Eden gritted her teeth. “He’s very special, Darrak is.”
“Thanks, sis. You’re the bestest.” He grabbed another donut. “And so are these.”
“It’s not a lot to go on, but it’s a start.” Andy took the page. “I can work on finding Darrak’s old friend here and you can take care of the cheating husband case.”
She pointed at herself. “Me?”
“Sure. She wanted you to do it. And I don’t want to piss off a new client. Especially one who seems to be bleeding money. You can start on it tomorrow.”
“Why wait until tomorrow?” she asked.
“Got to make sure this check is good.” He grinned. “If you don’t hear from me, don’t even bother coming in here first. I’ll call you if there are any emergencies.”
“But I don’t have a license.”
He waved his hand. “Don’t worry about that.”
“Don’t worry about that? It’s the law. We could get in trouble.”
“Honestly, Eden. Leave that sort of thing up to me.”
She opened her mouth to protest some more, but closed it. Andy was going to search for the witch, and he seemed surprisingly positive about it. That was good. She wouldn’t say anything to disrupt that. While she didn’t feel comfortable with Fay’s case, she’d do her best.
She was really a fairy? Other than the painfully tight hug there was nothing to indicate she was anything other than human. But she was a fairy who would be tried as a deserter of her people and possibly killed if her marriage was a failure. Talk about a good deterrent for divorce.
It was all very, very wrong.
“Fine. If you say so, then so be it,” she finally said. “Cheating husband. No problem, right?”
“No problem,” Andy agreed. “Grab my camera. Just jot down everything the husband does, who he’s seen with. Take tons of pictures. Easy as pie. I’ve done a million of ’em. And I hate to say it, but 99 percent of the time the client is right about their husband or wife. The gut rarely lies. They just need us to confirm it so they can use the evidence in the divorce case. I say, keep it coming. Infidelity has always been Triple-A’s bread and butter.”
Eden’s ex-fiance cheated on her at a Valentine’s Day party, of all things. As far as she was concerned, 99 percent of all men were born to cheat. The challenge was finding that 1 percent that wouldn’t.
However, searching for that elusive needle in the haystack usually resulted in finding a whole lot of other pricks.
Ben might be part of that tiny percentage. He was so perfect in every other way, from his looks to his job performance; he had to be the potential perfect husband as well.
Not that she was planning that far ahead. However, it did make for a nice mental image.
“Eden, why don’t you take the rest of the day off? After talking to Mrs. Morgan and getting that nice juicy check you’ve totally earned it,” Andy said. “Show your brother around the city. Have some fun.”
She eyed him skeptically. “This is
“I’m feeling generous toward my favorite employee.”
“Not that I’m looking the gift horse in the mouth, but you’re actually not my boss. We’re equal partners here.”
“Oh, right. I keep forgetting that.”
“Except he does own 1 percent more than you,” Darrak added, now on his fourth donut. “So that does make him the controlling partner.”
“That’s right, sport.” Andy nodded. “You’re paying attention. You’re totally awesome.”
Darrak sighed. “I want to leave now, Eden. Please.”
They left.
—“I heard you on the phone with the cop,” Darrak said in Eden’s car as they pulled away from the office. “Everything’s on for tonight?”
“It is.”
“Thought you might cancel.”
She eyed him sideways. “Well, I didn’t.”
He pressed back against the headrest. “I guess you really like him.”
“I do.”
“What’s so great about him?”
“Everything. Now just try to stay quiet.” She had to accept the fact that she had someone with her constantly until she figured out how to get rid of him. She’d never appreciated her now long-lost moments of silence before.
“You don’t like me very much, do you?” Darrak asked, but he sounded amused.
“Do you blame me?”
“A little. You need to loosen up a bit.”
“I’m loose enough.”
“Oh, really?” He grinned. “I’ll have to remember that.” She clutched the steering wheel tighter. “It’s hard to think when you’re around.”
“Because you find me so devastatingly handsome?”
She refrained from rolling her eyes. “Were you always so vain, or is this a recent revelation for you?”
“No, I’ve always been this way. Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful. Well, perhaps not as beautiful to you as your cop.”
She jerked the wheel to the left and cut someone off, receiving a horn blast in return. “Leave Ben out of this.”
“How is that possible? He’s obviously your lifeline right now. You can deal with me as long as you have him as the big, dangling carrot urging you onward.” He frowned. “Perhaps we shouldn’t talk about the cop’s big carrot. At least not until we see how the date goes.”
Her knuckles whitened as a thought occurred to her. “And let’s just say the date goes really, really well and I invite him back to my apartment. What then?”
“Is that something you’d do?” he asked. “On a first date?”
“Hypothetically speaking.”
“Okay, continue. I’m all for hypothetical situations.”
“What happens then? If you’re inside my head, seeing what I see, hearing what I hear—”
“It means that I’d prefer if you wait to dent the sheets with him until after I’m gone.”
Her face burned. Well, she’d asked. And he’d answered.
“Is that your natural hair color?” Darrak asked randomly.
“What?”
“This reddish shade.”
She realized that he’d reached over and was stroking a lock of her hair, twisting it around his finger. The car swerved again before she managed to right it. More horns blared.
The demon was going to make her get into an accident. “It’s — it’s dyed. I go to the salon regularly. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“I bet it’s brighter in its natural state, right?”
She forced herself to focus on the road rather than the demon sliding his warm fingers through her hair. “I don’t like my natural color.”
“So you change it, make it duller. Less vibrant,” he mused. “It’s strange. If I concentrate, I can see past the facade to the real color. Normally a human female would have freckles with such red hair but your skin is like porcelain, isn’t it?”
When he softly touched her face she almost ran the car right off the road.
She pushed his hand away from her cheek and put it back on his side of the car, but not before he entwined his fingers with hers.
“Let go of me.” Her voice sounded breathless.
But he wasn’t really holding her down or trapping her hand in any way. All she had to do was pull it away. Strangely, she seemed unable to do that. His skin was so hot, he had to be more than regular body temperature. She felt the warmth slide up her arm and flow into the rest of her body. It felt
