“But you don’t have a hundred grand sitting around?”
“No.”
“You have my hundred grand,” I said. “Minus the auctioneer’s cut. Do you really want it back?”
“No.”
“So now you’re mad at me because I paid all that money for your house, even though you’re the one who put it up for sale? This isn’t my fault. You just miss your grandfather.” This guy is a mess, I thought, but I felt guilty almost immediately for thinking that. I was the one who paid too much. Graham actually gave off the vibe of a very composed and successful person who was dealing with an unexpected loss.
“My grandfather always reminded me of Gandalf,” he said, veering off course. “Like some wise old…wizard.”
“You really don’t know…,” I said. I shouldn’t be the one to tell him. It was against all the rules of the magical world to go blabbing about it to humans unless you planned to sort of sponsor them into the magical world, like if you fell in love. But it was a gray area when it came to the descendants of wizards who had never been told.
“What don’t I know?” he asked sharply. “What did you find? You did see something, didn’t you?”
“No, it’s just—“
“Was he involved in a cult? Is it something like that?”
“I never met your grandfather!”
“I found strange stuff in his house. I don’t know how he lived such a simple life out there. I’m surprised it wasn’t in even worse shape. I don’t think he ever had help. I see how the garden was overgrown, and the house is all dusty and…when I walked in, I saw all the things he left undone. I tried to clean up. He had all these arcane books, and…I realized how little I knew about him.”
“Oh…god,” I breathed. Shit. His grandfather should have hid that stuff from mundanes. Unless he wanted Graham to find it, and he had missed the clues. “What did you do to ‘clean up’?”
“Most of it sold at the estate auction. A couple of things I buried with his ashes.”
I must have looked ashen myself.
The waitress nudged in just then, putting a big freckled hand on the table between us. “You ready to order yet? Questions?”
“Um…the…cheeseburger,” I said. “And fries.”
“The grilled salmon,” Graham said. “With broccoli.”
We gave each other the tiniest look of disdain. What kind of a man orders salmon and broccoli at a greasy spoon? He seemed to be thinking I wasn’t careful with my money or my body. So, this was a bad date. Whatever. After tonight, I’d get to work on my money pit and he would go home with my hundred thousand dollars.
“Something very strange is going on,” he said. “The last thing I need is a scandal my opponent can make use of.”
“Your…opponent?”
“I’m running for the House,” he said.
“What house?”
“Congress?” he said, lifting an eyebrow. “What other house are you thinking?”
Erm. Not like ‘the House of Habsburg’ or anything. You couldn’t run to be royalty, and I should know. “You’re a politician,” I said. This kept getting worse.
I had politicians in my family. We were descended from actual royalty—the magical branch of the Austrian Habsburgs. I had current and former witch and warlock high council members on both sides of my family, as well as plenty of regional councils.
And it was just one more reason I didn’t want anything to do with my family.
“Yes, I’m currently a state representative but now I’m running for congress.”
I hoped he didn’t find out that I wasn’t entirely sure what all of this even meant. The magical world usually didn’t pay attention to human politics. We didn’t vote. Some magical folk didn’t even get into the system, didn’t have social security numbers or driver’s licenses. We had our own magical councils to set our rules, and the human world seemed like a whole other deal with no bearing on our lives. If we did vote, it was mostly based on environmental issues only—nothing else affected us. We had our own healers, our own jobs, our own support systems, our own laws.
I think he expected me to be impressed.
“Oh…yeah, wow,” I said.
“Not political?” he said. “It’s okay. I’d rather that than get into an argument about something or other.”
He had the gleam of ambition in his eyes, I thought. Some magical folk went into politics. It gave them power. Any job that led to people looking up to you with admiration and awe fed into magical power.
“What led you to politics?” I asked.
“I like helping people,” he said, his eyes meeting mine with a ruthless gleam that told the whole story.
“Uh-huh.” This man is the grandson of a warlock and he’s giving himself magical power and he doesn’t even know it…does he? “I expect you’ll have no trouble with the women’s vote,” I said, more sarcastically than flirtatiously.
“I hope I earn it fair and square,” he said.
The waitress brought our food and I took a huge bite of my burger. I had barely scarfed down an Egg McMuffin on the way to the auction and I was starving. Grease dribbled down my chin while Graham cut a piece of broccoli in half with a knife. He was one of those very clean, exacting types of men but I could just tell he would be deliciously demanding in the bedroom.
I tried not to think about that, however. This wasn’t even a good date. The last thing I wanted to think about was what he might demand and how I would respond. Even though guys like this reminded me of my family and I didn’t really want to date them, there was a part of me that relished making them lose control. I would bet he usually dated office girls in heels who never lifted more than a cell phone. I spent a lot of time with a sledgehammer. I had strong arms. I was flexible, too. I’d teach him a few things.
Okay, you can pack in the desperate overconfidence, Helena. You haven’t even had sex in
