’d been bombarded by thoughts of her. They came at random, wholly inappropriate times. He’d been in a meeting that morning, and all he could think about was the way her body fit around his. During that afternoon’s conference call, he’d imagined the way she laughed, and the regal cast to her head when she stared down Portia at dinner.

It confused him. It all confused him. He was in this for the sex. He was not in this for a relationship. When he’d gotten the call from Ted, all he could think about was how much he wanted to see her and hold her when she heard the news.

“Seriously? I thought Rachel was exaggerating. That’s rough. So what did you do?”

“I brought her to the Manor,” he said reluctantly.

Ted whistled low. “Are you kidding me? You brought Kaia to meet Portia? That’s like holding a mouse up by the tail and feeding it right into the open mouth of the snake, isn’t it?”

“You’d be surprised. She actually held her own. Perhaps even put Portia in her place a bit.”

“You don’t say,” Ted marveled. “I’d like to have seen that.”

“She was spectacular.” Garrett stood abruptly and twisted his house key off his key ring. The fluorescent lights of the waiting area were suddenly blinding, and he couldn’t look at Ted’s exhausted, worry-lined face for another minute. “Here’s the key. I’ll call Marc at the front desk and let him know you’re coming. I better get back.”

Ted accepted the key and they exchanged a quick, back-pounding hug. With a final wave, Garrett headed back down the hall, almost breaking into a run as soon as he turned the corner.

§

A high-pitched buzz startled Kaia from her reverie in her spot on the futon that served as both sofa and bed in the tiny studio apartment above Rachel’s store. Groaning, she stood carefully so as not to disturb her growing list of supplies for the week, sketches of arrangements, and pictures from events Rachel had done in the past. After a long, catlike stretch, she pressed the intercom button by the door and called, “Who’s there?”

“It’s Garrett, Kaia. Let me up.”

He did not sound happy. She pushed the button to buzz him in, her heart sinking at the thought that Rachel’s condition had worsened. When she opened the apartment door, Garrett was bounding up the stairs, his eyes snapping with irritation.

“You wait until I knock,” he said, voice clipped. “You look through the peephole. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

She shook her head, confused. “I knew it was you.”

“Doesn’t matter.” In two long strides he was at the door. He entered the apartment and immediately caught her in a tight embrace.

“Is Rachel okay?” she asked, in a small voice.

“She’s fine,” Garrett replied, before lowering his mouth to hers. The kiss was swift and needy, claiming her mouth with an intimacy that left her breathless. Instantly, she molded against him, his body wasting no time to find room between her legs. He kicked the door closed behind him. “I need you now.”

Without a word, she turned to the futon and began to carefully move aside the books and papers. Garrett knocked them onto the floor.

“Garrett, those were—”

“I’ll put them back later.” He sat down and pulled her onto his lap. Her legs folded and came to rest on either side of his hips. Fiercely, he cupped her jaw in his palms and placed his mouth on hers, warm lips moving, seeking her softness, pressing her for entry. She pushed against his shoulders, breaking their kiss so she could look at him, study the light in his eyes.

“She’s okay, right?”

He leaned forward and his head fell into the hollow at the base of Kaia’s neck. “She looks like hell, but she’s okay.”

“How’s Ted?”

“A wreck. I gave him the keys to my condo. I don’t know if he’ll go or not.”

She tangled her fingers into the hair at the base of his neck and let him breathe for a moment. Slowly, she pushed him backward until he relaxed against the back of the sofa.

“Let me love you,” she murmured, starting at his top button and pulling his undershirt from his pants when she reached the bottom. He did not protest, but let her undress him with slow, loving hands. She slid the pajamas off of her own body and rubbed her breasts against him, caressing each part of his skin from shoulder to belly and lower, eventually replacing the touch of her nipples with gentle suction of her mouth.

He groaned when she took him more fully inside her mouth, sucking deeply in waves from base to tip, her bottom splayed out behind her while his hands ran down her back and over her spine. Just as he began to thrust into her mouth she pulled back, straddled him, and in one smooth motion, let him drive deeply into her core.

“I’m not letting you go,” he said, grasping her hips and pounding into her like he was possessed, full of some ancient need that could not be satisfied with a simple orgasm.

She paused, holding his face between her palms, her heart aching when she saw the vulnerability etched across his crystalline gaze.

This was the man whose heart she’d been sent to break.

The thought sickened her, and she buried it deep in her chest as she met him for every stroke, every thrust. “Nor I you.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

A little more than a week after the accident, after Kaia had closed the store for the day, she took a bus to visit Rachel’s new home: the Palm Shore Nursing Center. Rachel had moved into the convalescent home because her house had to be remodeled to allow for her wheelchair, which she’d need for the next few months, at least.

Palm Shore was a relatively small facility with forty rooms, constructed in a square around an atrium with a garden and indoor/outdoor swimming pool. Rachel’s room was airy, with soft pink walls and big windows that looked out onto a quiet, tree-lined street. Kaia was ushered in by a heavyset nurse about half her height, who spoke in soft, accented English. She had thick black hair wrapped in a bun on top of her head.

Rachel’s lower body was covered with a sheet, but the soft fabric revealed bulky bandages and the outline of some kind of support on either side of her left leg. She held herself stiffly, and her face looked gaunt and pale. Her eyes were all Rachel—intense, engaged, and sparkling with life.

“When exactly did you get here?” Kaia asked, trying not to stare at the sheet.

“Friday. Last week. The hospital was desperate to kick me out, but they waited until I had somewhere to go.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come by yesterday. I was absolutely crazy trying to get the Peterson wedding cleaned up.”

Rachel leaned forward. “How did it go? Were they happy? More importantly, did they pay you?”

Kaia laughed. “Fine, I think, yes, and yes. I was an absolute beast about it. Demanded a check before I would give the bride her bouquet.”

Rachel nodded with satisfaction. “Good. You got enough matching roses for the centerpieces?”

“Yes, and for the head table I made a special arrangement with calla lilies, just like we had planned. It took forever, but I individually wired the stephanotis flowers for the bridal bouquet. It was stunning.”

“Kaia, I can’t thank you enough for doing all this. You can’t imagine what a relief it’s been to know you’re in the store right now. I just don’t know what I’d do if it were some stranger trying to talk to my clients and keep them happy. I’d lose all my business. I know I would.”

“They love you, Rachel,” Kaia said. “I’m just a pale substitute.”

“Whatever.” Rachel brushed aside her modesty. “I just can’t believe I haven’t been to the store for a week.”

Kaia laughed. “Yeah, I can’t believe it either.”

“Heck of a way to spend my first vacation in a year, wouldn’t you say?”

A soft knock sounded at the door.

“Come in,” Rachel called, pressing a button to raise the height on her bed, shifting her weight awkwardly as she did. “I still haven’t quite figured how to move my butt without putting any weight on my legs,” she muttered, wincing as she pushed down on her palms to straighten her back.

“Dinner!” a dark-haired nurse announced. She pushed aside a collection of cups filled with ice cubes and apple juice, and set down a tray bearing a plate covered by a plastic dome. “Macaroni and cheese, green beans, and your favorite—Jell-O!”

Rachel shook her head. “You have got to be kidding me.”

The nurse chuckled. “Just be glad it’s solid.”

Rachel grimaced. “I suppose you’ve got me there.”

“Let’s take a peek at your knee while I’m here.” She bustled over to the bed and pulled back the sheet. Kaia turned away as she caught sight of silver metal and bandages.

After the nurse left, Rachel began to eat. “You’ll have to excuse me,” she said. “I have all these pills to take and I get sick if I do it on an empty stomach.”

“No, of course, go ahead.” Kaia got up and paced the room.

Faeries’ bodies did not decay and age the way human bodies did. It was only their exposure to the earth—and any time they spent in human form—that caused the faerie to age. A faerie like Zafira, who rarely left Faeria, could conceivably live for a thousand human years.

Now that Kaia had taken human form, she could feel her body changing. Her bones were growing heavier, more substantial. She didn’t feel as clumsy as she once did, but she also wondered if she would ever be able to fly again. And she wondered if she, too, could grow sick like the people in this hospital. Or hurt herself, like Rachel had.

Or die.

She’d prepared bouquets for dozens of funerals, and even more for hospital bedsides. And this, her first visit to her own injured friend, brought everything she had been learning for the past week—really, ever since she had left Faeria—into painful clarity. Despite all their bravado and their rampant reproductive abilities, humans were incredibly fragile. They got sick, they broke bones, they had accidents, and they died. And in spite of that fact—or because of it? Kaia still wasn’t sure which—they took enormous chances. They fell in love. They had children. They didn’t let the fear or the threat of loss stop them. They loved anyway.

When Kaia passed into the universe, there would be no funeral. Faeries did not mourn, just like they did not raise their young. Faeries simply were, or were not. That was why Kaia had not understood before what it meant to fall in love. How could she? How could she know what it meant to love when she did not really understand what it meant to risk loss?

“So… ” Rachel gestured as she swung the tray around to center it over her lap. She picked up a spoon and dug into the macaroni and cheese. “Tell me how things are going. Really.”

“It’s going okay.”

“You survived the wedding with your sanity intact? And you did it all yourself? I can’t believe it.”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly all by myself.” Kaia had to smile. “Garrett actually helped out quite a bit.”

Rachel narrowed her eyes. “Garrett? Garrett Jameson? Are you kidding me? Garrett helped tie corsages? Garrett made boutonnières?”

“Let’s just say Garrett has a way with a carnation you wouldn’t expect.”

Rachel’s mouth dropped open. “Well, that is really amazing. I am shocked. Absolutely shocked. Ted told me he was helping keep an eye on the shop, but I thought it was more in the way of financial oversight. You must have some kind of magic, girl, to get Garrett Jameson working in my store.”

Kaia ducked, her cheeks flaming. “No magic,” she mumbled. “It’s just because he’s been staying at the shop with me.”

“Um, excuse me? Garrett is living with you?” Rachel narrowed her gaze. “I better hear some details, and I better hear them fast.”

Kaia plucked at the hem of her shorts. “It’s not a big deal. He didn’t want me living there by myself. He works late, you know, and I leave early. We’re barely in the same place together except when we’re sleeping.” Her blush intensified when Rachel giggled. “I didn’t mean that. We also have dinner together every night, and he gets me coffee in the morning before he leaves and… ” Rachel laughed harder and Kaia spread her hands helplessly. “Oh darn it, I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“He gets you coffee?”

“Café cubano,” Kaia admitted.

“You go out to dinner?”

“Sometimes he brings home takeout,” Kaia whispered. She didn’t mention all the times they went out to listen to jazz, or the way they rolled around on the futon every night, laughing at the way the wooden frame creaked under their combined weight.

Rachel leaned forward, wincing when the movement put pressure on her injured legs. “Kaia, that sounds serious. I don’t know that he’s ever dated the same woman more than one night in a row, let alone lived with her for a week.”

“I don’t know.” Kaia studied her fingers. “We aren’t really living together. I mean, we are, but this is a unique sort of event. I’m just taking it one night at a time, really.”

“That’s probably not a bad idea,” Rachel said, her smile fading. “I know I tried to set you up and all, but Garrett’s a pretty tough cookie. I’d hate to see you get hurt.”

“A tough cookie.” Kaia turned the expression over in her mind. “Yes, I think that about covers it. He’d do just about anything to avoid talking about his family or his feelings about his job. He even changes the subject when I bring up Lexi, and I know he adores her.”

“And you?” Rachel asked. “How are you feeling?”

“I can’t go there.” Kaia spread her hands helplessly at the rush of emotion Rachel’s innocent question evoked. “It’s just too soon. After Charlie, you know.”

“Of course,” Rachel agreed, her voice like a soft blanket around Kaia’s tormented heart.

Kaia walked over to the window and looked outside at the concrete roof of the structure next door to the hospital. “What do you think it means to be in love, Rachel?”

The question had been nagging at her all week. She knew Garrett felt something for her. He didn’t have to stay at the apartment, and she didn’t believe he could fake the tenderness in his arms or the way he guided her to total physical surrender every time they made love.

But she needed more. As sick as it made her, if she wanted to keep her wings and her soul, she had to make him fall in love, and she had to break his heart.

What did that really mean? How would she know if he was truly in love?

Rachel stopped mid-bite. “Well, that’s a pretty huge question. What does it mean to be in love in general, or what does it mean to me?”

Kaia shrugged. “I don’t know. Either one.”

“I suppose it means you can’t live without someone,” Rachel said slowly. “It means you put their needs before your own. You go through life knowing that a piece of your heart and your soul will always be filled by them.”

“Does that make you empty if they aren’t there?”

“No. It just makes you more full when they are.”

“Do you feel that way about Ted?” Kaia asked Rachel, hoping to take her mind off her own confusing tangle of feelings.

She assumed it would be an easy question. Rachel had told her any number of times that she loved Ted but that she wasn’t sure about the marriage side of the equation. Rachel looked down and plucked the sheet in front of her.

“You know, when I opened my eyes after my surgery, the first person I saw was Ted. He was sitting next to my bed, holding my hand, and he was looking at me with those big puppy-dog eyes of his. And it was wonderful. I don’t know how to describe it. I felt an overwhelming sense of peace, like I knew I would be okay because he was there. And I started to babble something about the store, and you, and I don’t think any of it made sense. Because all I really wanted to say was, ‘I love you, Ted. And I never want to wake up without you ever again.’”

“Oh, Rachel, that’s beautiful. Why didn’t you want to tell him that?”

Rachel’s chin trembled as she fought tears. “Look at me, Kaia. I’m helpless, in a damn rest home, all because I was too stubborn to accept a little help. I don’t know how many times he’s offered to buy me a car or at least help out with payments, and I turned him down. Just to make some point about how tough and independent I am. And now I’m going to be in a wheelchair for God knows how long. I can’t inflict myself on him. I love him too much for that.”

Kaia sat down beside Rachel. “Wait a minute. Putting aside the accident—which, I admit, is a pretty bad example—don’t you think he knows what he’s getting into?”

“Doesn’t matter.” She gave Kaia a watery smile. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m breaking up with him. Next time I see him.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Kaia said solemnly. “You love him. He loves you. You’re being an absolute idiot.”

“I know.” Rachel picked up her macaroni and cheese. “Love does crazy things to a person. Everyone knows that.” She narrowed her gaze on Kaia. “Speaking of which—didn’t we just say you’re taking things with Garrett one day at a time? Why exactly are you asking me about love? Are you falling for him, Kaia?”

Kaia realized she had made her hands into fists. She forced herself to relax. She needed to know how to make Garrett fall in love with her. She would never fall in love with Garrett. The very idea was ludicrous. “Oh, Rachel, don’t be silly,” she said breezily, keeping her gaze fixed on the tree outside Rachel’s window. “I’m just curious, that’s all. Just curious.”

§

Kaia squared her shoulders as she looked up at the red brick structure of the Good Samaritan Mission.

“You don’t have to do this,” Garrett said, scowling. “You don’t owe them anything.”

“There’s someone I need to apologize to,” she said.

Jenny was behind her familiar, paper-strewn desk, giant coffee cup in hand, lips painted the same dark cherry color she’d been wearing when she and Kaia first met. When she saw Kaia walk through the door she jumped up and snatched her out of the doorway.

Biceps flexing, Jenny gave her a fierce hug, shaking her shoulders gently. “It’s about damn time you came to see me,” she said, the sheen of tears brightening her eyes. “Leaving in the middle of the night like that. No phone number. No address. Are you trying to give your friend Jenny a heart attack?”

Kaia cringed. She hadn’t known exactly what to say to Jenny when Garrett whisked her off to the Manor. She didn’t know how long she’d be gone, or why. And once she got started at Rachel’s Roses she’d been so caught up in her own life she couldn’t seem to make herself pick up the phone to call and let Jenny know where she was living. It wasn’t that she didn’t miss her. It was more that she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe the other woman really cared.

“I… I… ” She flung out her hands lamely. “I’m sorry.”

Jenny shook her head. “No room for sorry at Good Sam. You just tell me what you’re doing now.” She cast a baleful eye at Garrett. “And tell me why this gentleman is looking at me like he thinks I’m going to take you somewhere and never bring you back.”

“Jenny Harper, this is Garrett Jameson.”

Garrett extended his hand as he stepped forward to position himself between Jenny and Kaia. It was a small movement, nothing really, but there was ownership in it. Jenny saw it, and her brows flared in curious recognition. Kaia put her hand on his arm. She did not know what that little movement of Garrett’s meant, but the sight of it caused a heady, seductive warmth somewhere in her toes.

He had insisted on bringing her to Good Sam. She had planned to take the bus over, but when he heard her plans he had canceled a meeting just so he could drive her.

There was something about Good Sam that Garrett simply didn’t like. He absolutely supported the mission and the people who were there. Kaia knew Portia was a major donor, and she’d seen Garrett’s name on the list of “sustaining contributors” on the Good Sam newsletter. But for some reason he didn’t want Kaia within a ten-mile radius of the place.

Jenny shook his hand vigorously. “Garrett Jameson. I knew I’d seen your picture somewhere before. Pleased to finally meet you. We’ve been trying to get you down here for a tour for some time. We sure do appreciate your support.” They held each other’s gaze, weighing and judging. When Jenny finally seemed satisfied, she gave him a hearty slap on the shoulder and grinned. Somewhat reluctantly, he returned the smile.

“You do good work here,” he said gruffly. “I’m happy to support it.” He looked over at Kaia. “I’ve got to be back in the office soon.”

She nodded. “Let me just fill in Jenny about Rachel.”

“You’ve got time for a tour,” Jenny said to Garrett. “I’ve got a volunteer who would love to show you around.”

Garrett shook his head hastily and held up his BlackBerry. “No thanks. I can work while I’m here. I’ll just give you two some privacy.” He walked across the room and sat down at an empty table, holding his BlackBerry and poking away at the tiny keys.

Jenny cocked her head and studied him thoughtfully before turning back to Kaia. “So, what’s the news? You happy? Got work? Doing well?”

Kaia schooled herself not to look at Garrett as she responded, though she could not stop a silly grin from lighting her face. “Yes. Yes to all. In fact, I think I’m happier now than I’ve ever been in my entire life.”

§

“She is getting closer.”

“Perhaps we will not have her wings after all.”

The Black Ladies, their vibrating, intertwined voices unmistakable, hissed in frustration. Kaia heard them as she walked back to her apartment, a bag of leftover food dangling from one hand. Garrett was away for the night on business, and she had stayed late at the store before running down to her favorite Cuban restaurant for dinner. As she returned home, the sun was beginning to set, and cafes with outdoor tables were filled with people laughing and drinking. Somehow, they did not notice the trio of black-robed figures trailing behind Kaia. Perhaps they were invisible. Perhaps they cast a spell. The power of the Black Ladies was unknowable and unspeakable.

Kaia steeled herself not to react to the voices. She waited until there was no one nearby before saying calmly, “Of course you won’t have my wings. You were never going to have my wings.”

“She thinks she has him. But she will have to be careful. Oh so careful.” The Ladies laughed, and the sound slid up and down Kaia’s spine like a cold finger. “We are still watching.”

A few feet in front of her, a squirrel scurried down the trunk of a tree and started across the sidewalk. Halfway to the other side, it stopped and froze, its tiny black eyes fixed on a spot behind Kaia. She spun around but saw only a few cigarette butts, a fast-food wrapper, and a discarded coffee cup. The debris of humanity, devoid of life or movement.

When she turned back, the squirrel lay dead on the hot concrete.

Kaia sucked in a breath, sickened. She took a hesitant step closer and peered down at the limp creature. Its eyes were wide open but unmoving. Shuddering, she hurried past, down the street to a club where she and Garrett often listened to jazz. She dumped her bag of food in a trash can and went inside to lose herself in the crowd.

The Black Ladies were unhappy. They said she was close. They said she might keep her wings. This was good news.

So why did she feel like crying?

Chapter Twenty-Three

Kaia set down the phone and smiled as she reviewed the order she had just taken. A fifth-anniversary bouquet. As the husband told her what he wanted on the card, he’d ended up practically in tears, describing how hard his wife worked taking care of their twin girls and how this was their first Friday “date night” in years.

She loved hearing the stories of her customers.

From the corner of her eye, she noticed a delivery van pulling up in front of the store. With surprise, she realized it had the “Rachel’s Roses” logo painted in vivid colors on the side. Garrett jumped down from the front seat and came inside, wearing a cocky grin and a pair of shiny black sunglasses. He must have gone home early to change, because instead of his usual suit and tie he wore a pair of low-waisted chinos and a black T-shirt that molded to his torso, revealing each one of the muscles Kaia loved to trace with her tongue. As he entered the store he folded his glasses closed and dropped them into the neck of his shirt.

“What’s that?” Kaia asked, keeping herself squarely behind the counter. Once she touched him, she tended to lose all hope of concentration. She had an uneasy feeling this encounter might require the use of her brain.

“A delivery van. It took a little while to get it detailed.” He walked over and kissed her. “Don’t even think of protesting on Rachel’s behalf. I bought it and I’ll lease it to her if I have to, but once she learns how to walk again she’s not driving around in some piece of crap car she buys off the Internet.” He leered at her playfully. “You can thank me later tonight.”

“We’ve been using a service,” Kaia said. “We don’t need a van.”

“You were just saying yesterday that the prices you’re being charged to get out of the city are killing you. You need a vehicle, Kaia. There’s no way around it.”

“But… who’s going to drive it?” Kaia spoke slowly, hoping her brain might be able to come up with a way out of her dilemma before Garrett had a chance to get suspicious all over again. Since Rachel’s accident, he hadn’t questioned anything about her past. She figured he was giving her a break since she was obviously committed to keeping the store on its feet—which was a compliment of sorts.

This could not go well for her.

Because she had a driver’s license. Which suggested that she could… drive.

“You?” Garrett said, raising a curious eyebrow. “Of course, you could hire a driver, which makes sense for the daytime deliveries. For the out-of-town events I figured you’d do it yourself. It hardly makes sense to pay someone for that, particularly if you’ve got to go set up anyway. Rachel did all that herself before she hired you, didn’t she?”

Kaia nodded reluctantly. “I think so. That was before we started scheduling so many weekend events, though. I’d hate to close the store just to make a delivery.”

Garrett drew his brows together in confusion. “I don’t understand. I thought you’d be thrilled. You were telling me last night there are two weddings coming up next month that are at outdoor sites you’ve never seen—now you’ll be able to drive yourself there. And you can leave your equipment in the van so you don’t have to worry about forgetting things, something else you’ve been complaining about. Most of all, you’ll be saving money. So what’s the problem?”

“I just… well… it’s been a long time since I’ve driven anywhere.”

“You don’t forget how to drive,” Garrett said. “Why don’t you come out and give it a spin? You’ll see. Once you’re in the driver’s seat you’ll feel great.”

“Maybe later. I’ve got a lot to do tonight. Actually, I was going to call you. I think maybe you should stay at the condo this weekend. I have a ton of work to do and I’d hate to keep you up.” She knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t seem to stop.

“Kaia.” Garrett’s voice was soft, silky. Dangerous. “Kaia, what’s going on?”

She took a step back. “Nothing. I’m just tired, I think. I’m sure Rachel will really appreciate the van. Now where do you park a thing like that, anyway? Is there a garage or something for it?”

Garrett came toward her. “Kaia, you’re hiding something.”

She raised her hands to protest, and faked a yawn. “You’re being silly. I must not have slept well last night. Hard to believe it’s only six.”

Garrett held up a ring of keys and shook them gently. “Take the keys, Kaia.”

“No.” She continued to step back until she hit the wall. “I don’t feel like it.”

“What are you scared of?”

“Me? Scared?” She coughed. “It’s just been a while. Like I said. I’m probably a little rusty. I might need some reminders. About the rules of the road and whatnot.”

“You don’t know how to drive, do you?” he guessed.

“Excuse me?”

He crossed the rest of the way to her, fitting himself between her and the counter, putting one finger on her chest, just between her breasts. “You don’t know how to drive,” he repeated softly, tracing a line over the top of one breast, then back to the other. “Now, how did you manage to get a driver’s license if you don’t know how to drive?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said stiffly.

“We’re past lies, aren’t we, Kaia?” he said, still caressing the skin at the top of her breast. Her nipples were instantly alert to his touch, the peaks hard under her thin T-shirt and lacy bra.

She swallowed hard. “I… I… you’re right,” she admitted. “My husband got that license for me. He didn’t want me to learn to drive, but he wanted me to have a license so I wouldn’t be asked too many questions. I don’t know where he got it.”

Garrett took her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and gently pinched the delicate flesh, watching intently as she took a deep breath. “Why can’t I believe a word that comes out of that gorgeous mouth of yours?”

As he spoke, he reached around and grabbed her hips, jerking her against him with a single, firm motion. “Where does it end, Kaia? When do we get to the end of the lies?”

He tangled her hair in his hand and dragged her mouth to his. When he kissed her it was cold, hard, and yet at the same time scorching with passion, so that when he let go she stumbled backward, falling against the wall with her mouth raw and her body limp and needy all at once.

“Why else wouldn’t I know how to drive?” she asked him weakly, sure that this, at least, was a reasonable question. He would hardly guess that she was actually a faerie. “Why would I make something like this up?”

“Damn it.” His eyes burned into her, eating her alive with restrained desire. “I wish I knew. I wish I understood.”

His cell phone rang from the clip at his belt, and he pulled it out and looked at the number, his face twisting with deeper irritation before he held it to his ear.

“What?” he barked, striding away from Kaia. There was a pause, and then, “Fine, I’ll go.” He paused again and swore. “Oh no, not Bianca. I’m not going anywhere with her. If I have to go I’m taking my own date.” Another pause. Garrett spun around and glared at Kaia. “Fine. I’ll be there by seven. Tell them I’m bringing Kaia Verde.”

He jammed the phone back into the holster. “Max has the flu and can’t go to an art show opening. There’s a client coming from Germany that will be insulted if I’m not there, and we RSVP’d for two. I refuse to take Max’s wife and I don’t plan on calling around to find a date. You’re coming with me.”

Kaia didn’t bother to point out the fact that she didn’t have anything she could wear to a formal event. She assumed Garrett would figure that out.

“I need to lock the store,” she said.

He nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’ve got five minutes.”

Garrett waited out by the car. Kaia hurried to shut down the computer and close the register. While she was in Rachel’s office, the imp appeared. For once, there was no smile on his cherubic face.

“This is not good, Faerie,” he said. “He’s pissed. And when I say pissed, I mean furious. And when I say furious, I mean he could give Zafira a run for her money.”

Kaia clenched her fist, her body rigid with anxiety and frustration. “Do you always have to point out the obvious?”

“I suggest sex,” the imp said. “Get in the truck and strip down. He’ll forget he’s mad. Trust me.”

Kaia stared at his guileless eyes in disbelief. “That is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. Garrett doesn’t want to have sex, he wants to kill me.”

The imp shrugged. “Either him or the Black Ladies, I guess. Take your pick.”

Kaia fled from the room.

They rode across town in silence. Garrett wove the delivery van through the thick rush-hour traffic, choosing city streets over highways, slamming on his brakes to avoid near collisions and ducking through red lights without hesitation. A valet ran out to greet them at the door of the Tanforth tower, wearing khaki shorts and navy polo shirt with the Tanforth logo on the pocket.

“Deliveries are in back—oh, Mr. Jameson.” The boy stopped mid-sentence, clearly embarrassed. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize it was you. Do you need me to park this for you?”

Garrett jumped down. “Yes. I need to leave it for a few nights. Can you also bring up my car? I’ll be back down in a half an hour.”

Kaia followed more slowly, as the valet ran around to open her door for her and extended his hand to help her out. The building was a breathtaking mix of glass and steel, with decorative outside structures providing a mix of shade and sunlight for residents as well as housing for micro wind turbines and solar thermal water-heating units.

The landscaping around the building was just as stunning—and as low-impact—with native plants specifically chosen for their low water usage and tolerance of the local conditions. Green bamboo mixed with red flowered bottlebrush and sea myrtle around oases of shade created by arbors draped with bougainvillea. Though Kaia was filled with an increasing sense of doom, she couldn’t help but feel a small surge of pride that Garrett had made this beautiful place possible.

They took the elevator up to the penthouse. Garrett pushed the door open and motioned her inside.

“I’ll need—” she started to say, but he cut her off with a raised hand.

“The bathroom is the third door on the right. You can take a shower. There’s some things in there you can use. I’ll bring you something to wear.” He disappeared in the other direction.

Kaia stood for a moment, blinking as she took in Garrett’s apartment. The front foyer opened into an extraordinary open living area, full of light from the floor-to-ceiling windows that stretched along the front wall. In the distance, over the edge of a balcony, she could see the grey ocean and a line of whitecapped waves. Reflections from the cars and buildings hundreds of feet below sparkled along the smooth ivory walls and modern couch and love seat. To her right was a corridor with wood floors—bamboo, she recalled reading—and the bathroom where she was apparently supposed to get ready for the art opening. To her left, the silver sheen of a gas range and hood, marble counters and a bar in the kitchen.

The space felt odd, both personal and impersonal at the same time. While she felt instantly soothed by the sight of the ocean and the soft wood beneath her feet, she couldn’t help but feel the pain of the few houseplants that lay dying in a corner by the balcony.

“Someone needs a good florist,” she muttered, shaking off her stupor. She walked down the hallway, counting the doors as she went.

The bathroom must have been for guests. A wicker basket on the counter held bottles of sample-sized shampoo, conditioner, and lotion, a hair dryer, and an assortment of other toiletries. Kaia quickly removed her clothes and hung them on the back of the door, stepping into the shower before it had gotten warm.

It had been simmering down deep, of course. The distrust. He’d never really gotten over it, and now it was back like a bad wound that had never really healed. All the sex and fun and laughter couldn’t make up for it. And now it mattered for all different reasons—not because she’d be banished from Faeria, but because she’d fallen in love with him.

The realization hit her with such force she almost felt dizzy.

It was absurd. Just as he was ready to throw her out, she realized that she’d made the classic human error—she’d fallen in love with a man who didn’t love her back. All her plans and convictions had been for naught. Love, it seemed, cared little for what humans wanted. It took them where it pleased.

A bitter laugh bubbled up in her chest. The voice of the Black Ladies reverberated in her head.

We will have her wings before long.

Wings or no wings, she was as vulnerable as any human. And her heart could just as easily be broken. Did it matter that the Black Ladies were coming for her? Did anything matter, if Garrett hated her?

She washed her hair quickly and was about to step out when she saw Garrett’s shadow enter the room. She pushed open the glass door of the shower and met his eyes as she grabbed a towel.

“You can wear this.” He held something in front of him, fingers barely touching the edges of the material, his expression as cold as the Black Ladies’ breath.

She sucked in her breath.

He’d kept her dress.

§

He crumpled the silvery sheath into a tiny ball and threw it at the counter. Then he turned and walked down the hall to his bathroom. He started the water and pulled out his razor as the buzz of the hair dryer came from Kaia’s bathroom.

He didn’t know why he’d kept it. It was stupid, really. But he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. The dress had cost him five hundred dollars. That was part of it. If he was honest, he would have to admit that he’d always harbored a secret fantasy of seeing her wear it one more time. Whether to relive that first night together or exorcise it, he didn’t know.

She looked horrified. There was no other way to put it. He found himself strangely pleased by her reaction. He didn’t want her feeling comfortable tonight. He wanted her to feel as off-kilter, as misled and disappointed as he’d felt when he saw her in Rachel’s Roses that afternoon, caught in her lie.

He didn’t really care whether she could drive or not. That wasn’t the issue. The problem was that after all this time, after all they’d been through, he still couldn’t trust her. Worse yet, he had no idea how deep her lies went. She’d never produced any identification beyond her license, and even that was a fake. How could he trust anything she’d ever told him?

Garrett had always hated mysteries. Even as a kid. Puzzles, brainteasers, crosswords—you name it, he hated them. He didn’t mind a challenge but he hated the thought that someone knew the answer and he didn’t. He hated being set up, and he knew with absolute certainty that Kaia was doing just that.

For what end? What did she really want from him?

He should just walk away from her, but she was like a magnet, drawing him back every time he tried to escape. He’d spent more time with her than he’d spent with any other woman, but instead of getting bored, he was only thinking about her more. Each time they made love, it got better. Each time they went dancing, he wanted to hold her closer. Each time he left her, all he could think about was the time when he would see her again.

They’d formed a rhythm over the past week and a half. He’d go get their morning coffee while she showered. He’d shower while she started her morning lists and tallies. They’d read the paper together. It was comfortable.

Easy.

She wasn’t much for chatter. He liked that. Being around her didn’t take effort. He could just relax. He relaxed so much, in fact, he had to stop himself from talking sometimes because he found himself wanting to say things to her, wanting to confide things in her that he’d never confided in anyone before.

If he started doing that, he’d give her the wrong impression. Because despite what his body might want, his mind absolutely knew better. Women like Kaia didn’t change. They just waited and made their bad decisions again later on, when they’d be most likely to lead to disaster. He’d learned his lesson as a child.

He dressed in a hurry and walked down the hall to bang on the bathroom door. As he raised his hand, Kaia walked out. She was hesitant, nervously adjusting the neckline of the dress. He stopped still, feeling a weight suddenly land on his throat.

Stupid. The dress had been a stupid, stupid idea.

She looked glorious, a mix of the sun and the moon with her golden-brown hair and the silvery sheen of the dress. He’d forgotten how the fine, shimmery silk molded to her every curve. The body in the dress was different now, less buxom, but she was all the more elegant for that, her legs an endless length of golden skin, her face sun-kissed and sprinkled with freckles across the bridge of her nose.

He knew every inch of that body. He’d kissed the flesh below the hollow of her waist, laved his tongue across the nipples that peaked through her thin lacy bra, held those hips from behind while he buried himself inside her.

“Are you ready to go?” she asked.

Damn it. He had to turn away. “I need a drink,” he said. He poured himself a shot of whiskey from the wet bar in the living room and took a deep breath.

It was going to be a long night.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Rachel leaned her head forward and straightened her pillow—for the eighteenth time. It was no use. A straight pillow wasn’t going to help the throbbing in her legs, the aching in her ribs, or the pounding in her head.

The sun was starting to set, sending orange and pink rays shooting through her room. She checked her watch; almost eight. She took her next pain meds at 8:30. This was the worst time.

Although honestly, the pain wasn’t going to kill her. The boredom might. The boredom, and the frustration. The frustration of lying here in bed while everyone around her bustled in and out, busy and fulfilled. Kaia was doing a great job at the store—such a great job she didn’t have time to check in every day and tell Rachel how things were going. Rachel was disconnected and unable to help, to be a part of the process. She’d told Ted how difficult that was and he’d said it was good. She needed to rest.

She needed more rest like she needed a hole in the head.

“Rach?” A whisper sounded from across the room. “Rachel, are you awake?”

Oh no. Not him. Ted’s curly head peeked through the door. “Yes,” she sighed. “I’m awake.”

He walked in with a jaunty swing to his step, holding out a carton of ice cream. “It’s Friday night. I thought we should celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?” She didn’t mean to snap. She really didn’t. But if he was here, now, she should do it. Tonight. And that felt so wrong when he’d brought her ice cream.

“It’s our anniversary.” He leaned over the bed and gave her a kiss, surprising her, as he always did, with his unique mix of sexy and sweet.

“Our… ” Rachel dropped her head against the pillow. “Oh. Our anniversary. Like, the anniversary of the day we met.”

Ted nodded. “Two years ago.”

“And you remembered.”

“How could I forget? You were driving that horrible little car of yours and you dinged me in the parking lot at the bookstore.”

Rachel smiled at the memory. “I was terrified you’d make me pay to fix it.”

“I took a date instead.”

Ted pulled bowls and spoons out of a grocery sack and cleared a space on a table beside Rachel’s bed. Rachel cleared her throat. “Look, Ted, I’ve been thinking and I—”

“No.” He did not look up.

She tilted her head. “What?”

He opened the container and spooned the ice cream into their bowls. “No.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re going to try to break up with me,” he said calmly. “You’ve been thinking about it for days. I happen to know you quite well, sweetheart. You fiddle with things when you’re nervous, and you’ve been pleating that sheet ever since I walked into the room. You have been all week.”

Rachel dropped the sheet. “I wasn’t—”

“It doesn’t really matter, because the answer is no.”

Rachel shook her head with confusion. “I haven’t asked a question.”

“You don’t have to.” He handed her a bowl and spoon, and looked up at the television that was mounted on the wall above their heads. “Any good movies on tonight?”

“Wait a minute—I’m going to break up with you and all you can say is, ‘any good movies on tonight?’”

Ted pulled up a chair and assumed a comfortable slouch, balancing his bowl on one knee while he grabbed the remote control from Rachel’s bed with the other. “I guess I could also say, we’re getting married a week from Monday. The doctors told me you’ll be pretty handy with a wheelchair by then. My mom’s pastor is available, and we can get married in your dad’s church. I’ve got it all arranged. We’ll have to put off the honeymoon but I figured that would be okay.”

Rachel stared at the ice cream in her hand, and back at Ted. “I’m not sure you understand what ‘breaking up’ means, Ted. It doesn’t mean you get married. It means you don’t get married.”

“Right. Well, I decided we’re getting married.”

Rachel found herself strangely torn between the desire to scream and laugh. “You can’t do that. Just decide we’re getting married.”

“Why not? You thought you could decide we weren’t. I should have just as much right to decide we are.”

Her mouth flapped open and closed. “But… but… ”

“Rachel, eat your ice cream,” he advised. “It’s melting, and you don’t like it when it melts.”

She took a large, defiant bite. “I’m difficult,” she snapped, the words muffled by a mouthful of chocolate-vanilla royale. “I’m bossy. I will order you around. I will make your life miserable. I will do stupid things like drive cars that don’t accelerate and work too hard because I don’t like to ask for help.”

“I know that.”

“My parents hate each other. My mom made my dad’s life a living hell.” Unexpected tears filled her eyes. “I don’t want to do that to you. I love you too much for that.”

“Is that what this is all about?” Ted set his bowl on the ground and turned his chair to face her. “You want to break up because you’re afraid someday you’ll treat me like your mom treats your dad?”

Rachel nodded, unable to speak.

“Rach.” Ted squeezed her hand. “You’re not your mom. And I’m not your dad. I’m not saying we don’t have our flaws, because we do. But they’re our flaws. I’m not going to let you treat me like a dishrag, and you’re not going to become a bitch. You’re a kind, loving person. I wouldn’t be so completely head over heels in love with you if you weren’t.”

“I might be someday,” Rachel managed to squeak out between her tears.

He gazed into her eyes intently, all pretense of joking aside. “I almost lost you in this accident, Rachel. Do you have any idea what that feels like? It’s like losing a piece of your soul. We are meant to be together, and I’m not letting you throw that away because you’re scared of what the future might hold.”

Her nose and throat were burning with tears. Rachel swallowed hard. “I’m so scared. I love you too much to hurt you.”

He gripped her hand. “We’re going to have to work at this. We’ve got our weaknesses. You get bossy and I get lazy. We’re human. But we love each other. We’re the lucky ones, Rachel. We found our other halves—and it’s not perfect or easy or simple. That doesn’t make it any less worth fighting for. So I’m trying something new. I’m going to try being bossy for a change.”

“You? Bossy?”

“We got a second chance,” he said simply. “And I am not letting you go. Never again. So if I have to be bossy to keep you, I’ll be bossy. Understand? Now sit back, shut up, and eat your ice cream. Tomorrow, you’re picking out a wedding dress.”

§

Portia watched with a sick feeling as the girl fluttered her lashes and smiled at Herr Reichman. She was doing it again. Charming him. Wrapping him around her finger like she’d done with every other man at the opening.

It had started with Derek Hoving, the gallery owner. He was a notorious snob, a man born into money who had no patience with anyone not born into similar circumstances, and Portia had thought he would make mincemeat out of her grandson’s clearly inappropriate date for the evening.

But no. The girl had launched into a conversation with Derek about the philosophy of the Renaissance artists in contrast with the Impressionists. Portia had to marvel at the girl’s skill. She could have known absolutely nothing about the subject, but she didn’t have to because she managed to convey the opinion that she agreed with everything Derek said.

Which was exactly what he wanted to hear.

After that she turned to Placid Berkley, a huge contributor to the Miami art scene and a flaming liberal in every sense of the word. Portia hated him. Kaia smiled her perfect little smile, made some charming remark about how she loved his obnoxious bright blue suit, and asked him about his favorite galleries, managing to steer the conversation away from politics while still drawing him out about his artistic preferences.

She was clearly a master.

Portia could not help but be impressed. She could also not help but be furious. Because no matter how skillful the girl might be at the art of conversation, at some point someone would discover her past. Derek Hoving would not appreciate Garrett bringing an uneducated homeless person to his gallery. Placid Berkely might love her even more if he discovered the truth, but Placid Berkely did not run Jameson Enterprises.

Unfortunately, neither did Garrett.

But he would. He wasn’t like his mother. Garrett had a strength of purpose, a fierce determination, and willpower. Portia liked to believe he inherited that from her. Victoria certainly didn’t have it. Garrett understood business and the value of a dollar. He knew how to drive a deal to close, when to show weakness, and when to strike. He was the perfect choice to inherit her legacy. His only weakness had been music, and Portia had ensured that the music wouldn’t destroy him. Not like his mother. Not like…

She tightened her lips. Deliberately, she forced her mind away from a trail of memories that would only bring pain. It didn’t matter. Garrett was on the path she’d set out for him. Reluctantly, yes, but he was on the path.

And Kaia could be the end of it. Portia glared at the girl’s long, honey-colored hair and the elegant lines of her body, sheathed in a dress that must have cost a small fortune. Kaia had been distracting him from his job ever since he’d brought her to the Manor. The girl was pure, unadulterated pleasure. Portia couldn’t allow Garrett to fall for it.

Kaia had to go.

“Kaia, dear, would you mind going for a little walk with me? I need to get a breath of air.”

Kaia cocked her head, looking quizzical. “Of course, Portia. You’ll have to excuse me, Herr Reichman.” She patted him on the shoulder as she rose, and he rose as well, bobbing her a little bow and smiling an absurdly wide smile.

The girl was like a sorceress, Portia raged silently. She extended her arm and Kaia walked ahead of her. The gallery had been designed with a mix of indoor and outdoor spaces, and they walked through an automatic door to a small atrium, where water tinkled over a concrete fountain surrounded by brass sculptures of shorebirds.

Kaia leaned forward and dipped her fingers in the water. She dabbed her cheeks. “Goodness, I hadn’t realized how warm it was in there.”

Portia’s mouth twisted with disgust. “I don’t believe that water is meant to be applied to the body.”

“Surely it can’t hurt me,” Kaia said. She walked a few paces away to study the birds alighting on top of the stone fixture surrounding the fountain. “I like the sculpture, but it’s not as lovely as the real thing, don’t you think?”

“Hmph.” Portia looked around to make sure they were alone, and said carefully, “I’ve been meaning to speak with you for some time. I hope you don’t think I’m out of turn, but it’s really for your own good.”

Kaia turned around. “Oh? Well, if it’s for my own good, then please, go ahead.”

Portia tightened her jaw. “I understand you’ve been spending quite a bit of time with Garrett.”

“Yes,” she said.

“I have to tell you, it isn’t going to end well for you.” The girl had the audacity to look bored. Portia reminded herself that she was a lady and did not show her anger. “Laugh if you want, but I’m telling you this for your own benefit.”

“I’m not sure why my relationship with Garrett is any of your business, Portia.”

“He’s my grandson,” she snapped. “Of course it’s my business.”

Kaia inclined her head. “Well, thank you for the information. Shall we return to the gallery?”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I never said that. Why wouldn’t I believe you?” She turned her back deliberately to Portia, bringing water to her cheeks once again. “In fact, I have no doubt you are absolutely correct. My relationship with Garrett is doomed. Perhaps tonight will be our very last night together.”

“Don’t be flip with me, girl,” Portia said, imagining hauling her by her shoulder and dumping her headfirst in the fountain. “Every one of Garrett’s dates dreams of marrying him. You, obviously, think you’re going to be his Cinderella. Life doesn’t work that way.”

“Portia,” Kaia’s face was dewy with moisture, her eyes strangely bright. “I have little doubt that I am nothing more to Garrett than any of his other casual flings. Have no fear on that score.”

Portia stepped forward. The girl was mocking her. She had to be mocking her. “You aren’t like all those other women, Kaia. Those other women had breeding. They had education. Skills. Garrett’s mother was just like you, you know. She was beautiful. She had a way with people. She also had no more sense than a rabbit.”

Kaia froze at the first mention of Victoria. Portia realized with satisfaction that Garrett had probably never mentioned his mother to the girl before. Good. That would only emphasize how little she understood him.

“You probably don’t know about her, but perhaps you should. She never had a bit of sense—all she ever wanted to do was listen to music and draw. She got pregnant with Garrett when she was sixteen. I tried to take care of her and keep her from becoming a laughingstock, but she wanted nothing to do with me. She left home, following her good-for-nothing boyfriend and his band. She went to Chicago and became a junkie. God only knows what she did with Garrett. I believe they lived in a shelter for a while. When he was eight she almost killed him and his brother in a car accident because she was high. That’s when she gave the boys to me. That’s why Garrett’s never going to marry you, Kaia. He knows what a mess women like you are. He’d never do that to himself and he’d certainly never do that to his children.”

Somewhere during Portia’s speech the color had left Kaia’s face. To her credit, she did not flinch, but only said, “I am not Garrett’s mother.”

“Maybe,” Portia said. “But how does Garrett know that? He only brought you to the Manor because he felt sorry for you. Don’t fool yourself that it’s something else. When he gets married it will be to a decent girl. Someone he can depend on. Someone he can trust.”

Kaia recoiled at her words.

Sensing she had struck home, Portia pressed on. “You’re nothing better than a street person like his mother.”

“I don’t have to defend myself to you.” Kaia brushed against her as she headed back inside.

“Of course you don’t,” Portia said to Kaia’s back, a smile curving her lips. Oh, the look on the girl’s face was priceless. Fear, anger, and devastation wrapped in one pretty picture. Portia relaxed with pleasure for the first time that night. “Of course you don’t.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Garrett waited for the elevator to reach the top floor of Tanforth Tower before he spoke. A powerful heat was raging through him, burning with its intensity. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Kaia all night, the wanting and the need driving higher every time she touched another man, every time she smiled, every time she laughed.

She had been to parties like that before. She had laughed with men like that before. She knew how to stroke their egos, how to make them feel like kings. Tonight, she was the woman from the Avalon, the one who had teased him with her confidence and her air of knowing.

What kind of life had she really led? How high up had she lived, and how had she come so far down, to end up homeless, living at Good Samaritan?

She was upset now, her body vibrating with some restrained emotion. She’d stumbled several times since they’d left the gallery, in the parking garage, and on the way up to the penthouse. He’d taken her hand to steady her and found it icy cold. He wondered what she thought he would do tonight. He wondered if her husband had abused her. It sickened him to think about it, but then he remembered that he wasn’t even sure if she had a husband, and the heat and the fury started all over again.

“I’d say you have one last chance to come clean, Kaia, but that seems absurd at this point. It isn’t as though your past really matters to me any more anyway.” He smiled when she flinched at his direct attack. He steered her out of the elevator. He could feel the tension in her body, the resistance building with every step she took.

He opened the front door and took off his jacket, throwing it down on the back of the sofa before unbuttoning his shirt, slowly and methodically. The windows reflected the lights of the city below, casting a rosy glow around them.

He reached around and turned on the overhead lights. The last thing he wanted right now was a soft and romantic mood. “After all, we were clear with each other, weren’t we? No strings attached, right? You didn’t want a relationship and neither did I.”

She stared at him, her eyes huge, her shoulders thrown back. Like they had been the night he’d seen her in front of Good Sam, and the night she’d told off Portia.

She was so proud. Like a damn queen.

What did she have to be so proud of?

He shrugged out of his shirt and started to unbuckle his pants. “Because I was thinking, as we were driving home, that it was really silly for me to be so upset. It doesn’t matter to me what kind of stories you tell. We’re just having sex, after all. So you might as well take off your lovely dress, because I’d hate to rip it.”

“You’re angry,” she said. “You’re not touching me when you’re like this.”

He shrugged. “I’m not angry. I just realized I’ve been an idiot for the past ten days. Sleeping on that uncomfortable futon. Buying coffee like a lovesick teenager. All for a woman who won’t even tell me that she can’t drive a damn car!” He realized his voice had risen to low roar, but he couldn’t seem to control it.

“So that’s it?” Kaia put her hands on her hips. “Good. If we’re really going to have it out, let’s start with this: I’d like to know why I’m supposed to tell you all my secrets. Really, Garrett, I’m interested to know. Because the last time I checked, you hadn’t told me a thing about yourself. You think I’m hiding something? How about you? Where’s your mother? Did you live in a shelter when you were a child? When you took me to Good Sam, were you thinking about that? Were you ever going to tell me about it—about her?”

Garrett’s skin washed cold. “My mother? Who’s been talking to you about my mother?”

Kaia waved her hand. “Take a wild guess.”

Only one person could have shared such intimate information with her. Black dots appeared in front of his eyes. What motivation—what possible motivation could Portia have had for telling Kaia about his mother?

“We don’t talk about her,” Garrett said.

“Of course not,” Kaia mocked. “We don’t talk about anything.”

“My mother,” Garrett bit out tightly, “was a drug addict. I haven’t seen or communicated with her since I was eight.”

“Did you live in a shelter?”

“A few times. When she got kicked out of her apartment and was between boyfriends.” He still remembered the feeling of panic. Of never knowing where you’d be from night to night. Boyfriend’s couch. Front seat of the car. Cot in a shelter. Old woman next to you who laughed and talked to herself while she ate. Boy in the next room who kept crying.

The noise. Always the noise.

“What happened to her?”

He shrugged. “I have no idea. She sends me a birthday card every year, and I believe she lives in Miami. That’s all I know.”

“Wait—are you telling me your mother lives here, in Miami, and you haven’t seen her since you were a child?” Kaia sounded astonished.

“I assume she lives here. That’s what it says on the return address.”

“And she writes to you every year?”

“Every year,” he said grimly.

“Why haven’t you seen her?”

“Because I have no desire to see her. She dumped Max and me off with Portia and disappeared. I waited around for a couple of years and heard nothing from her. Life went on. I adjusted. Sue me if I wasn’t interested in welcoming her back with open arms when she finally got her life together.”

He didn’t know why he was telling her all this, but the flood of words, words he’d never spoken to anyone before, had broken through some invisible gate and were impossible to stop.

“Does she want to see you?”

He turned away from her. Somewhere in the midst of her questions his anger with Kaia had faded to a slow, throbbing heat, and now all he could think of was the myriad of ways he could throttle his grandmother. “I have no idea. I don’t read her letters.”

“Never? Not once?”

“Well, once,” he admitted. “I read the first one. She sent it when I turned eighteen. She said she wanted to see me. I figured she just wanted to get some money out of me now that I was old enough to access my trust fund. I never responded.”

Kaia stared at him. She was quiet so long he found himself growing strangely uncomfortable. He made a point of walking to the kitchen and getting a beer out of the fridge, opening it, and going to the balcony. He stepped outside and let the warm air surround his naked torso.

He wished it would rain. He needed a good rainstorm right about now.

“Now I understand,” Kaia said, her voice finally sounding behind him. “She hurt you and you closed yourself off. Your mother made an enormous mistake and you decided to become Garrett the Island. It’s almost too bad you had to live with your millionaire grandmother. The story would have worked better if you’d had to live on the streets. Picked yourself up by your bootstraps and all that.”

Garrett spun around, amazed that she had turned the attack on him. “I’m not asking for pity, Kaia. I never asked for anyone’s pity.”

“Of course not. And you don’t want anyone’s love, either, is that right?”

“Give it a rest, will you? There’s no mystery to my life. I don’t happen to have a lot of faith in human nature, or any fairy tale love business. I’m not sure why I should.”

“Because you’ve been surrounded by love your entire life,” Kaia shot back. “You’re just too damn busy feeling sorry for yourself to see it.”

“Surrounded by love?” Garrett stared at her. “Are you nuts? My teenage mother was in rehab when I was eight, and my grandmother has all the sensitivity and kindness of a tarantula. I’m sorry, but I don’t see the love. I see a bunch of messed up people who had kids and didn’t have the foggiest idea what to do with them.”

“I guess I have a different perspective. Because I see a mother who loved her children enough to give them up. And that’s about the hardest thing that a person could ever have to do.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She brushed aside his low protest. “She raised you for eight years. If she really didn’t care about you, why didn’t she give you up from the start? You think she wasn’t terrified to be on her own, pregnant and drug-addicted? I’ve lived on the streets, Garrett. It isn’t a fun place to be. It’s terrifying. It would be even worse with a child.”

“She left me with Portia,” he said with disgust. “What kind of parent abandons their child to be raised by someone like that?”

“A brave person. Someone who knows they can’t do it by themselves. She walked away from her children so she could give them a better life. In my book that’s a pretty amazing act of love.”

“She should have come back.” He clenched his fist around the neck of his beer bottle. “There was no reason for her to dump us and run. It isn’t like we were hard to find.”

“Did you ever ask her why she did it? Did you ever give her a chance to explain?”

Garrett opened his mouth, but no words came.

Kaia sailed on into the silence. “Now, let’s talk for a minute about your grandmother. I’m not going to tell you she’s the sweetest, gentlest person in the world. She’s tough and maybe even downright mean. Yet she took you in. She did everything in her power to make you a success. You may not agree with her definition of success, but you’ve also never had to go hungry. Maybe Portia’s been trying to give you a little bit of security. Maybe that’s the only way she knows how to show you that she loves you.”

“I think that’s enough,” Garrett said, slicing his hand to indicate they were finished. Bile rose in his throat at the casual way Kaia dismissed years of resentment and hurt. To hear her talk, one would think he was no better than a petulant child. “I’m not listening to you dissect my family. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course I don’t,” Kaia said. “We don’t talk about Portia, or the elusive Max, who I’ve never met, or your job, or even Lexi, who had the misfortune to be exposed to me for a weekend. You keep a tighter lid on your life than anyone I’ve ever met. I could be completely wrong about your mother. Maybe she’s a terrible person. Maybe she couldn’t wait to get rid of you. Maybe she’s been sending you cards all these years because she’s hoping to get a little of your money. All I’m saying is you better not stand there and judge me for not telling you everything about my past when yours isn’t exactly an open book.”

He pounced on her admission. “So you admit that you lied to me?”

She stuck out her chin defiantly. “Maybe I did. Maybe I am hiding something from you. Maybe it’s something big. Maybe I’m lying about who I am—or even what I am. Can you really blame me?”

Garrett shook his head. “I can’t believe this all somehow became my fault. You lied, so it’s my fault.”

Kaia joined him out on the balcony, the light from his apartment turning her silver dress into a halo. “I didn’t say it was your fault,” she said, her voice quiet. Resigned. “I was stupid and naïve. I thought we could pretend like we didn’t have pasts. You didn’t share yours, I didn’t share mine.” She sighed. “I thought we were even.”

“There was a big difference there, Kaia. I’m a damn fixture in this city. You can find out about me by looking on the Internet or picking up a newspaper. You met my best friend, my grandmother, and my niece. I may not have told you the whole truth, but I never lied to you.”

She didn’t respond. Garrett threw back his beer and took a long drink. This wasn’t going like he had planned. He was supposed to be having sex right now. Hard, hot, meaningless sex. He was not supposed to be having his psyche dissected by someone who refused to come clean about why she had a fake driver’s license. He was not supposed to be feeling guilty about something, and he definitely wasn’t supposed to have this sick, dark feeling in the pit of his stomach at the sound of resignation in Kaia’s voice.

“I suppose there really isn’t any hope for us, is there?” She was so quiet he had to strain to hear her.

He shook his head. “Hope for what? I told you from the beginning, I don’t do relationships and I can’t stomach lies. Just tell me, Kaia, what’s the real story? Are you a runaway princess from some tiny country in Eastern Europe I won’t be able to pronounce? An illegal alien? A plain old alien?” He smiled at that. “We had something good. Let’s forget all this nonsense and get back to where we were.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not possible. I think you know that.”

The sick feeling grew, turning into something akin to panic. “Jesus, Kaia,” he said choking a little with disgust. “I thought you were different but you’re just like the rest of them. Just like every other woman.”

“Like every other woman,” Kaia repeated softly. She gave a sad laugh and looked out over the balcony. Her long hair obscured her face. “Do you know what it means to be human, Garrett?”

“Why the hell are you asking me that?”

“Because I think I’m figuring it out.”

He barked a short laugh. “Okay, you tell me. What does it mean to be human?”

“When people come to the flower shop, you know what they want to say to each other? Two things: I’m sorry, and I love you. That’s it. They say it different ways and with different words, but it comes down to the same thing each time. So I think that’s what it means to be human. I think it means taking chances and risking getting hurt. I think it means loving and forgiving.”

Garrett tensed, feeling like somehow, with those simple words, she had slapped him across the face. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

She sighed. “Nothing. I’ve just realized that right now, I’m a lot more human than you are.”

She leaned forward and kissed him, gently and sweetly on the lips, leaving behind a trace of a tear on his cheek. “Good-bye, Garrett. I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry for everything.”

Then, with all the regal beauty he’d ever seen in her, she turned and walked away.

§

“Need a cab, Miss?”

Kaia nodded, fighting back the ocean of tears she knew would come as soon as she let down her guard. The valet at the front door of the Tanforth Tower spoke into a phone at his podium, and a few minutes later a yellow car pulled up. She gave the driver the address to Rachel’s Roses and collapsed into the sagging cloth seat. The driver was playing loud music with a sitar and a woman singing in a high-pitched voice. Kaia opened her window and focused on keeping herself together.

It took a second to notice the imp, grinning at her from the footwell of the car, behind the front seat. “Psst, Faerie! Nice dress!”

She leaned her head against the seat and didn’t bother to move. “Thanks.”

“How’d it go?” he whispered, poking her in the leg. “I figured I’d give you a little privacy. You did what I suggested, right? Stripped him naked and made his wildest dreams come true? That’s why he gave you back the dress. Because he’s happy now. I knew it.” His voice rang with triumph.

“No.”

“What?” He rose a foot higher, practically shrieking in outrage. “What’s wrong with you? How did you screw this up?”

“It’s over, imp. The game’s over.”

At any other time he would have looked hilarious, as his eyes widened and his mouth formed a perfect ‘o’ of surprise. “You’re kidding. Really? Nice work, Faerie. Eleven days early—I’m impressed!” He patted her leg. “Now, don’t be too sad for him. He’s just a human, you know.”

“I didn’t break his heart.”

“Then how could the game be over?”

“I lost,” she said. “Not him.”

The imp blinked. “You lost… oh!” He sucked in his breath in horror. “Oh, Faerie, you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t fall in love with the man. Please tell me you didn’t.”

Two fat tears plopped down her cheeks. “I did.”

He popped one chubby hand over his mouth. “At least tell me he fell in love back. You can still break his heart. Zafira will be very angry with you but at least you’ll be able to come back to Faeria.”

She shook her head, her chin trembling. “N-n-no. No, he didn’t.” She swallowed hard. “He didn’t even come close.”

“Well then, where are you going?” He plucked the thin fabric of the silver dress. “You aren’t smelly and spotty anymore. You cleaned yourself up, got yourself looking decent again. Not like a faerie, to be sure, but decent. He’ll never fall in love with you if you aren’t there.”

“He’ll never fall in love with me period. It’s hopeless.” More tears coursed down her cheeks and she brushed them off with the back of her hand. “He’s not like other men. He doesn’t fall in love. He won’t give up his heart that way.”

“Huh.” The imp settled back down to contemplate that information. “You’ll just have to go back to Faeria,” he concluded. “Beg Zafira for mercy. You’ve tried hard and you’ve been honest about it. I’ve been watching and there’s been no magic. She’ll appreciate that.”

“I can’t go back.”

“That’s absurd. I’ll take you to one of the Gates. You can take faerie form there. She can’t hold that against you.”

Kaia choked back a sob at the thought of having her wings one more time. Still, she couldn’t do it. “Rachel still needs me. I can’t leave the store.”

“You mean to tell me you’re going to stay here in Miami, just to run a stupid flower shop?” The imp’s mouth fell open in astonishment. “You’re dying, Kaia. I don’t need to tell you that, do I? Every minute you spend as a human is a minute closer to death. Forget about the humans. They’re nothing to you now. Just come back to Faeria. Zafira will take you back. You probably won’t be able to be a Handmaid and she might banish you to your garden, but at least you’ll be able to see the other Handmaids.”

The cab driver handed a tissue back from the front seat. His eyes in the rearview mirror were dark and kind. Kaia wondered how many people talked to themselves and cried in the back of his cab.

“It’s not that easy,” she said, her chest heaving. “I can’t forget about the humans. They fed me when I was hungry. They gave me a job, a place to stay. They showed me how to love. I never knew how to love before, imp. And now I do. Love means you don’t walk out when someone needs you.” She stuck out her trembling chin defiantly. “I’ve got ten days before the solstice, and I’m not leaving Rachel before I have to.”

“What are you saying, Faerie? That you like them better than us? That you’re willing to stay here even if this thing with Garrett is hopeless?” The imp said it as a joke, but when he looked at her eyes the smile dropped off his face.

Kaia turned to face the window. She did not answer his question.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Ten days later…

Kaia watched with happy tears as Rachel spun her wheelchair around the grey linoleum floor of the reception hall of the First Congregational Church. Rachel’s thin face glowed with joy as Ted danced beside her, radiating a love so palpable it was almost difficult to watch. Rachel wore a simple ivory satin dress with spaghetti straps and a loose-flowing skirt with a tulle underskirt to mask the supportive casts on her legs. Her chair was decorated with roses and carnations. The bride, of course, carried Stargazer lilies in her bouquet.

The wedding was small, only a few close friends attending. Garrett was there as Ted’s best man. Kaia was maid of honor. Lexi had walked down the aisle as a flower girl, deliriously happy in her fancy pink dress as she tossed rose petals in front of Rachel’s wheelchair. She danced now with Garrett. He alternatively held her hands, and picked her up and twirled her around his shoulders as she squealed with joy.

Rachel and Ted would be honeymooning in Paris once Rachel could walk again. That was still months away. For now, Rachel had begun to rehabilitate her muscles through physical therapy, yoga, and isometrics, and her recovery was going as well as anyone could have hoped.

Next week she planned to start back at the store part-time. A renovation had made the store bathroom wheelchair-accessible, and they’d hired an assistant to help out in the store any time Kaia couldn’t come in. The plans they had made left Kaia feeling terribly guilty, knowing that after tomorrow she wouldn’t be in at all.

It was the day before the summer solstice. Time for Kaia to leave Miami and return to Faeria before the Black Ladies hunted her down. And it was a relief, really, because it had become agonizing to see Garrett. They would bump into each other at the store, or when planning for the wedding, and each time she could feel a little piece of her soul wither and die.

The breakup, at least, had been swift and complete. He had not approached her after that night. She had mailed his razor and suits back to the condo. He’d never asked her about the things she’d said or the questions she’d asked. He looked at her now like she was a stranger.

The only thing left between them was the knowing—the painful knowing that she loved him.

She loved every inch of him. From his square jaw to his crystal blue eyes, from the hair that tumbled over his forehead to the rangy shoulders that had once been hers to hold. She loved him. And he would never love her back.

Rachel waved at her from the dance floor and motioned for her to join them.

Kaia shook her head and pointed toward the bathroom.

“I’ll be right back,” she mouthed, and walked toward the back of the church hall. For all her fear of becoming Bridezilla, Rachel had been surprisingly mellow throughout the last-minute wedding planning process. She’d let Ted decide most of the details of the church and reception. They’d put some songs on CDs instead of having a DJ and Garrett paid for a caterer to bring hors d’oeuvres and a cheese plate.

In fact, lots of Rachel’s edges had smoothed out since the accident. Agreeing to marry Ted had evidently relieved some deep-seated anxiety she’d been carrying, and she radiated a peace and happiness Kaia had never seen in her before.

Just thinking about it made Kaia want to cry all over again.

She started up the steps toward the bathroom and froze when she got to the landing.

“Kaia, Kaia!”

“Kaia, we missed you!”

Her mouth dropped open. At the top of the stairs were Mina, Talia, and Analise, all in human form, eagerly waving and calling her name. Kaia ran up to the top of the steps and let them envelop her in an enormous hug. There was laughing and crying, but before long she pushed them back and looked around anxiously. “What are you doing here? Zafira will be furious if she finds out. You know you shouldn’t have any contact with me.”

The three of them looked at each other guiltily. “Well,” Talia began, taking a long dark section of hair and wrapping it around her finger, “actually, we talked to the imp.”

“The imp?” Kaia’s mouth opened in astonishment. “What does the imp have to do with this?”

No one spoke for a moment. Talia nudged Analise. “You tell her, ’Lise.”

Analise put a gentle hand on Kaia’s shoulder. “He said you were acting crazy,” she said softly. “He wasn’t sure if you were coming back. As strange as it sounds, I think he was worried about you.”

Kaia snorted. “Worried about me? I don’t believe that for a second. He just didn’t want to watch the Black Ladies drag me back.” She thought for a moment and breathed out in horror. “He told you what I said that day in the cab, didn’t he? He told you about Garrett.”

“What about Garret?” a cold, deadly quiet male voice asked.

§

Garrett thought, with a sickly amazement, that it was rather like stumbling upon the backstage area for the Miss Universe pageant, or some other absurd collection of the world’s most beautiful women. They were all tall, long-legged, and slender, with the same exotically slanted eyes and long slender noses. In fact, their faces were so similar they could have been sisters. Only their coloring was different. One was blonde and fair, smaller than the others, with a gentle smile and sweet blue eyes. Another had wavy dark hair that spilled over her shoulders and a tough, aggressive stance that clearly said, ‘don’t mess with me.’ The last was red-haired and voluptuous, her curves barely contained in a pair of tight pants and cropped shirt that exposed a winking green jewel in her belly-button.

And for some reason, all he could think when he looked at the four of them was that Kaia stood out like an elegant English rose in a garden full of exotic hothouse blooms.

The dark-haired one stepped forward, and as she did a rush of warm, sensual fire seemed to precede her. Garrett had little difficulty ignoring her. He could only see Kaia, her green gaze troubled, clouded. The women closed ranks around her, shielding her from him, and he wanted to push them aside and pull her forward, shake her, and demand the truth.

“You must be Garrett,” the woman said. “Kaia’s told us so much about you.”

He ignored her and focused his eyes on Kaia. “Funny. Kaia’s told me nothing about you.”

The woman drew her brows together in a show of irritation. She was clearly unused to being ignored. “I’m Talia. We’re Kaia’s… friends.”

The red-haired one approached him next. Like Talia, she walked like some ancient goddess, a sensual creature made only for pleasure. “Mina,” she purred. “Lovely to meet you, Garrett. Now we don’t mean to be abrupt, but we’ve come to take Kaia home with us.”

“And just where would home be?” Garrett asked with a pleasant smile. He fought to keep a grip on his composure while his world tipped upside-down.

“It doesn’t really matter. We’ve taken enough of your time. Isn’t there a wedding going on downstairs? We’d hate to have you miss the party.” The blonde was the last to approach. She sounded apologetic as she patted his arm softly and steered him back toward the end of the hall while the others guided Kaia toward the large exterior doors that led to the parking lot in front of the church.

For a moment, he was entranced by her scent, something sweet and heady, like the most delicate flowers he’d ever known. He began to follow her, but when he saw what was happening he shook her off like a man waking from a dream.

“Stop,” he roared, realizing Kaia was almost at the door. The women were holding her arms and talking all at once. Things were happening too fast. He needed to stop and think, understand why Kaia was being shanghaied by her gorgeous friends, and why they’d been talking about him when he showed up.

“’Lise, let him go,” Kaia ordered.

The little blonde dropped his arm and bobbed her head in his direction apologetically before turning to Kaia. “Honey, if you come back with us now, Zafira might be persuaded to change her mind. You can’t wait any longer. It isn’t like you have a choice. The Black Ladies will come for you tomorrow.”

“Of course she has a choice. What do you mean the Black Ladies are coming for her?” Garrett demanded. “Who is this Zafira?”

More importantly, why was Kaia acting so strangely? One would think these women owned her, from the defeated slump of her shoulders. Where was the fighting Kaia? What hold did the mysterious Zafira have over her?

Talia bared her teeth at him in a snarl. “That’s Queen Zafira to you, human.”

“Talia!” Kaia breathed, her eyes wide with horror.

“Nice job, Talia. Anything else you want to share with him while we’re here? I’m sure Zafira won’t mind,” Mina said.

“Girls,” the blonde reproved. Clearly, she was both peacemaker and parent of this crowd. She bowed again in Garrett’s direction, and cocked her head at Kaia. “Do you need to say good-bye to anyone?”

Kaia nodded dully, and for a moment Garrett wanted to shake her and force her to tell him what was going on. The feeling dissolved as the pieces finally fell into place. Of course Kaia was not what she seemed. Of course there was someone behind her, pulling her strings.

Her façade of lies was falling apart, and the last thing he was going to do was give her the satisfaction of caring.

“Yes,” she said. “I need a few minutes.”

The blonde nodded. “We’ll be outside. Don’t be long.”

§

Kaia found a spot on the wall, above the heads of Rachel, Garrett, and Ted, and fixed her eyes on it. They were in the office of the pastor of the church, and she could hear the music playing in the reception hall below them. The notes drifting through the room were slow and romantic, and she knew Rachel and Ted wanted to be there, dancing together.

“I feel terrible, interrupting your wedding like this, but there’s something I’ve got to tell you. I’ve got to tell you quickly, and then I’ve got to go.”

“Kaia, that’s crazy,” Rachel said. “What do you mean you have to go? You have to leave the wedding?”

Kaia bit her lip, unable to look Rachel directly in the face. She had to say her piece before she fell apart completely. “I’ve got to leave Miami. For good.”

Rachel sat up straight in her chair and darted a look back at Ted, then Garrett. “This is so sudden. Surely you can wait a few more days.”

“I’m sorry. I know it seems strange, but I’m afraid I can’t really explain. The truth is, I’ve done a terrible thing. A really terrible thing. I lied to all of you. I’ve been lying for a long time. I would tell you more, but I really can’t, and you wouldn’t believe me anyway.” She tried for a smile, but it ended up weak and tremulous. She forced the tears back down and concentrated on her words. “I just needed you to know how much I appreciated everything you did for me. That, and I’m sorry. I’m terribly, terribly sorry. ”

Rachel looked confused but ready to argue. Kaia stopped her with a raised hand. “I came here for him.” She pointed her finger at Garrett. Strangely, a wave of relief spilled over her, as she finally told them the truth. At least, a part of the truth. “I wanted him to fall in love with me. I guess I’m not the first woman to want that. I used you, Rachel, to try to get to him.”

“I see,” Rachel said quietly.

“The shelter, the job—was it all a lie?” Garrett asked, his voice rigid.

She gulped for air. She could hear the hatred in his voice, and it was almost her undoing. “No. That was all real. I didn’t starve for fun.”

“Who are they?” Garrett asked, gesturing toward the hallway where he’d met the Handmaids. “Are you all prostitutes? Is Zafira your pimp?”

The disgust took her back a step. She thought about trying to correct him, but decided it was better that way. Better for him to think her a whore and not ask any other questions. “All I can say is that I’m sorry,” she said. “I had no idea it would be like this. I thought it was a game. I didn’t understand what love was really all about.”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter why you came because you did a lot of good while you were here,” Rachel said. “I couldn’t have survived this without you.”

Kaia took a deep, careful breath. “I don’t deserve your friendship, Rachel, but I hope you know how much I appreciate everything you did for me.” She bent over and gave the woman a quick hug.

When she straightened, she looked at Garrett. She thought she was prepared for the anger she would see there, but the cold fire in his eyes still left her shaking with its intensity. “I guess you were right all along. I was nothing better than a liar and a cheat. If it’s any consolation, you’ll be the one who gets the last laugh. I came here to break your heart, Garrett, but I fell in love with you. And I was the one who ended up with the broken heart.”

A muscle flexed in his cheek. “Is that what your kind calls it? Love?”

There was a soft knock at the door and Analise poked her head in a second later. “I don’t mean to interrupt,” she said, sorrow spilling from her soft blue eyes, “but Kaia, we’ve really got to go.”

“Another job lined up already?” asked Garrett.

Analise did not respond, just withdrew from the room, leaving behind her clean, sweet scent.

Kaia closed her eyes. When she opened them, Rachel had her hand over her heart and there were tears running down her cheeks. “You don’t have to leave,” Rachel said. “You have a place with me as long as you like.”

“No. No, they’re waiting for me. It has to be now.”

“Why—”

Kaia rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes. “It’s complicated. I only had until the solstice. Please say good-bye to Lexi for me. I don’t think I could do it myself.”

“Go now,” Garrett ordered. “Before the music is done.”

Kaia nodded. The tears overwhelmed her, so she swallowed hard and walked out of the room, steeling herself not to look back.

§

As Lexi came out of the bathroom, she saw Kaia leaving a room, tears running down her face. She ran down the hallway and out the front entrance. Lexi looked up and down the hall but no one appeared to follow her. That did not seem right. Daddy always said you should help your friends when they were sad. And Kaia was definitely her friend.

Lexi followed Kaia down the hall and out the door. She called after her, but saw there were other women around her, and they were all tall and beautiful like Kaia. They wouldn’t want to be bothered with a little girl.

The sun beat down on the parking lot, and heat rose up from the blacktop in wavy lines. The church backed up to a little park with swings and a baseball diamond, but it was too hot to play outside. Lexi shrank back toward the church doors and hid behind a bench, watching as the girls hugged Kaia, one by one. They all seemed to be sad, even as they bickered with each other, arguing about someone named Zafira, and an imp, and something about Garrett—were they talking about her Uncle Garrett?

Lexi strained to hear them, but all she could hear were murmurs and whispers.

The girls walked over to a huge old tree and looked around, as if they were checking to make sure they were alone. When they decided they were, they held hands and reached up toward the sky. Golden light spilled forth from the center of the circle that they formed, and Lexi had to look away because it blinded her. She looked back and saw that the girls were rising from the ground.

No, not rising.

Flying.

Their bodies were the same beautiful shapes they had been before, but now they glowed as if they had swallowed the sun. From somewhere behind them, or maybe somewhere inside them, wings had emerged. Beautiful, butterfly-shaped wings, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow.

Lexi blinked. And blinked again. She smiled. Because really, she had known it all along.

Kaia was a faerie.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“We can’t let her leave.” Rachel pounded on the armrest of her wheelchair, glaring at Garret and Ted. “One of you has got to run after her, damn it! By the time I get this damn chair out there she’ll be gone.”

Garrett crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “So? She made it perfectly clear that she was leaving. And that she’s been lying to us for the past two months. I haven’t the foggiest idea why we’d want to go chasing after her.”

He was already trying to erase the last image he had of her—the tears running down her face, the words, “I fell in love with you” ringing in his ears.

“Because she’s clearly mixed up in something nasty, that’s why,” Rachel snapped. “She’s in trouble, Garrett. She wasn’t leaving because she wanted to, she was leaving because someone said she had to. I don’t know why she lied to us any more than you do, but I know Kaia is no prostitute.”

“She’s a big girl,” Garrett said. “If she wanted our help, she could have asked for it a long time ago. She had hundreds of opportunities to tell us what was really going on with her and she didn’t take any of them. Not a single one.” Garrett shrugged and started to walk toward the door. “I have no desire to run around trying to rescue someone who doesn’t try to rescue herself.”

“Garrett, that’s enough.” Ted’s voice stopped him mid-step.

“Excuse me?” Garrett spun around. The last time Ted had tried to order him around was—well, never.

His friend gave him a hard stare. “For the past month, you’ve been running around trying to prove to everyone how much you don’t care about this girl. And you know what? It’s crap. I know it. And you know it.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re in love with her. You’re doing your absolute best to pretend you aren’t because you’re so damn scared that she’s going to disappoint you. The truth is, she isn’t your mother. She isn’t Portia or Max or anyone else who doesn’t meet your high standards. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you. And you’re an absolute idiot if you let her go.”

“I think you’re out of line,” Garrett warned.

For some reason, for the first time in his life, Ted ignored the warning. “I may be out of line, but you’re my best friend and I’m not going to let you ruin your life because you’re too blind to see what’s right in front of you.”

“Oh really,” Garrett said icily. His brain had become chaotic, a swirl of competing images and voices. Kaia, laughing as he tickled the arch of her foot. Kaia, crying out with pleasure when he made love to her in the morning, the sun catching in her hair. Kaia behind the counter at Rachel’s Roses, her face flushed and guilty, caught in her own web of lies.

Kaia, telling them she wasn’t allowed to fall in love.

“And what has inspired this newfound desire to act as my personal conscience?”

Ted looked down at Rachel and brushed his hand against her cheek. She sighed and leaned against it.

“I almost lost her,” he said, smiling at his wife of less than two hours. “And it would have been a stupid, crazy accident. This won’t be an accident. You’ll have to live with the knowledge that you had something wonderful and you didn’t even fight for it.” He stared at Garrett, hard and unflinching. “I can’t let you do that. I won’t let you do that.”

Garrett stared back at him for a long time. In that instant, something cold and painful inside of him dissolved.

Ted was right. He did love her.

Damn it. He didn’t want to love her. He didn’t want this feeling, this mix of longing and passion and vulnerability all mixed together. He couldn’t turn away from her. He couldn’t harden his heart, believe the worst, and walk away. Because he loved her.

He’d been trying to pretend it wasn’t true. He’d worked harder than ever before, practically buried himself in his office so he couldn’t think about her. He’d inflicted Portia on himself in massive doses just to prove that Kaia was wrong. He’d even dragged out the letter his mother had sent to him when he turned eighteen and tortured himself by re-reading it.

His efforts kept backfiring. In the stark light of day, he had to admit that Portia had a single-minded devotion to ensuring his success—as she defined success, which was, admittedly, purely financial. When he re-read his mother’s letter he saw words he had never noticed before. Words like, ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I love you.’

Damn it.

Kaia had been right, right about everything. Except him being an island. Because he wasn’t an island. He’d needed love all his life. He’d just been too hurt to realize he’d always had it.

And because of his stupid, broken heart, he’d let her go.

The realization ripped at him with sharp, painful claws. Ted was right. He would regret this moment for the rest of his life.

He yanked open the door and ran outside.

§

Garrett tore down the church steps, certain he’d see her walking away. The parking lot was empty, as was the sidewalk and street. He saw Lexi, hiding behind the bench. He crouched down beside her, fighting to keep the raw panic from his voice. “Lexi, did you see Kaia? This is important, honey. Did you see which way she went?”

“She’s a faerie, Uncle Garrett.” Lexi’s eyes were wide with shock. “She grew wings and flew away with the other faeries. They said something about you, and about Zafira. She’s the queen of the faeries, you know. Kaia told me that herself.”

“What?” He frowned. “I don’t have time for games, Lexi. This is serious. Kaia could be in trouble.” Even as he waited for her response, he began flipping through his next steps. He couldn’t call the police; he had no evidence of foul play. A private detective, maybe?

“I’m not lying!” Lexi’s jaw set in a stubborn line. “I know you don’t want me to talk about faeries, but I saw her. She had butterfly wings and they were all different colors, and she glowed like she was the sun. So did all the other girls. She was crying, Uncle Garrett. Why was she crying?”

Unbidden, an image entered his mind. That night in the Avalon, when he’d awoken to see her hovering above him, glowing with a golden light while iridescent, multi-layered wings cast colors all around him.

Ridiculous. He shook the silly thought from his head. “Lexi, I don’t know why you think you saw that, but faeries aren’t real. I’m sorry. They must have tricked you somehow.”

Lexi began to cry.

§

The search began with the obvious places—buses, airports, trains. From there, they tried the rental cars and hotels, using every trick and favor they could employ, bribing every clerk they had to bribe, for any mention of her name.

Nothing.

Days passed by. There was no sign of Kaia or the group of three extraordinarily beautiful women who had taken her away with them. They searched the apartment over Rachel’s store, where Kaia had left her pitifully small collection of belongings, including the incredible silver dress that still haunted Garrett every time he saw it. No phone numbers, letters, or documents gave any hint of where she might have gone. Garrett called the private investigator he’d hired more than a month ago. David began checking state records. After an extensive search, they found no evidence that Kaia Verde or her purported husband, Charlie, had ever existed.

In any state.

Anywhere.

Garrett had driven around Miami at night, in the worst sections of town, half-thinking he might find Kaia there, a streetwalker, forced to sell her body to support someone named Zafira’s drug habit.

He began to lose hope. The fear gnawed at him until he couldn’t concentrate on anything else. He stopped going to work, stopped returning emails, even stopped fighting with Portia. The only thing he could think about was Kaia.

After two weeks of looking, David told them there was little more he could do. They had no leads, no other names to search.

They would have to give up.

Garrett took the news in silence and drove straight to a little blue house in north Miami, to an address he’d had in his head for almost twenty years. He didn’t know why he was there, except that he couldn’t do anything else. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t go back to his apartment and know that Kaia’s dress was still in his closet.

He couldn’t look in the mirror and know he was the one who had chased her away.

A shadow appeared in the window of the house and he watched it for a few minutes. He wondered how the woman inside managed to keep going after she’d made her own mistakes. He wondered, with an unsteady breath, if it really had been about his trust fund. If that was the only reason she’d wanted to see him again.

Kaia’s voice sounded in his head: “I’m sorry and I love you. That’s what it means to be human.”

He remembered all those birthday cards, the letter he’d re-read every night since Kaia disappeared. He felt the rain falling as his mother spun him around, and the look in her eyes when she’d hugged him good-bye.

He took a deep breath and opened the door.

§

She did not cry, or faint, or sob, or have some sort of fit. Victoria Jameson simply looked at him with a pair of eyes so familiar he felt momentarily dizzy before she nodded and invited him inside for a cup of coffee.

Her house was not what he’d expected from the quiet, manicured exterior. The walls were filled with art of every style and form. Scattered among the professional pieces were children’s pictures. Bright colors, clumsy names in the corners. He staggered a little when he recognized a clay bowl he had made in the second grade. On the wall next to it was a picture of a dragon facing a knight on horseback. The name “Garrett Jameson” was scrawled across the bottom in uneven letters.

“How do you take your coffee?” she asked.

“With cream and sugar,” he said.

She nodded. “You always did have a sweet tooth.”

He froze, thinking of the ice cream and cookies she’d bring home after a night out with a new boyfriend.

“What brings you here? It’s been a long time.” She betrayed little emotion, but when she pushed a lock of gray hair behind her ear, he noticed her hands were trembling.

He stuck his hands deep in his pockets. “I just… ” He had to stop to clear his throat. “I wanted to see you. I have for a long time.”

She turned around and looked at him. There was a wariness in her eyes and wrinkles around the corners that were deeper and more pronounced than they should have been in a fifty-year-old woman. But he saw signs of Portia’s toughness, too, in the stiff set to her shoulders and rigidly straight back.

“I’m glad you did.”

They moved to the living room. She made him coffee and brought out a small tray filled with cookies.

Victoria balanced her coffee on her knee. She assessed him silently. “Did she ever talk about me?”

He shook his head. “She only said you weren’t coming back.”

“You must have questions.”

He nodded.

Victoria drew a deep breath and gave him a small, uneven smile. “I might as well start at the beginning. Portia and I started fighting right after my father died. I was ten. I adored my father and he adored me. He was a tough man—I knew people were terrified of him—but he was always gentle with me. He enrolled me in dance classes, insisted I learned to play piano, and encouraged me to try out for the school play—all things that Portia hated. When he died, she cut me off. She was irrational—she allowed no make-believe, no fantasy, and especially no music. Everything was about work. And I hated her for it.”

Victoria’s blue eyes gleamed with the memory, and Garrett felt the sting of bile rise in his throat.

“She was the same way with me and Max,” he said. “I started playing sax when I was in fifth grade. I don’t think she even knew our nanny had signed me up for lessons for a couple of years. When I hit high school I had concerts at night and my grades slipped, just a little. She forced me to stop playing.”

Victoria flinched. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I knew she would be tough. I thought… it was better for you than… ”

She stopped, visibly fighting for control. “I started taking drugs in eighth grade. They gave me a way to escape. She could control my body, but not my mind. Before I knew it I was messed up, hanging out with some tough characters. I got pregnant.” She spread her hands helplessly. “I was a kid. I didn’t know what to do, but I couldn’t imagine raising a baby around Portia. So I ran away. I followed my boyfriend to Chicago.”

“My father,” Garrett said. “What was he like?”

Victoria took a slow sip of coffee. “He was much older than me, a traveling musician. He sang like an angel. He wrote songs about me and told me he loved me. And maybe he did. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t deal with a baby. He disappeared a few months after I started to show.”

Garrett heard Kaia’s voice telling him how hard it must have been for his mother, how she must have been terrified, trying to raise a child on her own with no job, no home, and no money. “How did you do it?”

“I relied on the kindness of strangers. I waited tables until I had you, and spent some time in a shelter. I had boyfriends.” She looked at him, her eyes glittering with intensity. “I was a lousy mother—a lousy person. I did a lot of drugs, slept with a lot of men. I knew every day that I was failing you, and every day I woke up and told myself I was going to do better. And one day I almost killed you and Max, and I knew I couldn’t keep doing it any longer. When Portia came to me and said she would take you both in, but only if I promised to disappear and never come back, I had to agree. You understand, don’t you? Portia was your only chance for a decent life.”

“She told you that you had to disappear?” he repeated, his stomach lurching.

Victoria carefully placed her cup on a table next to the couch. She stood, turning her back on him as she examined a familiar picture on the wall. Garrett knew without looking for a name that Max had drawn it.

“She took you in and gave you a home. You’re successful, you and Max both. I could never have done that for you. If you’d stayed with me you would have been lucky to survive.”

“She cut you off,” Garrett said. The truth resonated through him. His mother hadn’t abandoned him by choice. She’d been forced away by Portia. “She wouldn’t let you see us or communicate with us.”

How could he not have known?

“Look, I want to hate Portia for it as much as you do. Probably more. But even I have to admit she was trying to do what was best for you. The last thing you kids needed was to have a mom in rehab wandering in and out of your life. I got letters from her secretary, telling me how you were. She sent me pictures and told me what you were doing in school.” Victoria indicated the drawing on the wall. “She sent me your art. She sent me an invitation to your graduation so I could watch from the back.”

He was quiet for a long time, thinking about all the years of hurt and anger. Years of not knowing. Of blaming. Strangely, he couldn’t muster any fresh resentment against his grandmother. She’d done what she thought she needed to do. And really, where had it gotten her?

Victoria picked up the tiny clay bowl he’d made as a child and flipped it over in her hand. “Garrett, why are you here? Why now?”

To his utter and complete humiliation, he found tears pricking his eyes.

“I made a horrible mistake,” he said. “I hurt someone I loved. I don’t know what happened to her, but whatever happened it’s my fault.” He tightened his jaw at the unfamiliar sensation clutching his chest. “She could be in trouble. She could be dead, and I’ll probably never know.”

Victoria placed her hand on his shoulder. The touch reminded him of things he had always tried to forget. Of the nights he’d spent huddled in her arms and the songs she’d sang to him when he couldn’t fall asleep.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’t know why I’m here, really. I suppose it’s not right to come after all this time. I just thought you might understand.”

When he turned to look at her, there were tears coursing down her face.

“Oh, I do,” she whispered, reaching out to brush his hair off his forehead with a soft touch. “I sure do.”

He let her words wash over him. She got him some water and a tissue and watched as he rubbed his face in his hands and struggled to regain his composure.

“Tell me about her,” she said. “Tell me about this person you love. Because no matter how hopeless you feel right now, it’s never too late.”

The words spilled out of him in a thick, relentless flood. He told her about the day they met, and how she disappeared only to reappear at Rachel’s house looking completely different. He described how they’d fallen in love, and the way she’d told him, that night at his apartment, that he was surrounded by love.

It felt so good to talk about her that he kept going, and his mother kept listening. She made him another cup of coffee, handed him a tissue when he needed to blow his nose. Her eyes told him what he needed to hear. That someone understood what he’d done. That it wasn’t too late.

That he might, someday, be forgiven.

His phone rang at 8:22. He answered it when he saw the call was from Max.

“We’ve looked everywhere, Garrett.” Max’s voice broke, and he paused. When he began again, it sounded as though he was crying. “We can’t find her.”

Garrett’s heart stopped. “Slow down, Max. Who?”

“Lexi. We can’t find Lexi.”

§

By the time they arrived at the Manor, the sun was setting, and a rosy glow backlit the old palms and bougainvilleas. Victoria winced when Garrett punched the security code and the gate retracted to allow them to pass through.

“When’s the last time you were here?” he asked.

“When I brought you and Max.”

He nodded and pulled forward. There was a small crowd in the foyer. Max was pacing back and forth, running his hands through his hair and looking at his phone as if he was trying to decide who to call next. He was a smaller, leaner version of Garrett, with the same sandy blond hair and blue eyes, but narrower shoulders and face.

“Thank God you’re here,” he said with relief as Garrett came through the door.

Bianca, Lexi’s mother, stood nearby. She wore a low-cut, form-fitting, polka-dot dress that revealed every inch of her toned and tanned frame. It was entirely inappropriate both for her age and for a family dinner, but that was par for the course with Bianca. She had one hand on her waist and the other extended out to the side, where it bobbed slightly as if she was in desperate need of a cigarette. Which she probably was.

Portia stood behind them, her hands crossed over her chest. “I told them not to let her go after dinner. I told them,” she announced grimly to Garrett.

“Who’s that?” Bianca asked, pointing a red-tipped fingernail toward Victoria, who was hovering just outside the door on the front porch.

Garrett turned around and dragged her inside. “Max,” he said, “this is Victoria.”

Max froze. “Wait, what? Victoria? You mean, our mother?”

Victoria held herself even more stiffly than before and nodded.

“Dear God, Victoria,” Portia drawled. “I wondered when the cat would drag you in.”

“I was worried about my granddaughter,” Victoria said.

Max stared at her, seemingly unable to move, or even blink.

“I happened to be at her place when you called. I thought I should bring her. Lexi is her grandchild, after all.” Garrett grabbed Max’s shoulder. “Now, tell me exactly how long she’s been gone and what happened before she left.”

Max kept turning to look at Victoria, and then back at Garrett. “I… um… well… it was almost an hour ago. She had dinner with us and asked if she could go play afterward. I thought she was going to the stable to see Sugar but she isn’t there. We’ve looked all over the house and in the usual spots and can’t find her anywhere.”

“Let’s slow down,” Garrett said. “What exactly did she say? Did she tell you where she was going?”

“She said she was going to find the ring,” Max said, pushing his hair back from his forehead. “I figured she meant the ring where she rides Sugar.”

Garrett stared at him, something nagging at the corner of his mind. “The ring? She said she was going to find the ring?”

Max darted another look at Victoria, who was standing still as a statue in the chilly, air-conditioned hall. “I think so. It’s hard to remember, exactly. I wasn’t paying very close attention to her. None of us were.”

Garrett could believe that. Family dinners with Bianca and Portia were so painful, one tried to pay as little attention as possible. “What else did she say? Before that, maybe. Think back.”

“She said she wanted to look for Kaia,” Bianca said, bobbing her hand with irritation. “I really don’t see why that matters. We should call the police. She could be out there by the pond with those damn alligators.” She shuddered. “I hate this place.”

Garrett’s eyes widened, ignoring Bianca’s usual refrain about the Manor. “Kaia? What did she say about Kaia?”

Portia practically snarled at him. “She said she missed Kaia and wanted to find her. I told her that she was being ridiculous. Kaia’s gone and we’ll never see her again.”

“She’s not gone,” Garrett said, the words strengthening him even as he spoke. “And we aren’t giving up on her.”

Portia’s nostrils flared. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re done with her.”

“He loves her,” Victoria said. She drew herself up and directed her words at Portia. “He’s not going to do what I did. He’s not going to give up because he made a mistake.”

“A mistake?” Max said.

“I should have fought harder,” Victoria said. “I should have come back for you.” Her hands twitched at her side, as if she were holding back from reaching out to him. “I’ve missed you, Maxie. I’ve missed you more than you can imagine.”

Max flinched and drew back at the sound of his name. Garrett heard that sound echo in his mind. Maxie. She’d said that when she kissed them good-bye. I love you, my little Maxie.

There was silence in the hall. Portia turned away in disgust. Garrett never knew who took the first step, but minutes later they were hugging, Victoria and Max, mother and son, and there were tears and forgiveness mixed in one messy embrace.

As he watched, it hit him. That day at the Manor, when Kaia was babysitting Lexi, she’d talked about faeries, and Zafira, their queen. He knew the name was familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on where he’d heard it before. Now it all came back.

Lexi thought Kaia was a faerie. She’d told him over and over since the wedding.

Where else would she look for a faerie but in a faerie ring?

They took flashlights and headed for the south end of the property. Portia led the way, leaning heavily on her cane as she followed the muddy path that twisted around the edge of the pond. She said the ring of mushrooms—she refused to call it a faerie ring—was hidden in a thick grove of saw palmettos and they’d never find it without her. Max and Victoria followed behind Garrett. Every few minutes Max glanced at the sky, as the last bit of sunlight faded from the horizon.

They were quiet as they pushed their way through the thick grasses and palms, the fecund smell of warm mud and rotting vegetation rising up from the swampy ground. Max’s face was gray, his lips locked in a permanent grimace.

“We’ll find her,” Garrett said.

Max didn’t respond.

They called her name as they crept along the path but heard nothing in return. Finally, as twilight settled over them and the sound of the nighttime insects grew loud, Portia stopped, pointing ahead of her with her cane.

“There. There it is.” He could barely hear her, Portia’s usual biting tones sounding weak and tired.

Garrett squatted, squinting to see through the thick screen of palm leaves. He saw a small circle of white-capped mushrooms, almost hidden beneath a layer of Spanish moss. He skirted around Portia, jerking the vegetation aside, his heart pounding. “Lexi?”

Max barreled into him, also yelling Lexi’s name. He cried out with relief when they saw her there, huddled in a little ball at the edge of the ring, her piquant face dirty as she sobbed into her knees.

Max fell to the ground beside her, catching her in a deep embrace. “Lexi, Lexi, what are you doing?” he cried, running his hands over her hair. “You know better than to come all the way out here by yourself.”

“I wanted to find Kaia,” she said between sobs, “but I was too scared.”

Garrett crouched next to them. “What do you mean? Why were you scared?”

Relief flooded him at the sight of her. He hadn’t really believed Lexi was lost—it had all happened too quickly and there were so many places for a child to hide at the Manor.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t lightheaded with relief at the sight of her.

“She told me if you go in the ring you can get to the faerie land. She said it was dangerous there, and Queen Zafira doesn’t like humans very much, and if you go to Faeria she might never let you go.”

Garrett could hardly believe the words that came out of his mouth. “She said you can go to Faeria through the faerie ring?”

Max frowned at him before turning back to his daughter. “Lexi, hon, there’s no such thing as faerie land. You know that, don’t you?”

Lexi shook her head vigorously. “I saw them,” she said firmly. Her bottom lip jutted out as she pointed to the ring and she started to cry again. “I saw Kaia’s wings. And the other girls’, too. She’s a faerie. And I know she’s in Faeria with the other faeries and Queen Zafira. But I can’t get her because I’m too scared!”

And with that, she started to sob again, and Max pressed her close to his chest.

“Tell me again, Lexi, what her wings looked like?” Garrett asked, feeling oddly light-headed.

“They were like a butterfly, but made out of rainbows,” Lexie said.

“What did she look like?” Garrett asked. “When she turned into a faerie, I mean?”

Lexi squeezed her eyes shut, as if she were concentrating hard. “She looked like Kaia, only prettier.” She opened her eyes. “I don’t mean Kaia wasn’t beautiful, but faerie Kaia was even prettier.”

Garrett’s vision blurred. He pictured the woman he’d seen that night in the Avalon and felt that strange, almost magical pull she’d had over him.

“Garrett, stop this immediately,” Portia ordered. “You’re only upsetting her.”

“Lexi, you must never do something like this again,” Max said, shaking a stern finger at his daughter. “It’s dangerous. We were all worried about you.”

“I miss her,” Lexi said, her face streaked with dirt and tears. “I want to help find her.”

“I miss her, too,” Garrett said. “But she wouldn’t want you to do this, Lexi. She would want you to be safe.”

Lexi looked up at him. “I don’t understand why she left. Didn’t she love us?”

Garrett stopped short, his throat catching. “She did,” he said. “Sometimes things happen and people have to leave. That doesn’t mean they don’t love you.”

“Do you love her?” Lexi asked.

He swallowed hard. “I do. I have for a long time.”

Max hitched Lexi up higher and got unsteadily up on his feet, still holding her in his arms. “I think we better get back before your mother worries too much.”

Lexi set her head on Max’s shoulder. “Okay, Daddy.” She gave Garrett one last mournful look. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find Kaia for you, Uncle Garrett.”

He leaned forward and pressed a kiss on her forehead. “That’s my job, sweetheart. And if you ever come back here by yourself without a grownup, I’m never taking you for ice cream again. Got it?”

Lexi smiled and snuggled deeper into her father’s chest. “Got it.”

Max and Lexi wandered down the path back toward the Manor. Garrett stood and stared at the ring, his hands clasped behind his back. He took a step forward. It was crazy to even think… but what if?

“She sounds like an incredible woman,” Victoria said. “She must have been to earn the love of my son.”

There was her inexplicable history—or lack thereof. No life skills, no job, no education, despite the fact that she was clearly smart, articulate, and well-read. She didn’t even know how to drive. Her driver’s license was fake.

“Garrett, I don’t think you should go in there. I’ve heard those things are bad luck,” Victoria said with a worried laugh. “I’ve just found my son again for the first time in twenty-six years. I’m not going to have him jumping into some damn faerie world.”

He didn’t believe it for a second. No one could believe such a thing. Still, what harm would it do? If it wasn’t true, he’d just look like an idiot.

He took another step forward.

“Garrett, stop!” Portia’s voice came from behind them, sharp and autocratic, with just a hint of panic. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Victoria grabbed his hand. “If you’re going in there, I’m going, too.”

He took the final step over the edge of the mushrooms and started to fall.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

He had the sensation of tumbling down a long, dark tunnel, with no wind to ruffle his clothes or muss his hair. There was simply weightlessness, stillness all around, and the feeling that he had left his stomach about fifteen stories behind.

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them he saw a bright light and a floor rushing up to meet him. He vaguely sensed Victoria’s hand tucked securely into his, but he could not see her or hear her.

They hit the ground with a decisive thump and stumbled backward, losing their balance and falling in a tangled heap. As Garrett’s eyes adjusted to the light, he slowly came to his feet and offered Victoria his hand so she could do the same.

He was dreaming. He had to be dreaming. Somehow, he had hit his head when he stepped into the faerie ring and was unconscious. Or perhaps delusional. Was this what it felt like to have a nervous breakdown?

“Garrett?” Victoria squeezed his hand as she rose, her gaze fixed behind his back. “What are tho—?”

She choked off, and Garrett spun around. They were in a hallway of some kind, a long corridor with a gleaming marble floor and tall mullioned windows that looked out on a sky that seemed made of fog or clouds, with light shining behind. There were no signs of trees or vegetation. The hallway had to span at least a quarter mile, and at the far end, there were some sort of dark shapes.

Dark shapes that were coming in their direction.

Quickly.

Garrett pushed Victoria behind him but before he could react they were on them—two gigantic beasts, at least chest-height. They reminded him of dogs, but were taller in the shoulders than the hindquarters, like hyenas, with thick black hair and glowing red eyes. They stopped a few paces in front of them, head down, teeth bared in a deep growl.

“Stand off,” a voice yelled. The dogs paused, and slowly backed a few paces away. A woman in a simple white shift ran toward them. As she came closer her features came into startling clarity, her eyes alight with confusion. “Garrett? Garrett? How did you… ?”

Kaia snapped her fingers and the dogs parted in front of her. She was pale, with dark circles under her eyes. She looked too thin again, the way she had when they’d had dinner at Rachel’s house. He hadn’t realized how much healthier she’d gotten since then, but now she was gaunt, skin stretched tightly over her cheekbones, collarbones protruding below her neck.

“You can’t be here,” she moaned. “Oh, tell me you aren’t really here!”

“Kaia?” He sighed with relief and walked toward her. Now he knew he was insane. His unconscious mind had clearly tied together his worry about Lexi, all her talk of faeries, and his desperate need to see Kaia one more time.

“You don’t seem happy to see me,” he said. One of the dogs snarled and bared its teeth and he stopped. He wouldn’t have expected his unconscious to create huge black dogs to guard Kaia, but symbolically, they must have a purpose.

A psychologist would have a field day with this dream.

Kaia shook her head. “No, no, of course not. You have no idea how much trouble you’re in.”

“I don’t see any wings,” he said. “I thought Lexi said she saw wings.”

“I don’t have them anymore.” Almost reflexively, she checked behind her, as if they might have appeared while they were talking.

He sensed this was not a good thing. “Why not?”

She pushed back her hair with a trembling hand. “I was supposed to break your heart. I wasn’t supposed to let you break mine.”

“So she took your wings?”

Kaia gave him a sad smile. “Actually, Zafira was quite merciful. Because I’d made a good effort and followed the rules, instead of stripping me of my wings forever, she sentenced me to one hundred years in human form, as a servant in Faeria. If I meet the terms of my punishment, I can retake my faerie form after that.”

“I see.” He stared at her for another moment. The humor he had briefly felt faded. This didn’t feel like a dream. Victoria’s panicked breathing, the hot breath of the black dogs, and the worried lines around Kaia’s eyes were too real. “No, scratch that. I don’t see. I don’t understand any of this, actually. What in the world just happened, Kaia? Is this real?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Garrett looked again at her faded dress and pale, drawn face. “I don’t believe it. This must be some kind of trick. Have I been drugged? Did someone knock me over the head when I wasn’t looking?”

Kaia reached out to touch him. “I’m sorry. I wish I could take it all back and make it so you’d never met me.”

“No.” He grabbed her hand like a lifeline and pulled her closer. It didn’t really matter what he couldn’t understand and couldn’t believe, because this was what he had been wanting and needing ever since she’d disappeared. Just to hold her one more time.

He tugged her toward him and placed a deep, searching kiss on her lips. She was just the way he remembered—sweet and warm, her body fitting effortlessly with his. “You know what? I don’t care if it is a dream. I don’t care if I’m talking to my own imagination or I’m actually in a padded room somewhere. I love you, Kaia. I have been waiting weeks to tell you that. I love you and I’m sorry.” He smiled and traced the line of her brow. “You see? I did learn what it means to be human.”

“You can’t… ” she sputtered, pulling away. “You don’t… ”

“Oh, but I do.” He splayed his hands out across her back, letting his fingers trace the delicate curve of her spine. “I don’t believe any of this is even remotely possible, and I don’t really care. All I know is that you brought me back to life. When you left it was like I’d lost a piece of myself.”

“A piece of yourself?” she repeated, half-whispering.

He shook her gently and placed delicate kisses on her lips, eyes, and the tip of her nose. “You are a part of me. I have no idea how this whole faerie thing works, but I know I’m never letting you go.”

She opened her mouth to speak but there was a whoosh of air from above, and they all looked up. Kaia swore under her breath as a figure floated down beside them, landing with a thump on the cold marble floor.

Garrett looked at her with horror.

Now he knew it wasn’t a dream. Because if this was a dream, it wouldn’t include Portia.

“Well, don’t just stare at me like a bunch of fools,” Portia snapped, extending her hand imperiously. “Help me up.”

Garrett complied, his thoughts a confused mess. Portia? Through the faerie ring? Icy fingers of fear slid through him.

Damn it, this wasn’t a dream.

“You followed us here?” he said.

“Of course.” She straightened her shirt around her shoulders. “I couldn’t very well let the lot of you fumble around on your own. You’d never make it home by yourselves.” Portia raised a foot and kicked one of the dogs, who were sniffing at her skirt, in the face. It yelped and took a step back.

“Stupid boggles,” she muttered.

“Portia, are you going to tell me… ” Garrett broke off. “Well, I don’t even know what you’d tell me. You’ve been here before?”

Portia ignored him, glaring at Kaia. “I should have known you were Fey. It simply never occurred to me one of your kind would actually go to all the trouble of being hungry and living in a shelter.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Kaia said. She murmured a low command, and the boggles took several steps back. “Zafira commanded it. What are you doing here?”

“You think these two are the only ones who know what to do with a faerie ring?” Portia said as she adjusted her clothing.

“Portia,” Garrett said, his voice strangled. “For the love of all that is holy, how do you know about the Fey?”

He didn’t even know what Fey meant, and Portia was now some kind of expert? Was there anything the woman didn’t control?

Portia carefully smoothed her hair, tucking a loose strand behind one ear. “Your grandfather.”

“My father?” Victoria interrupted. “What does he have to do with this?”

Kaia held a hand to her mouth. “Garrett, is this your mother?”

“Long story,” Garrett said. “Love and forgiveness.”

Victoria smiled at Kaia. “I think you had something to do with it and for that, I thank you with everything I have.”

“The man I married wasn’t your father,” Portia said, ignoring the interruption. “Your real father left me poor, pregnant, and completely alone. Because he didn’t have the courage to stand up to her.”

“Oh my.” Kaia pressed a trembling hand against her brow. “Oh my. I should have guessed… the music in the garden was so beautiful… and your face… ”

“What about my face?” Garrett demanded, looking from her to his grandmother.

“Portia, what are you saying?” Victoria stared at her, wide-eyed.

“Your father was one of them,” Portia said, gesturing contemptuously at Kaia. “A good for nothing creature with the willpower of a two-year-old child.”

“There are male faeries?” Victoria said, looking ill.

Kaia put her hands to her cheeks. “No. No male faeries. Just elves.” She swallowed hard. “And satyrs.”

Victoria glanced at Kaia. “Is that bad? Why do you sound like that? What’s wrong with satyrs?”

“Zafira doesn’t like it when her satyrs—” she broke off, spinning around to look down the hall at the sound of a voice, echoing with a strange, hypnotic power. “Damn.”

Garrett blew out a breath. “Let me guess—she’s here?”

Kaia nodded miserably. “She’s here.”

Garrett turned confidently down the hall to face her. “It’s about time.”

“Kaia?” The black dogs bounded up at the sound of the voice. They ran and took positions at either side of the hall, head cast downward in a position that resembled a canine bow. The Queen of the Faeries—and really, there could be no mistake about what she was—strode toward them, fury radiating from her. “What is going on here? Who is that?”

She was at least eight feet tall, with long black hair that flowed in a wave behind her. She held a twisted wooden staff with a rounded head, and she brandished it toward them as she walked. Mina, Talia, and Analise hurried after her.

All four had wings. The same sort of wings he held in his memory of Kaia—wings that framed their faces and backs with sparkling light. They were impossibly beautiful, bodies like dreams, long legs and hourglass figures, and above all, a sensual radiance that made one want to touch and be touched.

He saw a flash of recognition in Talia’s eyes, and then Mina’s and Analise’s. Talia opened her mouth, but before she could say anything Analise elbowed her and glared. He felt a rush of gratitude. At least one of the faeries was on his side.

Zafira stopped in front of them, a smile creasing her pale pink lips as she surveyed the small group gathered at the end of the hall. “Well, well, well,” she mused. “What do we have here?”

“Nothing for you to worry about.” Kaia pushed Garrett aside and stepped in front of him. “They’re just here by accident.”

“Upon my word, it’s Portia.” Zafira practically glowed with delight. “Dear old Portia. How lovely to see you.”

“You know each other?” Garrett said. And why should he be surprised? Didn’t Portia always say she knew everyone—everyone who mattered, anyway?

“Portia tried to steal one of my satyrs,” Zafira purred. “But you lost that fight, didn’t you, dear Portia?”

Portia crossed her arms. “You threatened to take away his hearing, Zafira. Hardly a fair fight.”

“I gave him a choice.”

“A choice you knew he’d couldn’t take,” Portia shot back. “Music was his life. You knew he would rather die than live without it.”

“My father was a satyr who loved music?” Victoria’s voice was quiet.

“Why do you think I wouldn’t let you play?” Portia said irritably. “I knew once you did, she’d get her claws in you. And then you’d be as weak as him.”

Garrett’s vision momentarily blurred. That was why Portia hated music? Because of some long-ago affair with a satyr?

“What happened to him?” Victoria asked.

Zafira sniffed. “The silly creature drove me crazy with his incessant whimpering and whining for his lost love. I banished him from my sight. He was already a few hundred years old. I imagine he’s long dead now.”

Portia actually paled. Emotions Garrett had never seen before danced across her face. Pain, grief, even—God help them—something like regret. She struggled visibly to control herself and replace the moment of vulnerability with her usual irascible mask. “Serves him right for leaving me the way he did. He knew I didn’t want a child, much less one touched with your madness.”

Kaia shook her head. “Children cannot inherit the desires of a satyr, Portia. Their demons die with them. The only thing they can pass along is a bit of the Fey blood. There is no madness in that.”

“Victoria turned into an addict,” Portia pointed out.

“My addiction was my own,” Victoria replied. “Though the way you treated me certainly helped.”

“You sent me after him just to torment her,” Kaia accused, turning her gaze to her queen. “Even after all her family had already suffered, you had to keep playing your little game. What about the troth? We can’t hurt humans directly. You know that.”

“I told you that you couldn’t use your magic,” Zafira said. She stamped her staff into the ground. “And you had to take human form. If anyone got hurt, it was because of the actions of a human, not a faerie.”

“Queen Zafira!” A glowing ball of light started toward them from the other end of the hall. As it approached, Garrett realized it was a tiny winged creature that resembled a cupid, with furry wings and a child’s face and body. This creature also had horns, and had a devilish look in its eyes that had nothing to do with love. The creature swept its small body into a bow in front of the queen. “Queen Zafira, I apologize for the delay. I was talking to one of the night faeries about her failure to attend court. Completely unacceptable, of course.”

“Imp,” Zafira commanded, “these humans have breached the walls of Faeria. Take them away to the wailing wood. I think they need to spend some time with the banshees.”

The imp looked at Garrett, Portia, and Victoria with an assessing eye. “How long should I leave them?”

“Forty or fifty years should be sufficient.”

“No!” Kaia cried, spreading her arms wide as if to shield them. She looked so fragile beside the other glowing, radiant faeries that Garrett wanted to pull her into his arms. Besides that, it was clear from the look directed at her by the queen that she was in as much danger here as he was.

“Wait—what about the troth?” Victoria spun around to Kaia. “You just said she couldn’t hurt humans directly.”

“The troth doesn’t hold here in Faeria,” Kaia said miserably. “Humans aren’t supposed to come here. That was part of the bargain.”

“Hey, wait.” The imp flew up to Garrett and examined him, grabbing his face and rubbing it between its hands. “This is Garrett. Garrett Jameson. What are you doing here?”

Garrett jerked away roughly.

The imp patted him on the head. “Isn’t that just the cutest thing? He must have followed her here. Maybe she didn’t screw up as much as we thought she did.”

Zafira swung around. “What are you talking about?”

The imp hovered a few inches from Garrett’s face. “She had to get him to fall in love with her, right? Well, I’m not sure I can think of a lot of other reasons for a grown man to jump into a faerie ring.”

“Of course I love her,” Garrett snapped. “Why else would I be here?”

Zafira banged her staff into the ground. It reverberated through the hall with a resounding echo. “Silence! I don’t care if he did fall in love with her. I want these humans punished and I want it done now!”

“Punish me, then,” Kaia pleaded, falling on her knees in front of the queen. “Bring back the Black Ladies. Strip me of my wings forever. Do whatever you want, Queen Zafira, but I beg you, please release these humans.”

“No!” Garrett grabbed Kaia’s shoulders. He pulled her to standing and held her tightly in his arms as he faced Zafira. “You can do whatever you want to me, but leave Kaia out of this. I followed her here of my own free will. You have no reason to punish her for anything.”

“If you must punish someone, punish me.” Everyone turned and stared as Victoria spoke. “These two deserve a chance to be together. I have had my time on earth.” Her eyes flashed with bright blue Jameson fire. “Feed me to your dogs or your Black Ladies, whatever they might be. Just let them go.”

“Oh, this is rich,” the imp said, rubbing his hands together with glee. “Kaia wants to be sacrificed for him, he wants to be sacrificed for her, and this one wants to take it for both of them. This is better than Shakespeare.”

“Shut up, imp.” Portia tweaked his ear. “If anyone is going to face the Black Ladies it’s me. I’ve seen them before. I can handle it.”

“Enough,” Zafira roared. “I don’t have to bargain with any of you. I should send you all to the demons.”

The imp bobbed in the air, stroking one horn reflectively. “Of course, you could do that. On the other hand, the man did fall in love with Kaia. Some might say she hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“She had to break his heart,” Zafira said through tight lips. “Not fall in love with him.”

Garrett narrowed his brows at the naked little half-boy. Was he actually trying to help them? “In all fairness, she did break my heart.” He looked at Kaia. “You didn’t just break my heart when you left, you broke all of our hearts.”

“There are humans in Faeria,” Zafira said grimly. “Someone will be punished.”

“You’ve been punishing me since you took away Aiden,” Portia said, her lips tight. “You kept from me the only person I ever really loved, and I’ve spent years torturing my family in a vain attempt to protect them from their Fey blood. Haven’t you done enough?”

Silence fell over the hall. Garrett wondered if it was possible he had seen a hint of softening in Zafira’s crystalline features.

“Banish me,” Kaia offered suddenly. She looked up at Garrett, her eyes soft and tender. “Banish me forever. Take my magic. Transform me for good. I don’t care. Just let me go with them.”

Zafira stepped back, raising her Staff to her heart. “What are you saying? That you’d prefer to live with the humans?”

Soft sounds of horror came from Mina, Talia, and Analise. Kaia gave them a comforting smile. “Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”

“If you leave,” Zafira warned, “you can never return. You will be banished forever from Faeria and the world of the Fey.”

Garrett tightened his fingers around her waist and pressed his cheek into hers. He whispered into her ear, “You don’t have to do this, Kaia.”

She closed her eyes at the touch of his skin. “I don’t care about my magic,” she whispered. “Before I met you all I knew was how to hurt. When I became human I learned how to create. I learned about love. You’re a part of me now, and I’d rather be ripped apart by a thousand demons than for us to be apart.”

She pulled away from Garrett to face Zafira and the Handmaids. “I don’t want to turn my back on the Fey, but I need to be with Garrett. So banish me, Zafira. Please. Do whatever you want to do to me. But I will never again live without love.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Two Years Later…

“Are we ready?” Kaia held up the lighter to the single candle on the cake. The assembled crowd—Rachel, Ted, Lexi, Portia, and Victoria—shouted yes. Max pointed to the video camera to show he was filming. In his spot beside the high chair that held Sorah, Garrett and Kaia’s golden-haired child, Garrett gave her the thumbs-up sign and held up his saxophone and began to play. Sorah pounded her spoon and smiled a wide, toothless grin.

As they began to sing, Kaia entered the room carrying the cake high in front of her. She could hardly believe so much had happened in one year. Soon after they returned from Faeria, she and Garrett had married in a small ceremony at the Manor. A few months later, Portia had retired and Garrett had taken over as CEO at Jameson Enterprises. Though it surprised all of them, he said he finally decided he enjoyed running the company more than he enjoyed irritating Portia. With enormous relief, Max took over Garrett’s old job as director of the commercial real estate division. Bianca walked out soon after he quit. Apparently, being married to a middle manager wasn’t nearly as appealing to her as being married to a vice president.

Kaia, who still had a tenuous understanding of her human body’s reproductive abilities, had become pregnant. This to the absolute delight of her new mother-in-law and the grudging pleasure of Portia.

“…Happy birthday to you!” They finished on a high note. Garrett put down his sax and placed a kiss on top of his daughter’s head.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he said softly.

Kaia felt the familiar prickle of joyful tears as she watched them together. She held out the cake in front of her daughter. “Now blow out the candles.” She puckered her lips to demonstrate.

Sorah squealed and slammed her open palms on the high chair tray. Kaia blew out the candle and everyone cheered. Delighted to find a lovely new object within reach, Sorah lunged for the cake and got a tiny bit of pink frosting on her finger. She held up her hand and stared at it for a moment, then immediately stuck it in her mouth. Her expression quickly turned from confusion to pleasure to determination.

She turned back to the cake.

Kaia straightened. “Oh no,” she laughed. “You’re not getting the whole thing. We need to cut you a piece.”

Sorah glared and reached her stubby arms as far forward as they would go. “Uhhh!”

Kaia grinned at Garrett, who came over to link his arm around her waist and drop a kiss on the top of her forehead.

“She’s an obstinate little bugger, isn’t she?” he said.

“I suppose she gets that from you,” Kaia replied.

“I don’t know. Her mother’s pretty stubborn herself.” He tipped her face toward his and kissed her gently on the lips. “I’m glad for every bit of it. I don’t know how she’d put up with me otherwise.”

“It’s hard,” Kaia said, her eyes dancing. “A daily struggle.”

He looked at her seriously. “Any regrets?”

She knew what he meant. Leaving behind her wings, her magic, and her faerie sisters hadn’t been easy, but it had been worth it. The answer came easily. “None.” She squeezed his waist and pressed him against her. “Not a single one.”

“Hey, lovebirds, pay attention,” Max shouted. “I think the kid’s going for the cake.”

Kaia realized she’d been balancing the cake only a few feet from Sorah’s face, and the child was straining to reach it with every ounce of her tiny body. She chuckled and moved it farther out of Sorah’s reach.

“No, no, no,” she laughed.

“Uh!” Sorah grunted, reaching out farther.

“Wow,” Garrett said, impressed. “She really wants that cake.”

“I’ll get the knife,” Victoria called, heading for the kitchen.

“I’ll find her binky,” Max offered. “Maybe that will make her happy.” He put down the video camera and set off in the direction of her bedroom, Lexi close behind.

Portia took a step toward Sorah, clucking softly under her breath. Portia hadn’t changed much since their encounter in Faeria. Kaia suspected she had been a hard person long before Zafira had stolen away her love, but there were cracks around her edges. She hadn’t precisely reconciled with Victoria, although they could be in the same room without insulting each other. Tea time with Lexi had become far more comfortable, and Garrett was no longer forced to play his saxophone outside at the Manor.

The greatest difference could be seen in her relationship with Sorah. With this child, Kaia liked to think, Portia was determined to get things right. She smiled at her and held her for hours. When Sorah was fussy, Portia could soothe her. Kaia had even heard her singing to Sorah when she thought no one was watching. And Portia’s love for Sorah seemed to have gone a long way to healing the hurts she’d inflicted on her daughter and grandsons.

“Kaia, didn’t you strap the child down?” Portia asked.

“Well, of course I… ” Kaia gulped.

Slowly but surely, Sorah was rising out of her seat.

Rising out of her seat, and above the ground.

“Oh, dear God.” Portia sucked in her breath.

Garrett lunged and caught her by the seat of her pants just as she tipped forward and prepared to plunge her face into the cake. Sorah immediately burst into frustrated tears, waving her hands and squirming in his arms.

“Kaia?” he asked unsteadily.

She stared at the child, at the cake, and at Garrett, her mouth open. “I don’t… I didn’t… ”

There was a chuckle in the back of the room. The voice was familiar, one that Kaia hadn’t heard since that last fateful day in Faeria. She didn’t have to turn around to picture the guileless blue eyes, the stubby little horns, or the expression of glee. “You didn’t really think you weren’t a faerie anymore, did you?”

Kaia spun around slowly. “What in the world are you doing here?”

Even as she spoke, three figures appeared at the back of the room, tall and willowy, glowing with a faint sheen of iridescent light. First one, and then the others, came into focus. Dimly, she heard Portia make a soft sound of horror.

“Talia? Mina? Analise?” Kaia backed away, holding up her hands as if to forestall them from coming closer. “What are you doing here? I’m banished. You can’t be here.”

Analise smiled gently. “It’s okay, Kaia. Zafira knows.”

“Zafira?” Garrett shifted Sorah to one side. With a deep frown, he stepped between Kaia and the Handmaids. “I don’t want to hear that creature’s name ever again. We paid our dues. Kaia’s human now. There’s nothing Zafira can do to us anymore. I think you should all leave.”

“Right,” Talia said, flipping her dark hair over one shoulder. “Queen Zafira can do whatever she wants to you, human. The sooner you realize that, the better.”

Mina put one hand on her hip, her body a sensual curve of red and gold. “Goodness, Talia. You make everything into a fight.” She ignored Garrett, focusing on Kaia, her voice husky and deep. “The thing is, we didn’t think it was right that you had to be banished and lose your wings forever. So we made a deal with Zafira. You got to stay a faerie, and we—”

Kaia winced. “Wait a minute—you bargained with Zafira? How could you, Mina? She could have called in the Black Ladies just for you suggesting it!”

“That’s what I told them,” the imp said. “But they were determined. So I brokered the deal. You got to keep your wings and the Handmaids each gave something up. Zafira wanted you to be a human for at least one year. She wouldn’t budge on that. So they couldn’t tell you what happened.”

Kaia struggled for control, the information slowly seeping in. Keep her wings? The only way she could keep her wings would be if she were still a faerie. A moment later, the full import of the imp’s words sunk in and her heart sank. “What do you mean they each gave something up?”

Analise glared at the imp. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Tell me,” Kaia demanded.

“They don’t know, exactly,” the imp said. “Someday Zafira will collect a forfeit from each of them. It won’t kill them, or take their wings, or banish them. It will be within the bounds of what Zafira could ask of her Handmaids.”

“They won’t like it,” Kaia said, looking around at each of them. “Zafira would do this to punish them.”

Analise shrugged. “You withstood the greatest challenge she could have set forth and look what happened.” She waved toward the still-glowering Garrett with a smile, and pressed a kiss on Sorah’s forehead. The child giggled and reached forward to grab a lock of shining blonde hair. “If this is Zafira’s greatest punishment, what have we to fear?”

Kaia shook her head. “You should not have done this. I was happy to be human. I didn’t need… ” she trailed off, watching as Analise touched Sorah’s face with a gentle hand. The child gazed up at her adoringly.

“We could not let you go,” Analise said, not meeting her eyes. “You were our sister. You will always be our sister.”

“Ah, ’Lise,” Kaia sighed. She touched her on the shoulder and Analise turned, and Kaia hugged her tightly. Then Mina, and then Talia, Kaia embraced each of them, tears spilling onto her cheeks.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

§

Later that night, when the frosting had been wiped from the floor, a disapproving Portia returned to the Manor, and an exhausted Sorah tucked into her crib, Garrett and Kaia stood out on the balcony overlooking the city, the warm breeze and the smell of the ocean wrapping around them. Kaia rested the back of her head against Garrett’s chest as he pulled her against him.

“So what do you think about… ” She didn’t know exactly what she wanted to say. So much had happened so quickly with ’Lise and the other Handmaids, but with the party to finish and Portia to soothe, she and Garrett hadn’t had any time alone to process it all.

“It’s fine,” he said, tightening his hold. As always when he touched her, a steady heat began to slide through her veins and across her skin. “I never wanted you to give up that part of yourself. I do wonder what that means for Sorah. Is she Fey, or human?”

Kaia shook her head. “I have heard stories of the children of faeries and human, but their magic varies. We may not know for years exactly what effect her Fey blood will have.”

“I see.” Garrett paused, then shrugged. “We already knew she was special. Now just a little more so. But be honest with me, darling—now that you know the truth, do you want to go back?” He chuckled, but there was a hint of concern deep in his voice. “I’m not sure I could let you go, but I feel like I should ask.”

Kaia leaned against him, fitting her bottom against him and snuggling into the cradle of his chest. “No. Never. I can’t say I am not thrilled to have my wings back, but my heart is human now. When I first came to Florida, I thought becoming a human would be the worst fate I could suffer. Now it’s just who I am.”

Garrett’s voice was thick with emotion when he spoke again. “It doesn’t matter what form you take. You are simply Kaia.” His hands moved to her breasts. “My love. My heart.”

Kaia closed her eyes as he traced circles around her nipples. “You transformed me,” she said. “We transformed each other. Nothing else matters now.” She pressed her hips backward, connecting with the hardness at his groin. “Nothing else but this.”

Their movements grew rhythmic, his fingers slipping lower, riding the curve of her hip, the line between her thighs. He pulled back, cupping her face in his hands. “Can I see?” he asked. “Can I see you?”

Kaia nodded, understanding what he meant. She stepped out of his embrace and closed her eyes. With only a trace of hesitation, she loosened the hold she had been maintaining ever since Analise told her about the bargain they had made with Zafira.

With a soft moan, she let her wings burst from her shoulders and her faerie form take hold of her body. She did not assume the figure she had cultivated so carefully as a Handmaid. Deliberately, she released every memory of other men, of their desires and needs. She let go of the sensuality that had become like a mask and abandoned all artifice, all magic except the faerie essence that would always stay deep within her soul.

Garrett’s face reflected golden light. Energy surged through her, demanding flight, but she paused, watching his face and waiting to see how he would react. She felt the first stirring of panic as she wondered what he saw and what he had hoped to see. Did he want the old Kaia? The one he had seen at the Blue Hour all those months ago? And if he did, would he ever be satisfied with the new Kaia? The Kaia she had become?

“You’re beautiful,” he said in wonder as he reached up and touched her cheek, “but the same. Your body isn’t the way it was that night.” He stopped, obviously struggling to put into words what he was seeing. “You’re still you,” he said, relief finally crossing his face. “You’re still my Kaia.”

It took a moment for his words to register. She looked down at her body, clad in the soft knit dress she had worn for Sorah’s party. Her hips were the same width they’d taken since Sorah’s birth, her breasts heavier, her stomach no longer flat, but gently rounded. She held up her arm and saw a smattering of freckles and the scar from a burn she’d gotten a month before.

She threw her arms around his neck, joy exploding from every pore in her body. “I was a reflection before,” she said. “Now I am myself.”

They made love that night slowly and tenderly, and when they reached their peak, Kaia knew that she was finally whole. Faerie and human, mother and wife, lover and friend. She had found herself and she had found love.

And she would never let it go.

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, an enormous thank you goes out to all the fantastic folks at Entangled Publishing, but especially Libby Murphy and Heather Howland, who fell in love with my faeries and wanted to share their story with the world. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my unendingly optimistic and supportive agent, Emily Sylvan Kim, who believed in Kaia from the start. To my dear friends, the Romance Bandits, you are an incredible group of women, and I love you to pieces. Finally, how could I not thank my better half, the man who inspires it all and reminds me every day that happily ever after isn’t just a fairy tale. Thank you.

About the Author

Inara Scott has been an avid romance reader since childhood, when she snuck her first bodice-ripper into the closet so her mother wouldn’t see. Throughout a series of careers, including outdoor educator, attorney, and author, romance and happily ever after have been Inara’s touchstones. Inara lives in Portland, Oregon, with her knight in shining armor, two perfectly behaved children, and an embarrassingly cute little white dog. She believes firmly that dreams do come true and magic is everywhere. Inara loves to hear from readers. You can find her at www.inarascott.com.

Her tears called a powerful snow god to life...

...but only her love can grant him the humanity he craves.

Read on for a sneek peek of Laura Kaye’s sexy contemporary fantasy NORTH OF NEED...

Coming November 2011

Chapter One

The cold scorched Megan Snow’s throat, making it hard to breathe. Hard to think.

That was a good thing.

She tugged her scarf over her mouth, grateful for the expansive winter sky and crisp air, and set off on a trail walk. Four days alone in the cabin, and Megan was sure the walls were closing in on her. Outside, everything was bright and clean and open. Just what she needed.

She headed for the stand of trees off to the side of the house, hoping the snow might be more shallow under the thick canopy of branches that sheltered the woods. A creek sat a half mile in where, on warmer days, happier days, she and John had sometimes picnicked and made love. It would be iced over, of course, but having a goal burned off some of her restlessness.

Megan high-stepped through the snow until her thighs burned, gripping onto one tree after another. She tripped on buried branches and rocks until the trees were the only things keeping her upright. Hugging a hickory trunk for support, she glanced back over her shoulder and groaned.

The clearly visible cabin mocked her progress. Most of the twenty inches of snow blanketing the wide field in front of the house had made its way to the forest floor, too. She wanted a distraction, but she needed to be smart, safe. Damn. She retraced her path to the cabin.

But she wouldn’t go back inside. Couldn’t.

She grabbed the shovel from the covered porch of the story-and-a-half log cabin and dug into clearing the front sidewalk. You know you’re going stir crazy when shoveling backbreaking wet snow counts as entertainment.

Her family was right. It was probably time to stop coming out here for the holidays. But she just couldn’t give this place up. Not yet. Not when it was the only thing she had left of him. Nope. Not thinking about that.

Sweat trickled down her spine under her cotton turtleneck and thick fleece with each scoop-and-toss. Blonde curls worked their way out from under her hat and hung in her eyes. She didn’t mind though, because with each newly revealed foot of sidewalk, the ache in her muscles made it more and more difficult to wallow in memories.

The shovel hit something solid and kicked back against Megan’s frozen hands. She groaned as the shock of thwarted forward motion rocked through her wrists and elbows. Gravel from the driveway spilled from the shovel blade into the snow. Huh. She turned and looked behind her, surprised to find she’d cleared the whole length of the twenty-foot path.

Without once thinking of him. Of the anniversary.

Progress.

And proof that manual labor was her friend. There’d be no more sitting around with books or music or TV shows she couldn’t concentrate on. She’d just exhaust herself into a mindless oblivion.

She looked to her left, down over the expanse of shimmering white to the distant forest that marked their property line. To her right, her now-hidden driveway formed a curving path two-thirds of a mile to the main road and civilization. Shoveling that mess certainly would require manual labor, but Mr. Johansson would be up here with his plow as soon as the weather broke. How would she explain to him she’d tried to shovel it by hand? She imagined the confounded look on his craggy face.

So, what next? After returning the shovel to the front porch, she stood and surveyed the Western Maryland landscape. The low peaks of the ancient Appalachian Mountains rose around her, the firs and hardwoods for which these forests were famous veiled by two days of nonstop blizzard conditions. The only sound besides her labored breathing was the occasional whistling of the wind through the snow-burdened forest. For all Megan knew, she was the only person in the world. Sure felt like it, these days.

What to do?

God, I’m so lonely.

She sighed and shook her head.

The wind moaned. Then do something about it.

Heart pounding, Megan jerked around, her right boot skidding against a slick spot, pink scarf fluttering out around her like a ribbon. Who’d uttered those last words?

No one, of course. The silence and stillness were complete, as was her isolation—exactly the qualities she and John had always loved about this place.

“Jesus, I’m losing it,” she murmured out loud, just to create the impression she wasn’t so alone. Her gaze returned to the snowy field in front of the cabin. Trimmed by a dense line of firs at the far edges, the clearing was big, clean, empty…

Do something about it, the mysterious voice had said. Oh, she’d do something about it, all right.

Back to the high-stepping routine, Megan trudged out into the front yard. Any spot would do, she supposed, so she stopped and mashed two mounds of snow into a sticky white ball. The lull in the storm had allowed the temperature to creep up into the high twenties, so the snow was good packing quality. She rolled the ball over the powdery surface, intent on making it as big as she could. After a while, the thing started to fight back when she pushed, but she wanted the exertion. Digging her toes in, she fought for every additional inch in diameter until, finally, she was done.

She stood with snow-crusted gloves on her hips and admired her work. “That’s one big ball ya got there.” She sniggered, then shook her head.

Now, for the next two. She set about the packing-rolling-grunting process again until she created a sizable middle and the head. Lifting them into place proved a challenge, but with a lot of grunting and a few choice expletives, she lugged the heavy masses where they needed to be.

“Now, to transform you from androgynous snow person into my snowman.” Megan jogged back to the house and didn’t even worry about tracking snow inside. Moments later, she reemerged with an armload of supplies she dumped at the foot of her creation.

“First, we gotta give you a face, mister.” Emptying the bag of buttons on top of the flannel shirt, she sorted through with glove-thick fingertips. She wanted bigger ones for the eyes, and found two. She frowned. They weren’t the same color, but she wouldn’t be able to tell from a distance. She plugged the biggest navy and chocolate-brown buttons into the face as eyes. A light brown button made a cute nose, and a row of mismatched reds made a friendly mouth.

The red and white plaid flannel shirt was a big don’t-even-let-your-thoughts-go-there, but she couldn’t allow the poor guy to go without clothing. Besides, she had a closet full of them. She wrapped the soft fabric around the middle section. The snowball was wide, but the shirt closed. After all, he’d been a big guy, hadn’t he? She tugged off her gloves so she could do up the front, then trudged to the oak tree on the corner and snapped off two branches. With cold, shaking hands, she threaded the twigs through the flannel sleeves until Snow Man was inviting her in for a hug. She finished him off with a blue tartan wool scarf and a thick black knit beanie she stretched down as far as possible.

Standing back, Megan admired her work. He was the best snowman she’d ever built. Tall. Well proportioned. Handsomely attired. “Now I’m not alone.”

Inspired, Megan fished a dry pair of blue gloves from the supply pile and collected more snow, beginning again before her brain could assess and refute her pronouncement. She packed, rolled, and lift-grunted until another, somewhat smaller, snow person stood beside the first. Back at the tree, she broke off more branches and gave the second person arms. She slid her soaked-through pink gloves on the end of each stick, then wrapped her own matching pink scarf around the snow woman’s neck. Perfect.

Hands on her knees, Megan rested and struggled to catch her breath. Her lungs burned with the frigid air, her lips chapped and cracked. Her body ached from the heavy lifting. Definitely the route to a decent night of sleep. God, how she needed that. She plunged into her third creation.

The temperature dropped and the biting wind picked up. Big, wet snowflakes fell in a heavy blanket, darkening the afternoon sky. Her flagging energy and the deteriorating conditions made the work harder, and this snow person ended up much smaller. On her knees, with wet gloves and cold hands almost too numb to do the job, Megan set its little head in place.

Breathing hard, she staggered to her feet and studied her afternoon’s labor with her hands on her hips.

She’d made a snow family.

A snow family. A snowman, a snow woman, and a snow child.

A sob tore up her throat and echoed into the stillness. What the hell was she thinking?

She stumbled, gasping at her own stupidity. The emotional scab ripped open. Hours of effort came undone. Her boot stuck in a deep drift and tripped her. Her body fell hard at the base of the snowman and her breath whooshed out. The sobs choked her as she crawled to her knees and slumped against the man. She yanked off a glove, needing to touch something he’d touched, something that had been his, but her frozen fingers could barely feel the soft cotton of John’s favorite cabin-wear. She buried her face against the worn material. He’d been gone too long to be able to smell him on it, but that didn’t keep her from inhaling deeply to try.

“Why did you leave me?” she wailed, her tears soaking through the cold shirt. “Why?” Her fists curled into the flannel. “I need you.”

The wind swallowed her words and carried them away. John was gone. And they’d never have a family of their own. They never even had the chance.

Chapter Two

“Merry Christmas,” Megan murmured to the empty bedroom the next morning.

Gray light filtered through the two windows on either side of the king-sized bed, enough to illuminate the outlines of hundreds of glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. She’d once remarked offhandedly that her favorite thing about spending time at their cabin was the huge glittered dome of the rural night sky. Up here, no city lights dimmed the stars’ brilliance, so even the smallest, most distant ones beamed and twinkled. The next time they’d visited, John redecorated their bedroom ceiling. Just for her. He wanted her to have her stars, inside and out.

She didn’t bother wishing on them anymore, though. Not in two years. Two years, today.

In spite of the circumstances, the holiday filled the air with a special, magical buzz that set her stomach to fluttery anticipation. A ridiculous reaction, of course, since she was alone. No surprise gifts or family-filled dinner awaited. Just a quiet, empty house.

Wallowing in bed all day sounded appealing, but a burning sensation on her cheek demanded attention. She patted the area. The skin felt rough, like a scab. Lovely. Turning back the cocoon of the thick down comforter, she slipped out of bed. She followed a path from one hooked scatter rug to the next, avoiding the cold, wide-planked wood floors.

The navy, mahogany, and white color scheme of the bedroom carried into the adjoining bathroom. Megan squinted against the brightness of the mounted light and leaned toward the mirror. Her left cheek bore the deep, dark red of frostnip. Her skin looked almost sunburned, except the angry mark was localized to the cheekbone. The spot where, yesterday, she’d leaned against the snowman, crying until the unceasing flow of her tears froze the wet flannel to her face. At least her nose and other cheek, pink from windburn, didn’t hurt.

She gently prodded the mark with her fingers again. Last night, it had been cold to the touch, but now it was hot, chafed. So stupid. She slathered moisturizer over her face and smoothed ChapStick over her dry lips, and brushed and clipped her loose blonde curls on top of her head in a messy pile. What did her looks matter?

Megan slipped a pink fleece robe on over her flannel pajamas and threaded her way across the large great room, past the grouping of buttery leather couches and the floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace, to the open kitchen. Coffee was a must. She tapped her fingers on the counter as she waited for it to brew. Giving up, she walked around the long breakfast bar to the one concession she made to Christmas.

There, next to the raised stone hearth, a small potted Douglas fir stood in darkness. She reached behind and found the plug. A rainbow of colored lights shimmered to life, brightening the dim gray that still dominated the room despite the number of large windows. She stepped back and gazed at the small tree. Plain balls of every color mirrored the riot of lights, but the basic ornaments also spread an impersonal cast over the tree. She hadn’t unpacked their collection of ornaments—where every one had meaning or told a story—since her last Christmas with John.

She turned away, sucked in a deep breath, and promised herself she wasn’t going to think about that. Not until she had to. And she had almost eleven hours.

She curled into a wide armchair with a warm chenille throw and a mug of strong coffee. The ringing phone startled her and she almost spilled it in her lap. “Oh, hell,” she murmured as she unburied herself and rushed for the cordless.

She knew who it would be before she answered.

“Merry Christmas, dear.”

“Hey, Mom. Merry Christmas.” She settled on the edge of her seat and dragged the blanket over her lap.

“How are you doing up there? The weather looks bad.”

Her mom wasn’t really worried about weather, today of all days, but Megan permitted her the ruse. “I’m just fine. It’s been snowing steady. We’ve got well over two feet, I’d guess.” An earlier peek out the front window revealed the storm had undone all her hard work from yesterday, reburying the stone sidewalk she’d shoveled. The snow family still stood there, though.

“I wish you weren’t up there alone. You should be with us. Especially today. I mean, who’s going to keep your father and brother from sneaking bites of ham and stealing cookies while I’m trying to cook?” Her chuckle sounded forced.

Restraining her emotions made Megan’s throat tight. “I just…I’m not ready.” Not ready to walk away from the annual holiday tradition of a cabin getaway she and John had created, even before they were married. Not ready to be around people actually happy it was Christmas. Not ready to pretend so others could be comfortable.

Her mother’s sigh made its way down the line. “I know. I know you have to grieve, and I know how hard this has been. But, damn it, it’s been two years. You’re twenty-nine, Megan, so young, so much life ahead of you, so much to offer. You can’t spend the rest of your life mourning John.” She paused. “Nor would he want you to.”

Megan forced her eyes to the ceiling to pinch off the threatening tears. “I’m trying, Mom. I am. But, please, I can’t do this. Not today.”

“I’m sorry. I told myself I wasn’t going to say anything. I’m just so worried about you.”

Megan nodded and swallowed around the lump in her throat, unable to do much more in the face of her mother’s emotional outpouring.

“Oh, shit.”

“What happened?”

“That was uncharitable, wasn’t it? Mrs. Cooke is tottering her way up the front sidewalk, annual fruitcake in hand.”

“You need to go?” Their neighbor had been dropping by the inedible bricks since Megan was a kid, though this was probably the first time Megan felt grateful for it—Mrs. Cooke’s timing provided the perfect distraction from this line of conversation.

“Yeah. I’m sorry, dear. Let me go help her. Your father hasn’t been out to shovel yet, and God help me if she falls and breaks a hip on Christmas morning.”

“Okay. Enjoy your fruitcake.”

“Keep it up, smarty. I’ll save you some.”

Megan managed a small smile. “No, please. Don’t do me any favors.”

“I’ll be thinking about you, Megan. I’ll have Dad give you a call later.” The squeak of her mom’s front door sounded in the background. “Hello there, Mrs. Cooke.”

Their quick good-byes overlapped their neighbor’s high-pitched chatter. Megan could so easily imagine the scene unfolding at her parents’ house. Christmas there was comfortably predictable. An enormous real tree filled the living room with the scent of fresh-cut pine. More decorations than a Hallmark store. Mrs. Cooke’s visit. Her dad’s buttermilk pancakes for anyone who had stayed the night before. The savory aroma of baking ham. A small army of visitors—Megan’s older brother and sister with their spouses and kids, occasional aunts and uncles with their families, and even a few neighbors without other plans. Enough food to feed said army, and then some. A mountain of presents. More food. An evening of games around the big farmhouse table.

Much as she had always loved it, she couldn’t face it. Not yet.

By ten in the morning, she’d talked to her sister Susan, amazed to learn her two nieces had been done opening presents for hours already, and her brother Aaron, who quickly handed her off to his wife. She liked Nora well enough and enjoyed talking to her, but knew her brother’s cursory greeting stemmed from his continued discomfort around her. He didn’t know how to make things better for her, and his instinct, as a man, as the big brother, was to fix it. Not being able to help her put him at a complete loss. Megan didn’t hold it against him.

As noon approached, Megan talked herself into getting dressed and having a bite to eat. She was about to dig into a bowl of chili and homemade cornbread when the phone rang again.

“Megs! Merry Christmas!” came her best friend’s voice.

Megan smiled. Kate always did that for her. “Merry Christmas to you, too. You just wake up?”

“Damn straight. Well, Ryan woke me up with some yuletide cheer earlier, but we fell back to sleep after.” Kate snorted.

“Aw, too much information, woman. I don’t need to know about his little yuletide cheer.”

“Who said it was little?”

“Argh. La-la-la, so not listening.”

“All right, all right,” Kate said. “So, how are you? The truth.”

“Meh.”

“That good, huh?”

“Pretty much.”

“Oh, Megs, what the hell are you doin’ way up there by yourself?”

“Honestly? I couldn’t face Christmas at my parents’. I know they want me there, but I hate feeling like the elephant in the room. Everyone tiptoeing around me. It sucks.”

“Big hairy balls.”

“Exactly.” Kate’s goofy side had often been a lifesaver, but not today. Megan sighed. “I can’t believe it’s been two years.”

“Me neither. It’s so hard to imagine.”

“They say the first year is the worst, because every sunrise represents the first time you experience that date without the person you lost.” The first Valentine’s without him, the first birthday without him, the first summer alone, the first Thanksgiving without him to be thankful for. The first Christmas. Megan stirred her cooling chili and struggled to put her thoughts into words. “But, honestly, the only thing different about the second year is you feel like you can’t talk about it anymore. Everyone expects you to move on.”

“You can always talk to me. You know that, right?”

“I do. Thanks.” She huffed. “Jesus, I’m sorry to be so damn morose. Maybe we should talk about Ryan’s yule log again.”

Kate barked out a laugh. “Hmm…yes, that is a big, happy subject.”

“Shit, on second thought.”

They hung up with promises to talk later in the day. After.

Despite their joking, the honesty of the conversation chased away Megan’s appetite. She wrapped the bread and chili for later and wandered around the cabin, relocating from one seat to another without any real purpose. A lull in the storm brightened the afternoon. Needing fresh air and a little distraction, Megan bundled up and shoveled the sidewalk for the second time, estimating perhaps ten new inches covered it.

She was officially snowed in.

As she stomped back up the cleared path, her eyes looked where her mind told them not to. The snow family remained, though the constant snow had weighed so heavily upon the woman’s arms that they’d collapsed to her sides, her pink gloves presumably buried somewhere beneath the new snowfall. Megan frowned when she looked at the man. Both his hat and eyes were gone. Blown away or, like the gloves, buried.

Back inside, her eyes drifted where she didn’t really want them to go, to the clock on the microwave. Little after four. Her stomach clenched. About two and a half hours until the anniversary came and went, until John had officially been gone for two years. She found herself glad she hadn’t eaten that chili.

Mismatched picture frames drew her to the mantle. Smiling faces shined out from the past. A candid of her whole family. Her and Susan kissing Aaron’s cheeks at his wedding. Mom and Dad’s portrait from their twentieth anniversary. And half a dozen shots of her and John—their wedding, skiing, her sitting on his lap. Happy and healthy. Alive. She turned away, but he was everywhere. In the rustic moose throw pillows he insisted they had to have, despite the fact no moose resided in these mountains. In the beautiful Mission lamps they found at an antique store outside D.C. In the stars on the bedroom ceiling, in the closet full of his clothes.

By five o’clock, the snowstorm returned with a vengeance, dumping more white fluff while the wind whipped through the surrounding trees. When the lights flickered for the first time, Megan groaned. No way the electricity would hold against the storm’s relentless onslaught. At least she’d stocked the firewood rack when she first arrived. She built a strong fire, providing a blazing source of illumination should the lights fail completely.

The flickering continued at uneven intervals. She’d never seen the electricity falter so much without simply failing altogether. Despite the crackling heat of the fire, the great room air chilled. She tugged on a fleece hoodie and checked the thermostat. The LED screen flashed. She frowned as she reset the program, but the screen just kept flashing. Jeez. First the Freon leak in the air conditioning unit and now the heat was on the fritz. Not much she could do about it with this storm, though. She’d have to schedule a repairman before she headed back to D.C.

A fresh pot of coffee would ward off the chill. She wandered to the kitchen and froze. “What the hell?” All the LED screens—on the microwave, the oven, the coffeemaker, the digital alarm clock on the counter—blinked. Odd. Especially since the clock had a battery backup and, like the thermostat, the coffeemaker wouldn’t reset.

A high-pitched tinkling, like a small ringing bell, sounded from somewhere outside. Goose bumps erupted over her arms. She didn’t have a wind chime, and the next nearest house was over a half mile through the stand of trees to the west.

The hair on the back of her neck prickled.

She dashed to the entryway and peered through the glass panes on both sides of the door. Without light, her effort was useless. A wall of darkness swirled beyond the glass. She reached to the side and tripped the light switches, then turned back to the window.

A strangled scream stuck in her throat.

Chapter Three

Out of the darkness, from the heart of the howling snowstorm, a hunched-over man staggered up Megan’s front steps. She wrenched back from the door, her heart pounding in her chest. Panicked, she skittered behind a couch.

Who the hell could he be? Nobody could have walked or driven here in this weather. Her breath came in fast rasps. The lights flickered again, then again. Her eyes trailed to the fireplace tools on the hearth. Maybe she should grab the iron poker. Just in case.

The lights wavered, struggled to hold on. From outside, a solid, deadweight thump startled a gasp from Megan.

Help him.

The words were so quiet they might’ve been a thought, but in her current state she still whirled, fully expecting the impossible—that someone else was crouched next to her behind the sofa. Of course, she was alone. She peeked around the corner of the couch, her panic subsiding into a feeling of absurdity.

Help who? The man. Just a regular, ordinary man. Who must be in trouble. She remembered how he seemed to stumble on the steps and the thump. He’d fallen. She rushed from her hiding place like a sprinter at the sound of the gun. Peering through the sidelight, she whispered, “Oh, shit.” She was right.

She tore open the door. Jesus, he was big. No one she knew from the neighborhood, though there were always tourists renting surrounding cabins to take advantage of Deep Creek Lake and the Wisp Ski Resort. God, he wasn’t dressed to be out in this weather. No coat. No shoes. What the hell was she going to do with him?

Cold wind buffeted her and nipped at her skin, making her nearly frostbitten cheek tingle uncomfortably. Her hesitation wavered, then dropped away completely. What choice did she have? She couldn’t leave him out in this blizzard.

The bitter wind sank into her bones as she stepped shoeless and coatless—like him—onto the porch. She didn’t have to check for a pulse. Each shallow breath sent up a small fog from his mouth. Megan crouched behind his shoulders and wedged her hands underneath. Two fistfuls of red plaid flannel in hand, she pulled. He barely budged as she grunted and tugged. She tried two more times.

Shit, but it was mind-numbingly cold. “Come on, dude. Work with me, will ya?” she muttered, her hair whipping around her face.

Megan rethought the problem and stepped around to his bare feet. How could someone walk to this cabin without shoes? She shook her head and crouched, back facing him, between his legs. Securing an ankle under each armpit, she cupped his heels and pushed herself into a standing position. This time, when she moved, he moved. The guy was so big and heavy, she felt like Rudolph pulling Santa’s sleigh without the help of the other eight reindeer.

The warm air from inside the cabin embraced her body, its comforting tendrils drawing her over the threshold and into the slate-covered foyer. The lights flickered again, sending out a quiet electrical hum that raised the hair on her arms and the back of her neck. She tried to drag the man carefully, but his head still thumped as it crossed the shallow ridge of the doorjamb. She winced. “Sorry.”

As soon as he was clear of the door, she set his feet down and ran to close it. The indoor temperature had probably dropped twenty degrees while she’d been outside figuring how to lug his sorry butt in. She engaged the dead bolt, and the lights died. She gasped and pivoted, flattened her back to the door. He lay, right where she left him, melting snow all over her hardwoods.

Knowing he needed warmth, she recommenced with the lift-and-drag routine until she had him right in front of the fireplace. The crisis of his exposure to the elements behind them, she looked him over more closely. The first thing her eyes latched onto was the shirt and scarf—John’s clothing. The pieces she’d used on her snowman. Was it possible this guy had walked here…in what? The pair of faded jeans he wore and nothing else? And then…he’d grabbed the clothes in desperation before collapsing at her door? Everything about that was two kinds of strange.

Well, she wouldn’t know anything for sure until he woke up and could tell her what had happened to him, so for now she’d concentrate on warming him back up.

She grabbed the thick chenille throws from the sofa and draped the first over his torso, tucking it as far under his body as she could get. His crisp, clean scent, like snow on a spruce, filled her nose. Long as the blanket was, it still didn’t reach below mid-shin.

With the second blanket, she started at his feet. Amazingly, while his feet were red, they didn’t seem to suffer any of the telltale signs of serious frostbite. She wrapped his legs completely, trying to give him a little extra cushion against the floor’s hardness. While she was at it, she sacrificed her comfy down pillow to the cause, flattening it out with her hands before sliding it under his head. His hair was a mess of longish strands that hung onto his forehead and down to his collar. It looked pitch black, but then it was also sopping wet.

Maybe she should call 9-1-1. Could an ambulance even get here in this weather? She shook her head.

Megan stood and stretched, admiring the man’s surreal good looks. Even asleep, unconscious, whatever, the guy was ruggedly handsome. Mop of shiny black hair, strong brow, square jaw, fair skin, full red lips. A male Snow White.

Her eyes traced down. Very male. No wonder she hadn’t been able to lift his shoulders. They were broad and well muscled, which the tight wrap of the blanket emphasized.

Jesus. She hugged herself. What was she doing? She was all alone, stranded in a blizzard, with a strange man in her cabin. A why-this-was-stupid ticker ran through her mind.

But did she have a choice?

§

Hot. Too damn hot.

Sweat soaked into Owen’s shirt and jeans, making the latter rough and heavy against his sensitive skin. His hair was heavy and damp where it covered his forehead. He tried to lift a hand to wipe his forehead, but it wouldn’t move. Something restrained him. He struggled, moaned.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

Owen’s eyes snapped open at the sound of her voice. An angel hovered over him in the darkness. He sucked in a breath and flew into a sitting position, tearing out from under the tight blankets. She gasped and yanked herself back from him.

“Where am I?” He looked down at his hands, turned them over, practiced flexing his fingers and making fists. He wiggled his toes against the weight of the blanket.

“You’re at my cabin. I found you on my porch.”

He dragged his gaze over her. The fire illuminated the halo of loose golden curls that framed her face and covered her shoulders, made her inquisitive blue eyes sparkle and dance. He frowned at the crimson puffiness of her cheek. His fingers itched to trace the wound. His lips puckered as he imagined kissing it. Her beauty reminded him of the first snowfall of winter—clean and new and bright. Full of possibility. Far from diminishing her, the injury highlighted her fairness by contrast.

“It’s Christmas,” he said.

She eyed him and nodded. “Uh, yeah.”

He pushed the covers off his lap and yanked the suffocating wool from around his neck, relieved to be rid of their warm weight. The fire crackled beside him, drawing his gaze. He shrank back and swallowed thickly.

“How about something nice and warm to drink?” She rose to her feet, words spilling out of her in a rush. “I’ve, um, I’ve got a Coleman coffeepot just, uh, out in the garage. Operates on batteries, so—”

“I’d like something cold. If you don’t mind.” He followed her movements with his eyes. She was tall and thin. Too thin.

“Oh, okay. No problem.” She turned and strode into the kitchen.

Following her lead, he stood, testing his body, getting his bearings. He took a few tentative steps, enjoying the chill of the floor against his bare feet. He rolled his shoulders, twisted his neck from side to side. His muscles came to life as his body made its first halting movements.

He glanced to the kitchen and found her watching him. Her gaze lit on him like a caress.

“Want water, juice, or soda?” she called.

“Water, please.”

She returned with the glass immediately. He downed the whole thing in one greedy gulp.

“May I have another? Colder, if you can?”

She gaped at him. “Ice?”

“Mmm, yes.”

A blush bloomed on her face. Curious. He liked it. Wanted to touch the flushed skin.

She handed him his second glass and gestured to the couch. “Would you like to sit down?”

He took a smaller drink, his eyes following the sway of her hips as she walked around the sofa. After a moment, he joined her. The leather was cool and comfortable.

“So”—she clasped her hands together in her lap—“why were you out in this storm?”

He frowned. Tried to think. “I don’t know.” He couldn’t remember much before waking to the vision of her over him.

“What? You mean, you don’t remember?”

He dragged a hand through his wet hair. Concentrating made his head ache. “Uh, no, I guess not.”

“Oh. Well, are you hurt anywhere?”

He looked himself over, moved the parts of his body in sequence. “I don’t think so.”

“You collapsed on my porch. No shoes or coat.”

The image of a swirling snowy nightscape flashed behind his eyes. He blinked, tried to hold on to the image. “I did?”

She nodded. Fidgeted with her fingers. Stuffed her hands between her thighs. “So, uh…”

He watched, fascinated by all her small nervous movements. Such a pretty woman. “Why are you here all alone on Christmas?”

She paled, her mouth dropping open. Then she gasped. “Oh, my God.” Her eyes cut to the dark components under the TV. She cursed and flew from the couch. More curses came from the kitchen. He rose, regretting his question, and went to where she was rooting through a bag on the kitchen counter. She pulled out a small cell phone, pushed some buttons, then groaned. “Why is nothing working?”

“Can I help you?” A pit of guilt took root in his stomach. Though he didn’t understand the urge, he would’ve done anything to ease her apparent panic.

“The time. Do you know the time?”

He shook his head. “Sorry.”

“I can’t have missed it. Please tell me I didn’t miss it.” She ran across the broad open space and disappeared into a dark room, then returned moments later carrying a small glass-domed clock with a shiny brass pendulum. She placed it on the stone hearth, face toward the undulating flames, and settled onto her knees.

Something stirred deep in his gut, niggled at the back of his mind. A feeling like déjà vu gripped him. His forehead ached as he struggled to concentrate, to make sense of the odd sensation.

A low moan yanked him out of his thoughts. The woman curled over the stone hearth in front of the clock, her head buried in her arms, her shoulders shaking.

Her tears called to him. Down deep, on some fundamental level of his psyche.

Just as he stepped toward her, images and words flooded his consciousness. The panel of gods, the pleading man. He sucked in a breath.

All at once, he remembered his purpose. He remembered himself.

North of Need

LAURA KAYE

North of Need

LAURA KAYE

North of Need

LAURA KAYE

North of Need

LAURA KAYE

North of Need

LAURA KAYE

North of Need

LAURA KAYE

North of Need

LAURA KAYE

North of Need

LAURA KAYE

North of Need

LAURA KAYE

Table of Contents

- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen
- Chapter Fourteen
- Chapter Fifteen
- Chapter Sixteen
- Chapter Seventeen
- Chapter Eighteen
- Chapter Nineteen
- Chapter Twenty
- Chapter Twenty-One
- Chapter Twenty-Two
- Chapter Twenty-Three
- Chapter Twenty-Four
- Chapter Twenty-Five
- Chapter Twenty-Six
- Chapter Twenty-Seven
- Chapter Twenty-Eight
- Chapter Twenty-Nine
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three