Praise for the novels of

MAGGIE

SHAYNE

“Shayne crafts a convincing world, tweaking vampire legends just enough to draw fresh blood.”

—Publishers Weekly on Demon’s Kiss

“This story will have readers on the edge of their seats and begging for more.”

—RT Book Reviews on Twilight Fulfilled

“A tasty, tension-packed read”

—Publishers Weekly on Thicker than Water

“Tense… frightening… a page-turner in the best sense”

—RT Book Reviews on Colder than Ice

“Mystery and danger abound in Darker than Midnight, a fast-paced, chilling thrill read that will keep readers turning the pages long after bedtime… Suspense, mystery, danger and passion—no one does them better than Maggie Shayne.”

—Romance Reviews Today on Darker than Midnight [winner of a Perfect 10 award]

“Maggie Shayne is better than chocolate. She satisfies every wicked craving.”

—New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Forster

“Shayne’s haunting tale is intricately woven… A moving mix of high suspense and romance, this haunting Halloween thriller will propel readers to bolt their doors at night.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Gingerbread Man

“[A] gripping story of small-town secrets. The suspense will keep you guessing. The characters will steal your heart.”

—New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner on The Gingerbread Man

Kiss of the Shadow Man is a “crackerjack novel of romantic suspense”.

—RT Book Reviews

Also by Maggie Shayne

The Portal

MARK OF THE WITCH

Secrets of Shadow Falls

KISS ME, KILL ME

KILL ME AGAIN

KILLING ME SOFTLY

BLOODLINE

ANGEL’S PAIN

LOVER’S BITE

DEMON’S KISS

Wings in the Night

BLUE TWILIGHT

BEFORE BLUE TWILIGHT

EDGE OF TWILIGHT

RUN FROM TWILIGHT

EMBRACE THE TWILIGHT

TWILIGHT HUNGER

TWILIGHT VOWS

BORN IN TWILIGHT

BEYOND TWILIGHT

TWILIGHT ILLUSIONS

TWILIGHT MEMORIES

TWILIGHT PHANTASIES

DARKER THAN MIDNIGHT

COLDER THAN ICE

THICKER THAN WATER

Look for Maggie Shayne’s next novel

BLOOD OF THE SORCERESS

available April 2013

Daughter of the
Spellcaster
Maggie Shayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Michele, Gayle, Chris, Laurie, Ginny and Theresa. Whoever said that writing is a solitary profession never attended one of our loud, laughter-filled, munchy-fest plotting sessions! What fun would this stuff be if we had to do it alone?

Love you all!

Prologue

In her tiny hand she held the vial of mugwort over her steaming cauldron and carefully let three drops escape. No more, no less. Then she looked up at her mom and smiled.

Mamma nodded her approval but didn’t let little Magdalena bask in it for very long. “Now the eyebright. Just a pinch.”

Lena set the vial aside and picked up the old brown crockery jar with the dried herb inside. She plucked out a pinch and dropped it into the squat iron pot.

A little more, said Lilia. You have tiny fingers, after all.

She didn’t say it out loud, of course. She spoke from inside Lena’s head. Though her mom called Lilia an imaginary friend, to Lena she was a big sister and very real, even though no one—except Lena herself—could see her. No one else ever had. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t real.

Lena grabbed another pinch and popped it into the bubbling brew, eliciting a satisfying hiss from the pot.

Mamma frowned at her. “How did you know to add a little more?”

“Lilia told me to,” Lena explained.

“Ahh. All right, then.”

Mamma didn’t mean it, though. She didn’t believe in Lilia. Magic, yes. Witchcraft, most certainly. But not Lilia. Grown-ups could be so odd sometimes.

Aside from that, her mom was the best grown-up Lena knew. She was beautiful, first off. The prettiest mom in the whole town. And she didn’t wear jeans like the other moms. She wore flowing dresses—she called them captains. No, wait. Kaftans—in bright oranges and yellows and reds, and sometimes deep blues and greens. And big glittery jewelry that she made herself. And she knew all about magic. So much that other witches were always asking her about stuff.

And she loved Lena more than the whole wide world. And Lena loved her back. So with all of that, it wasn’t so bad that she didn’t believe in Lilia. And anyway, she never came right out and said it. Just said she was “keeping an open mind,” whatever that meant.

Lena took the wooden spoon and gave her mixture a stir, leaning over to sniff the steam. She had insisted on a drop of dragon’s blood—not from a real dragon, of course—as she did in almost all her potions. She loved the smell, and it always felt like a kick of extra power to her.

Her mom, who’d been a witch since she’d been in college, which was a long time ago, had taught Lena to trust her instincts.

They let the cauldron simmer for exactly thirteen minutes, then Lena blew out the candle that was heating it from underneath its three long legs and let things cool for thirteen more. Then she dipped a soft cotton ball into the concoction and used it to wash Mamma’s magic mirror.

It was Samhain, the perfect time for divination, and her mom wanted to teach her how to scry. Lilia had said it would be easy and promised to help.

Once the black mirror was all gleaming and wet with the potion, Mamma placed it in a stand, the kind you would use to display a special plate, and turned Lena’s chair so that she could look directly into it.

“Now you probably think you’re supposed to look at the mirror. But you’re not, really,” Mamma said. “Just let your eyes go sort of sleepy. Let them be aimed at the mirror but not really looking at it. It takes time and practice, Lena, but eventually you’ll—”

“Something’s happening!”

Mamma blinked at her in that way she had. Lena didn’t see her do it, but she knew. “What’s happening, Lena?”

“It’s all… foggy.”

“Good. Just relax and see if the fog starts to clear.”

“Oh, look!” Lena pointed at the images that were playing out in the mirror as clearly as a movie on TV.

“I can’t see what you’re seeing, Lena. Tell me about it as it unfolds.”

She thought she heard a little bit of doubt in her mom’s voice. Sometimes, Lena knew, her mom thought she was making things up, or at least stretching them out with what she called her turbo-charged imagination. But she was seeing that stuff in that mirror. Not in her imagination. But for real.

Go on, tell her what you see, Lilia whispered.

“There are three girls, all dressed up like Jasmine from Aladdin. Hey, I think one of them is Lilia. It is! It’s Lilia!”

“Your imaginary friend?” Mamma asked.

“Yes! Oh, my goodness, that one is me. Only… way different. I’m all grown up in there. And my hair isn’t red like now. It’s black.” Lena giggled. “I’ve got boobies.”

“What am I ever going to do with you, witchling?” Lena could hear the smile in her mom’s voice, but she couldn’t look to see it for herself. She just couldn’t take her eyes off of the images in the mirror.

“It’s getting dark, and I’m sneaking out. Gosh, look where I live. It’s like on that show, I Dreamed about Jennie?”

“I Dream of Jeannie.”

“Yeah. You know, how it looks inside Jeannie’s bottle? It’s like that.”

“Makes sense. You said you looked like Jasmine.”

“Oh, and there’s a boy. A man, I mean. A prince! A handsome prince. Just like in one of my books.” She frowned, then blinked hard. “Oh, no.”

“What, baby?”

“I’m crying. He’s going away. But he says he’s coming back for me soon, and that we’ll live happily ever after. Oh, and he’s kissing me like in a grown-up movie!”

“I think that might be enough for now, Lena.”

One more thing, Lilia whispered.

“Wait, Mom. There’s one more thing.” Lena blinked and relaxed back in her chair, because the fog had returned. It cleared again, though, and she leaned forward and stared eagerly, but then she sighed. “It’s just a cup. It’s just a stupid cup. Not a story. Just a cup.”

“What does it look like?” Mamma asked.

“Fancy. Silver, with jewels all over it.”

“Sounds like a chalice.”

“As the chalice is to Alice,” Lena chirped. It was a secret joke just between the two of them. See, there was this thing in witchcraft called the Great Rite. In it, a witch lowered her athame—that was a fancy knife—into a chalice. She was supposed to say “As the rod is to the God, so the chalice is to the Goddess.” It never made much sense to Lena, though her mom said it would when she got older. It was supposed to be a powerful rite, one of the most powerful in the Craft, and it was done right at the beginning of every ritual.

Lena had once commented that “As the rod is to the God” rhymed, so the second line should, too. And then she changed it to “So the chalice is to Alice.”

Some witches got really mad over that, so she wasn’t allowed to say it in front of them anymore. Mom said some witches just had no sense of humor at all, but that she thought the Goddess would find it funny as hell.

That was just the way she said it, too. “Funny as hell.”

“Lena,” Mamma prompted.

Lena was still staring at the cup in the mirror. “It kinda feels like I’ve seen it before, Mom, but I don’t know where.”

Then the fog returned, and in a second the mirror was just a black mirror again. She sighed and lifted her gaze to her mom. “Did I do all right?”

Mamma looked a little worried. “You did great, honey. I’m very surprised. Most people try for weeks and weeks before they can see anything in the mirror. And then it’s usually shapes in the mist, maybe an image or two, but not a major motion picture.”

“It’s ‘cause I’m so young,” Lena explained to her. “Grown-ups have spent too much time forgetting how to believe in magic. I haven’t forgotten yet. That’s what Lilia told me.” She frowned and lowered her eyes, a sad feeling kind of squeezing her heart. “My prince never came back, though. At least, I don’t think so.”

He will, darling. He’ll come back to you, just at the right time. And so will the chalice. You’ll see. And the curse will be broken, and everything will be right again.

“What curse?” Lena asked Lilia very softly.

But Lilia only smiled softly before disappearing.

1

Twenty years later

Magdalena Dunkirk waddled to the front door of her blissful, peaceful home outside Ithaca, New York, with one hand atop her watermelon-sized belly. “I’m coming!” she called. It took her longer to get around these days, and her mother was out running a few errands.

They didn’t get a lot of company. They’d only been living at the abandoned vineyard known as Havenwood, on the southern tip of Cayuga Lake, for a little over six months, and aside from their nearest neighbor, Patrick Cartwright, a kind curmudgeon who was also a retired doctor, and the two middle-aged, strictly in-the-broom-closet witches her mom hung out with, they barely knew anyone. Then again, she and her mother tended to keep to themselves. Lena liked it that way.

She got to the big oak door and opened it to see the last person she would have expected. Okay, the second-to-last person. Waist-length dreadlocks—both hair and beard—a red-and-white sari, and sad brown eyes staring into hers. She met them for only a moment, then looked past the guru for his ever-present companion. But Bahru was alone. Only a black car stood beyond him in the curving, snow-covered drive. “Where’s Ernst?” she asked.

“Your baby’s grandfather has gone beyond the veil, Magdalena.”

Ernst? Dead? It didn’t seem possible. Lena closed her eyes, lowered her head. “How?”

“He died in his sleep last night. I wanted to tell you before you heard it on the news.”

Blinking back tears, she opened the door wider. A wintry breeze blew in, causing the conch shell chimes to clatter and clack. “Come in, Bahru.”

He shook his head slowly. “No time. It’s a long drive back.”

She blinked at him. He was eccentric, yes. Obviously. But… “You drove all the way out here just to tell me Ryan’s father is dead, and now you’re going to turn around and drive all the way back? You could have told me with a phone call, Bahru.”

“Yes. But…” He shrugged a bag from his shoulder. It was olive drab, made of canvas, with a buckle and a flap, which he unfastened and opened. “He wanted you to have this,” he said.

Lena watched, wishing he would come inside and let her shut the door but not wanting to be rude and tell him so. So she stood there, holding it open and letting the heat out into the late January cold, and watching as he pulled an elaborately carved wooden box from the bag.

It caught her eye, because it looked old. And sort of… mystical. It was smaller than a shoe box, heavy and hinged, with a small latch on the front. As she took it from him, he went on. “Of course there will be more. I came to tell you that, too. You must come back to New York City, Lena. You and the child are named in his will.”

She looked up from the box sharply and shook her head. “That’s sweet of him, but I don’t want his money. I never did. I won’t—I can’t take it, you know that, Bahru. It would just convince Ryan that everything he ever thought about me was true.” She clutched the box in her hands, her heart tripping over itself. Maybe because she’d said Ryan’s name twice in the past two minutes after not uttering it once in more than six months. “How is he taking his dad’s death?”

“As if he doesn’t care.”

“He cares. I know he does. He’s angry with his father, has been since his mother died, but he loves him.” God, it was a crying shame he’d never gotten around to telling his father so. She wondered what would happen to the businesses, the empire Ernst had built, since his only son wanted no part of any of it.

Bahru said nothing for a long moment. He just stood there, fingering a crystal prism that hung from a chain around his neck. Lena noticed it because she was into crystals—so was her mom—and because Bahru always wore exactly the same things. Same robes, just with an extra white wrap over top in colder months. Same shoes, the faux leather moccasin-style slippers in winter and the sandals Mom called “Jesus shoes” in the summer. Same green canvas bag over his shoulder everywhere he went. The crystal pendant was new. Different. She’d never seen him wear jewelry before.

“Will you come?” he asked at length.

Lena pushed a long auburn spiral behind her ear. “Ryan still doesn’t know about… about the baby, does he?” she asked, looking down at her belly, which made the tie-dyed hemp maternity dress Mom had made for her look like a dome tent lying on its side. She wore a fringed shawl over it, because the dress was sleeveless and the old house was drafty. And haunted, but you know, being witches, they considered that a plus.

Bahru smiled very slightly. “He does not know. He still has no idea why you left. But he will guess when he sees you. You knew you would have to face that eventually, though.”

She nodded. She didn’t believe in lying and had no intention of keeping Ryan out of their child’s life. She just kept putting off telling him, feeling unready to face him with the truth when she knew what he would think. And now… Well, now it looked as if she had no choice.

“I really wish I’d told him sooner. He doesn’t need this to deal with on top of everything else.”

“Perhaps the distraction will be welcome.”

She lifted her brows. “Well, it’ll distract him, all right. But it’ll be welcome news about the same time pigs fly.”

Bahru frowned.

She didn’t bother explaining. In all the years he’d spent in the States since leaving his native Pakistan, there were still a lot of American expressions that perplexed him.

“Will you come?” he asked again.

Lena knew she had to go. Ernst McNally was her child’s grandfather, after all. “Of course I’ll come. When is the funeral?”

“Tomorrow at one. St. Patrick’s Cathedral, of course.”

“Of course.” Nothing but the best for one of the richest men in the world.

“Good.” He patted the box she was still holding. “Take good care of this. We found it in a Tibetan street vendor’s stand amid piles of worthless trinkets. Ernst believed it was special. He said it had your name written all over it, but I never knew what he meant by that.” He blinked slowly. “He would never let me touch it, never let anyone touch it. Said it was for your hands alone. Very strange. But I’ve respected his wishes and never touched it until it was time to bring it to you.”

“Thank you, Bahru.” She was curious, but too distracted by the thought of seeing Ryan again to open the box just then. “Are you sure you won’t come in? Mom’s out, but I could make some tea—”

“No. But I will see you soon, and perhaps… perhaps more. After.”

It was her turn to frown. What did he mean by that?

Turning, he walked in his fake leather moccasins through the half inch of fresh snow—there had been so little that year that winter had felt more like late fall—to the waiting car. It was a black Lincoln with a driver behind the wheel, cap and all. Probably one of Ernst’s. The billionaire-turned-spiritual-seeker had dozens of them, and whatever he had was at his personal guru’s disposal.

Ryan wasn’t likely to let that continue. He’d always thought the former guru-to-the-stars was a con artist, out to scam his father at his weakest moment, right after the untimely death of Ryan’s mother twenty years ago. But Bahru had been at Ernst’s side ever since, guiding him in a quest for understanding that had taken him to the far corners of the world. His businesses had been left in the hands of their boards of directors. And his son in the hands of boarding schools and nannies.

She wondered if Ernst had ever found what he’d been looking for, then decided he probably had now. Bahru eased his long limbs into the backseat, pulling the tail of the sari in behind him and closing the door. The car rolled away through the snow, and Lena stepped back and closed out the cold at last.

She was going back to Manhattan. She was going to see him again. Ryan McNally. The father of her unborn baby. The man she had once believed to be the handsome prince of her childhood fantasies come to life. Carrying the wooden box with her, she all but sleep-walked to the rattan rocking chair in front of the stacked stone fireplace that was one of her favorite parts of the house, even though it was old and had gaps where the mortar had fallen away. It was comforting, and she loved it. She sank into the chair and started rocking, memories flooding her mind.

She remembered the day she had first set eyes on her long-lost prince—other than in the face of her mother’s magic mirror, and her childhood dreams, and the stories she had created out of them in construction paper and crayons. She’d taken one look at him and the impossible visions of her childhood had all come rushing back.

She had been completely at peace, loved her life, her job at a PR firm in New York City, where she made scads of money, and her pricey Manhattan apartment. Her practice of the Craft had matured. As she’d grown up, she had come to understand that magic was more about creative visualization and positive belief than flashes of light and sparkles. Her imaginary sister-friend Lilia had stopped showing up somewhere around the middle of fourth grade, as near as she could pin it.

It was all good. Or she thought it was. And yeah, she’d probably been skating, pretending there was nothing underneath the ice but more ice, ignoring the stuff she’d pushed down there, the stuff she’d frozen out. The undeniable experience of real magic. Those visions of past lives that had been so vivid and convincing at the time. Lilia, the chalice… the curse. A little girl with a witch for a mom and a huge imagination, that was all it was.

Only it wasn’t.

She’d managed to deny every last bit of it until the night she met Ryan McNally. Her handsome prince, right down to the roots of his hair.

She’d been handed his father’s account—temporarily, of course, while Bennet, Clarkson & Tate’s senior partner, Bill Bennet, was recovering from a triple bypass. Timing was everything. Ernst McNally, billionaire, philanthropist, world traveler and spiritual seeker, had been named Now Magazine’s Man of the Year and would receive the honor officially at a posh reception at the Waldorf Astoria. The other partners were booked, and Ernst was an important client. Lena was tapped to be the firm’s stand-in, and she didn’t kid herself by pretending it wasn’t because, of all the younger associates, she would look best in a halter dress. It went against her grain, but she wasn’t confrontational and she wasn’t an activist. She figured she would use the opportunity to show them she was worthy by doing a bang-up job. Instead, she had pretty much proved the opposite by getting pregnant by the client’s son, but that was getting ahead of the story a little.

That night changed her life forever. It was not only the night she had met the father of her baby, it was the night her imaginary childhood friend had returned as big as life and nearly given her heart failure. The night… she had learned that there might be a little bit more to magic than she had come to believe.

Either that, or that a high-pressure job in the big city was a little more stressful than she was equipped to handle.

“Lena?”

She had no idea how long she’d been sitting in front of the crackling fireplace, staring into the flames. But when she heard her mom’s voice, she brought her head up fast. Selma was standing there looking down at her, frowning. Her glorious red hair was shorter these days, and a few strands of gray dulled its old vibrancy a little. She still wore the big gaudy jewelry and jewel-toned, free-flowing kaftans, though.

Captains, Lena thought, smiling at her inner witchling.

“Are you okay?” her mother asked.

“I… Ernst McNally is dead.”

Her mother’s hand flew to her chest. “Oh, honey—I’m so sorry, I know you cared for him. How did you hear? Did someone call?”

“Bahru came by.”

“Bahru?” Selma blinked her surprise, turning back toward the big oak door she’d just come through. “He was here?”

“Yeah. Showed up in a big Lincoln with one of Ernst’s drivers at the wheel. I tried to get him to stay, but he was in a rush to leave.”

“I wish I’d seen him,” her mother said.

Lena sighed, recalling how much her mother and Bahru had seemed to enjoy bickering over tea recipes. Mom was a top-notch herbal-tea maker. Bahru was no slouch. But that was before…

“He says I’m named in the will, or the baby is, or something. Anyway. The funeral’s tomorrow. He made me promise that I’d be there.”

Selma’s still-auburn eyebrows pressed against each other. “Do you think that’s wise, honey? To travel that far, this late in the pregnancy?”

“It’s only a few hours’ drive. I can handle that.”

“It’s not just the drive I’m worried about. He’ll be there. Can you handle that?”

She meant Ryan. Of course. “I’m sure I can. I knew this day would come, Mom. I have to face him sooner or later. He has a right to know.”

“You could tell him later. After the baby’s here.”

“Keeping it from him this long was wrong. And you know it. And I know you know it, because you’re the one who raised me never to lie.”

“You didn’t lie to him.”

“And you’re also the one who taught me that omissions of this magnitude are the same things as lies.”

Selma pressed her lips together. “Damn thorough, wasn’t I?” She ran a hand over Lena’s hair. “You sure you can handle him?”

“I’m sure.” So why did she feel compelled to avert her eyes when she said it? Lena wondered.

“Okay, if that’s what you want to do. You want me to go with?”

“Mom, I’m not six.”

Selma smiled and nodded, her spiral curls—even tighter than Lena’s longer, looser waves—bouncing with the motion. “What’s that you have there?” she asked, nodding at the box in Lena’s lap.

“I don’t know. Bahru said Ernst wanted me to have it.” Lena stroked the box. “I got lost in thought and forgot about it.”

“Memories?”

Lena nodded and tried to ignore the hot moisture in her eyes.

“You really loved him a lot. It hurts. I know, honey.”

She wasn’t talking about Ernst, but that didn’t need to be said. They both knew what she meant. Flipping open the tiny latch, Lena lifted the lid as her mother leaned over her from behind.

An old, very tarnished chalice lay inside the box, nestled in a red-velvet-lined mold that fit its shape perfectly. Frowning, she lifted it out, held it up, turning it slowly so she could see the dull stones embedded around the outer rim.

“I think that’s silver,” her mother said. She hustled to the kitchen, and returned with a bottle of tarnish remover and a soft cloth. Then she took the chalice and went to work. Leaning forward in her chair, Lena watched the tarnish being rubbed away, the heavy silver gleaming through. Her mother sat down in the matching rocker on the other side of the fireplace, rubbing and scrubbing and polishing. “It’s real silver, all right. Heavy. It must be worth a small fortune. Where on earth did he get this?”

“A street vendor in Tibet. Bahru said the stand was mostly junk, with this just mixed in with all the rest. He said Ernst took one look at it and knew it was meant for me.”

Her mother sighed. “Never knew a rich guy as decent as that one.” And then she paused and held the chalice up. The firelight made it gleam and wink in what Lena now saw were semiprecious gemstones: amethyst, topaz, citrine, quartz, peridot, three others that she thought might be a ruby, an emerald and a blue sapphire.

“It’s old,” her mother said. “And if these stones are as real as this silver is, and I think they are—I know my rocks—”

“I know you do.” Most of the jewelry her mother wore, she had made herself.

“Lena, this cup could be worth thousands. Maybe tens of thousands.”

“It’s worth a lot more than that,” Lena said very softly.

Her mother frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

“Remember when I was little, Mom? My first attempt at scrying? The vision I had?”

“The one where you saw your handsome prince. The one you later thought looked just like Ryan.”

“Didn’t look like him. Was him.” She reached for the cup, and her mother handed it to her. “And do you remember the cup I saw in that vision? The one I described to you?”

Selma seemed to search her daughter’s eyes. “Lena, you don’t think—wait. Just wait here, I’ll be right back.” She was out of her chair and up the stairs, heading, Lena had no doubt, to their temple room on the second floor, where they kept their altar and all their witch things. Herbs, oils, books. It was their own sacred space. The house’s chapel, so to speak. Lena studied the cup while she was gone, wondering what on earth all this could mean.

Her mother returned, a Book of Shadows in her hand. An old one. Goddess knew they had filled many over the years, Selma more than Lena, of course. She was flipping pages as she walked. “I remember, I had you draw what you’d seen. You were only eight, but—here. Here it is.” She came to a standstill in front of Lena’s rocker, blinking down at the page, and when she looked up again there was no more doubt in her eyes. Just astonishment.

Turning the book toward Lena, Selma showed her what her eight-year-old hands had drawn in crayon. The shape was the same, the color—well, she’d used the crayon marked “silver,” though what resulted was a pale shade of gray. But most interesting were the gemstones, because they were each a different color and a different shape.

And they matched the ones on the cup.

“They’re even in the same order, at least the ones that show,” her mother whispered, staring at her as if she’d never seen her before. “My Goddess, Lena, it wasn’t your imagination. It was a true vision you received that day.”

“Looks like,” Lena said. “The question now is—what the heck does it all mean?”

“I don’t know.” Selma moved closer, hugging her. “I don’t know, baby. But we’ll figure it out.”

That’s what I’m afraid of, Lena thought.

Ryan McNally sat in the front pew, and felt small and insignificant inside the magnificent cathedral. But it was fitting that his father be memorialized here. He’d been bigger than life, too. Until his wife’s death had brought him to his knees.

When his mother died, Ryan thought, the best part of his father had died with her. He’d loved her so much that losing her had all but demolished him. Ryan had been eleven, and even then he’d known he would never let that happen to him.

He was seated near several of his father’s closest friends—old men, all of them—and Bahru, who had added a black sash to his red robes today, and who looked as if he’d been crying. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, his cheeks even more hollow than usual.

Seeing the old guru like that almost made Ryan rethink his twenty-year belief that the man was nothing but a con. But only until he reminded himself that Bahru had spent a lot of time around actors, prior to latching on to a broken and grieving widower. He’d probably learned a few tricks of the trade, like tears on demand.

Ryan had to give the eulogy. He’d spent a lot of time on it, yet when the priest nodded at him to come up, he found his knees were locked and he couldn’t quite force himself to move.

Bahru put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said. “I promise you, it’s all right.”

He didn’t like or trust the man, even resented him—and yeah, that was mostly because Bahru had been closer to his father than Ryan had been himself. Not Bahru’s fault, though. “Of course it is.”

“Would it help to focus your mind elsewhere?”

“Not much could accomplish that today, Bahru.”

Bahru met his eyes. “Magdalena is here.”

He could have sucker punched him in the gut, Ryan thought, and it wouldn’t have distracted him more. Lena had come. He hadn’t thought she would. He’d figured she would send flowers, maybe call, but he hadn’t expected her to come.

He rose easily, moving up to the front, taking his place at the podium and scanning the magnificent cathedral from a brand new angle. The stained glass, the architecture, the statues—the place was more beautiful than a museum, and it touched him. Beautiful things always did, especially art and architecture.

The sacred place was filled to capacity. No press—they’d been asked to remain outside, where the hearse was waiting and the black stretch limos were lined up around the block.

That thought drew his gaze to the fabric-draped coffin that held his father’s remains. And suddenly his throat closed up so tightly that he didn’t think he would be able to force a word through. His father was inside that box. His father. Lifeless. So hard to believe. He was suddenly awash in regret that his old man’s time had run out. He supposed he had always expected they would make things right between the two of them again before it came to this. And now… now he was just gone. Hell.

Someone cleared their throat, and he lifted his head and looked out over the somber crowd, taking in the men in their black suits, the black dresses and even hats on the older women. White tissues flashed like flags here and there. Sniffles and clearing throats echoed from one direction and then another. People he knew, people he didn’t want to know. A few genuine tears, more phony ones. But even with all of that, his eyes found hers without trying. He looked up and right into them. They were wet, and her tears were genuine. She was genuine. Had been all along, but he’d ruined it. Somehow. She was in a pew toward the back, probably hoping to make a quick exit without running into him. But she was staring right at him, and he got lost in her eyes for a second as their gazes locked. He felt her sympathy, her caring, and wondered yet again why the hell she’d left him. Certainly not because he hadn’t been ready to offer her forever after only six weeks. She wasn’t that unreasonable. She wasn’t unreasonable at all.

Or hadn’t been—until that day.

She gave him a sad half smile and a “go ahead, you can do this” nod. He realized that he could, and began. He read his speech with very little emotion, talked about his father’s generous contributions to various causes over the years, the people he’d helped, the jobs he’d created. And then he stopped and shook his head, looked up from his notes and blinked back the first tears he’d shed since he’d heard the news.

“You know, I’ve always believed that most of my father died twenty years ago when his beloved wife, my beautiful mother, was taken from us by a drunk driver. He gave up everything after that. His businesses, his friends… his son. I don’t blame him. Her death destroyed him. And ever since she left us, my father has been on a spiritual quest, traveling the world with Bahru by his side, trying to find the answer to one question. Why?”

He closed his eyes momentarily to compose himself, then nodded and went on. “I’m not a religious man. But I don’t think it ends like this. I would like to think my father is finally getting the answer to that question. And I don’t think we should be sad about that. Because I want to believe he’s getting it straight from my mother.”

He looked at the coffin, pressing his lips together hard to try to stop their trembling. “Yeah. That’s what I want to believe.”

He stepped down as numerous heads nodded in agreement. And then he sat again, and just tried to block it all out and hold himself together. He felt an emotional storm brewing, and he damn well didn’t intend to let it break out in public.

So he thought about Lena instead. She wouldn’t really leave without seeing him. Would she? What was he going to say to her when he saw her again? After all this time, would she finally tell him why she’d left? It had been—almost seven months now.

Seven months without a word. She owed him an explanation.

He couldn’t imagine what it would be, though he’d tried a thousand times. He’d seen it all play out in his mind, had invented lines for her, none of which had ever made any sense. He couldn’t think of a thing that would explain her walking away when they’d been so damn good together. But right now there were a lot of speakers waiting to say a few words about Ernst McNally, most of them hoping to find the ones that would ingratiate themselves with his heir. He had time to kill, and listening to all that insincerity would only make him angry, and he didn’t want to be angry when he saw her again. So instead he forced himself to relax in the pew and thought back to the night he’d first set eyes on her.

“Who is that?” Ryan asked softly, staring past the beautifully dressed elite filling the Waldorf Astoria ballroom, all of them there to honor his father as Now Magazine’s Man of the Year, to the woman who stood chatting with his dad and Bahru. Even among the wealthy, his father stood out. He had a charisma that lifted him head and shoulders above the others. His steel-gray hair was still thick and wavy, his beard just long enough to qualify as “dignified-eccentric” without crossing the border into “aging hippie.” And Bahru was always easy to spot, with his endless graying dreads, leathery skin and his red-and-white robes.

But she was different. She stood out for an entirely different set of reasons, some of which, he sensed, went beyond her appearance. She was beautiful, yes. Piles of dark red hair spiraling and twisting like satin ribbons. A perfect porcelain face. But there were plenty of beautiful women in the room that night. Actresses, models, women who made their living by their beauty. He’d banged many of them.

But this one… this one called to him somehow. Once he spotted her, he couldn’t look anywhere else. “God, what is she doing with the old man?”

Paul, his best and pretty much only real friend, lifted his brows. “You’re asking me as if I’d know. I’m the outsider here, remember? I’m still not sure why you dragged me to this shindig, pal.”

“No, I’m the outsider. And I dragged you here because I had to come, and I didn’t want to do it alone. Remember, though, not a word about our potential venture to anyone.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t have a thing to say to any of these silver spoons types.” Paul blinked. “No offense.”

“None taken.” Paul was a family court lawyer, an entrepreneur, a freaking genius, and had taken to the streets with the 99% protestors a while back. He didn’t care much for the filthy rich. He probably would have lumped Ryan in with the rest if they hadn’t become best friends in college, before Paul had known who Ryan’s father was.

Not that it had mattered. His dad had been long gone at that point. Physically and in every other way.

Ryan nodded in the direction of the woman, just as she laughed, revealing a wide, sexy mouth, perfect teeth. He wondered if it was a real laugh, or if she was faking it for his dad’s benefit. She wore her mounds of fox-red hair in a way that looked careless and pretended to be coming loose but wasn’t really. Her dress was a long black number that hugged her curves like a lover, with a plunging neckline that revealed cleavage to make his mouth water. He couldn’t take his eyes off the swell of her breasts until she turned just so and the slit in the dress parted to reveal a long, long leg and a thigh he wanted to trace with his tongue.

Damn.

“You’re like something out of a monster flick,” Paul muttered. “Perfectly nice guy transforms into a wolf right before my eyes.”

Ryan shrugged. “Call it a hobby.”

“I call it a lie, but you do what you want. I’m out of here. We still on for that meeting tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Ryan jerked his eyes away from the woman and returned them to his friend. He hadn’t been looking for a friend back when they’d met, but Paul was one of those guys you couldn’t help but like. Salt of the earth, as honest as the day was long, just a purely decent human being. So few of those around these days. And he decided not to make him suffer another minute. “Paul, the meeting’s a formality. I’ve already decided. I’m going to fund the project. I think it’s amazing technology, and there’s no one I’d rather partner with.”

Paul just stood there blinking at him. He ran a hand over his bristly chin and blinked. Ryan thought there were tears forming in his eyes behind those Steve Jobs glasses he insisted on wearing.

“Just remember, not a word to anyone, okay? I’m a silent partner. Though I hope you won’t mind if I come around to watch your team in action. I’m as excited about affordable solar energy for everyday Joes as you are.”

“I don’t understand you,” Paul said softly. “I mean, yes, of course I agree to all of that, and thank you. Thank you a million times over.” He cleared his throat, looked down into the glass he held in one hand and had yet to sip from. “But why do you want to be so secretive about it? I mean, come on, Ryan. Wouldn’t it help your image to be known for funding a project to put solar energy within the reach of every American household?”

Ryan smiled. “Help it? It would destroy it.”

Paul blinked. “But—your image is that you’re a spoiled, self-centered, overly indulged, lazy playboy.”

“Exactly. And now, if you don’t mind, I’m about to go play that role to the hilt. See you tomorrow.”

Frowning and shaking his head in bewilderment, Paul muttered good-night, then turned and headed for the hallway and the curving red-carpeted staircase beyond.

Ryan watched him until he was out of sight, just to be sure he didn’t get waylaid by anyone demanding to know who he was and what he did. If his father found out, he would want in. Because though he’d ostensibly walked away from everything, he still had that profit-seeking missile inside him, and he could smell money to be made even from a mountainside in Tibet. He would just order his “people” to handle it—buy Paul out, make him an offer even he couldn’t refuse, and then Paul would see his beautiful, world-saving, idealistic notions slowly taken over by profit-seeking bottom-liners who would turn them into something ugly but lucrative.

Besides, Ryan needed to be part of a few projects where he could be his own man, completely free of his father’s shadow.

Once Paul was in the clear, Ryan made his way through the throng, pausing to return the greetings of all those in attendance, most of whom disapproved of him and made no secret about it, not that he cared, to his father, who stood out even in this crowd of standout individuals.

Ryan had inherited his height from Ernst, who was broad-shouldered and narrow in the hip. In a tux, the man could stop traffic and impose palpitations on female hearts of any age, race or, Ryan suspected, sexual orientation.

But he didn’t care. As far as he knew, Ernst hadn’t been with a woman since his wife, Sarah. Since her death twenty-two years ago, when Ryan had been eleven, Ernst had never been seen, photographed or even rumored to be dallying with any other woman. He must either have gone celibate or been impeccably discreet. Ryan didn’t see him enough to know which, because, as far as he was concerned, Ernst had also lost his mind at that time. His love for Ryan’s mother had been—all-consuming. Too strong. In the end it had destroyed him.

You wouldn’t know it to look at him. He was still a billionaire, still one of the most striking, fascinating men in the world, but a part of him had died that day. The good part.

Beside Ernst, as always, was Bahru, his “spiritual advisor.” He always wore red-and-white robes, was bone-thin, and both his hair and his endless beard of thick, dark dreadlocks had puffs of white showing through here and there. His age was impossible to determine, but for the first time Ryan thought he was showing signs of aging.

Ryan nodded at Bahru, who gave him a pressed-palm “namaste” bow in return. Then he extended a hand toward his father. “Congratulations, Dad.”

“Thank you, Ryan.” His father took his hand in a firm shake and lifted his free arm as if to embrace him, but then sort of eased off and settled for a shoulder pat right at the end.

Awkward. But that was just how things were between them. His father had abandoned him, motherless and eleven, to go off with his guru. He’d put a gulf between them, and it had only widened since.

Then Ryan turned his attention to the actual reason he’d crossed the room to begin with. The gorgeous female. He didn’t look her in the eye but let his gaze stay lowered while he clasped her hand and brought it to his lips. “Ryan McNally,” he said, before he kissed the back of that hand.

Then he straightened and met her eyes.

She stared at him, her big green eyes getting even bigger. She looked at him almost as if she recognized him, but he was damn sure he’d never seen her before. That he would have remembered. “It’s you,” she whispered, and then she jerked her head to the left, as if someone standing next to her had said something.

But no one was standing there.

She tugged her suddenly cold, suddenly trembling hand free of his and said, “Um, I— Lena. Magdalena Dunkirk. I have to go.”

Turning, she hurried away, then stopped and looked over her shoulder. “I’m so sorry. It was lovely to meet you.”

Then she was gone, hurrying through the ballroom in heels that should have made speed impossible, while Ryan kept his eyes on her ass the entire way. The dress hugged it tight enough to show what a really nice ass it was.

“Was it something I said?” he asked, turning back to his father only after she was out the door.

“Maybe your reputation preceded you,” Ernst said. “But that’s just as well. She’s a nice girl. I wouldn’t want you breaking her heart.”

“I don’t really want anything to do with her heart,” Ryan said.

I should have known right then that she was trouble, he thought. Should have steered clear of her at all costs.

But how could he have known that she would be the one to break his heart? For the first and only time in his life.

She had run away after a nearly-two-month-long relationship that had been sheer fire because he hadn’t become serious about her fast enough for her liking. At least that was the explanation he’d constructed in his mind as he’d tried to figure out what had happened. He’d always gone out of his way to be very clear with every woman, right from the start, that he was not the getting serious type. He’d tried even harder to play the playboy for Lena’s benefit. The more she got under his skin, the harder he played the role. Apparently she’d realized she was making no progress and walked.

The ironic part was, she was the one woman he’d ever been with who might have had a shot at making him want to get serious. If she’d waited around, maybe…

But in the end, he knew it was for the best. He never wanted to find himself mired in grief the way his father was. To love someone so much that he fell apart when she left. Hell, he’d had a taste of it, the sleepless nights, the recriminations, the missing her, the getting sappy every time any TV show or radio song or meal reminded him of her. If it had been that bad after two months, he’d definitely been heading for trouble. Doing exactly what he’d sworn he would never do.

It was good that she’d left. Now he was back on track again, cool and free, and not caring. Playing the playboy. It was easier to maintain that image without her.

The crowd of people filling the pews of St. Pat’s were muttering, which was his signal to stop reliving the past and start paying attention again to his father’s funeral service. It didn’t matter anyway. She’d dumped him and run away. It was over. She had come here to pay her respects to his dad. It was the decent thing to do, and she’d always been decent.

The priest had finished, and the pallbearers were moving up to take their places beside the coffin. Bahru and Ryan were the lead pair, so he had to get in gear. Reaching the front, where the casket rested on a stand, he took hold of the brass handle. It was cold to the touch, and the coffin wasn’t as heavy as he would have expected it to be. Then again, there were six of them. The other four were all on his father’s board of directors.

Fine showing at the end of a life. An estranged son, a Hindi con man and a handful of business partners as pallbearers. That said a lot. Said it all, really.

He didn’t want to go out that way, he thought. Friendless and alone.

And then he wondered, as that thought flitted into his mind and he carried his father’s casket down the aisle toward the big doors, if he died right now, today, who would be carrying him to his waiting hearse? Paul, he guessed. And a handful of other men he’d helped in their businesses and who he supposed were friends. Sort of.

He really didn’t have any friends other than Paul.

Maybe he wasn’t as different from his old man as he liked to think he was.

As he passed by the pew in the back where Lena had been sitting, he looked for her, but she was gone, and a sigh of disappointment rushed out of him. Involuntary but unavoidable. Maybe she would be at the graveside service.

He hoped so.

2

Lena ran into Bill Bennet, her former boss, outside the cathedral under bright sunny skies. Manhattan winters were so different from winters anywhere else in New York State. No snow on the ground here, though sometimes there was, and it rarely lasted long. The temps ran ten degrees higher than they did outside the city, because heat radiated from the pavement and was held in by the buildings and the smog, and Lena had always thought still more was generated by all the bodies, all the machines, all the frenetic human energy. Today it was warm even for January in New York City, maybe forty degrees on the sidewalk outside the cathedral.

Bill was standing in one of those little huddles of humanity that always form outside funerals. People leaning close, all dressed in dark colors, speaking in low tones about what a shame it was and how the family was doing, and who else had died in recent memory. There was never a positive conversation at a funeral. It was all about death and dying and mourning and loss, insurance and health and diseases and accidents. It put her head right into the frame of mind to attract something she did not want.

Lena hated funerals.

But not as much as she hated seeing the stunned looks on people’s faces when they got their first glimpse of her midsection, which looked roughly like an over-inflated beach ball, minus the stripes.

Bill saw her face, started to smile underneath his gray-with-a-lingering-ginger mustache but then froze when his gaze found her belly. It was comical, in a way, or would have been if the belly had been attached to anyone besides her. His blue eyes went wide, and he walked right up to her, hugged her and said, “So that’s why you left.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Are you—I mean, is the father—”

“I’m doing this alone. That’s the way I want it, Bill.” She patted his back twice, the international signal for “this hug is about to cross the boundary from friendly to awkward,” and he let go and backed a step away.

“You look wonderful,” she said before he could continue on the topic of her pregnancy. “Better than before the heart attack, honestly. You’ve lost weight.”

“Thirty pounds.” There was pride in his voice. And then he was going on about his new diet, and having given up alcohol, cigarettes and mayonnaise.

She listened, because she was not only polite but truly interested in how her former boss was doing. But she still glanced back toward the ornate doors of St. Pat’s whenever she could manage it without being rude, and on the third such peek she spotted Ryan. He hadn’t seen her yet, and she scooted around to Bill’s other side so he wouldn’t. She just wasn’t ready to see his reaction to her baby bump. Not yet. Not there.

She guessed there would be no hiding it at the graveside, but she felt she had to go. And really, she couldn’t keep it from him forever. Had never intended to. Just… well, the more time she had let slide past, the easier it had become not to call. And now there she was, and there he was, and it was time. Past time.

“Do you mind if I ride with you to the cemetery?” she asked Bill, cutting him off in mid-cholesterol count.

“Well, of course not. We’re parked back here.” He put a hand at the small of her back and steered her further away from the cathedral, thank goodness, and around a corner. It was going to be a long ride to the cemetery, she thought, as he began listing off the others from the firm, and the spouses of same, who were riding in the stretch limo they’d hired for the occasion. The thing was huge, and there was definitely room for one more.

She eased herself into the vehicle, and spent the next forty-five minutes catching up with former co-workers and trying to describe her new life in a way that didn’t sound painfully boring to them. And it was boring, really. Utterly tranquil, filled with peaceful bliss. Lonely, of course, but she had her mom. And aside from that loneliness and the odd presence they referred to as their house ghost and who was, they’d decided, harmless, their lives were perfect. Besides, Lena figured the loneliness would be gone the minute the baby arrived, so…

Yes, she thought, it was a long ride to the cemetery.

But not long enough.

She stood behind a crowd of people, wearing a capestyle coat, and holding her purse, brown knit beret-style hat, matching scarf and leather gloves in front of her belly.

It was roughly like a bear trying to hide behind a dandelion, but trying was automatic. Ryan was up front, near the graveside, which was clearly a hole in the ground even though it was decorated in an effort to keep it from looking like one. The shiny brass frame that held the casket was draped in fabric. But nothing could hide the fact that it covered a rectangular pit in the dirt.

As the priest spoke, Lena caught Ryan looking for her, his probing eyes scanning the crowd as she tried to shrink into herself. Eventually he spotted her, as she had known he would. Their eyes met, and just like that her heart flipped in her chest. Was he really more beautiful than he’d been before? Was she really that hungry just for the sight of him? Emotions started hurling themselves, like rampaging waters demanding release, against the floodgates that had been keeping them where they belonged for the seven months since she’d left him. Her eyes filled with tears and some of them leaked through. Pregnancy hormones, she told herself. Damn them.

She shifted sideways, breaking the eye contact and silencing those raging waters inside her—for the moment. There was a chest-high tombstone right beside her, and she moved to stand behind it. But all too soon the mourners were filing forward one by one, shaking Ryan’s hand, wishing him well. Some threw dirt. Some laid flowers on top of the shining wood of the casket.

Lena didn’t get into the line. She stayed where she was, feeling trapped. The shielding crowd of bodies around her had dissipated. If she stepped into the open, she would be fully exposed to Ryan’s eyes. So, like a coward, she stayed where she was and just waited.

And soon they were all gone. Even the priest. Bahru met her eyes and gave her a silent nod, and then he, too, went to a waiting car.

The only car left was clearly Ryan’s. A sporty little black thing that she had no idea how to identify. He ignored it, brushed the dirt from his hands and came closer. Lena leaned her folded hands on the tombstone, as if that would explain why she was still standing behind it, when she knew it wouldn’t. She just looked dumb. But soon enough he would understand why.

“I’m really glad you came.” Blinding sunlight streamed from the January sky. There was only a little snow in the cemetery, tufts and puffs clinging to the shadowy places. The rest of the ground was sticky with mud, more like spring than late winter.

“Of course I came. I loved him.”

A corner of his mouth pulled upward. “He loved you, too.”

He’d lost weight, she thought. There were harsher angles to his face now. As if he’d been sick, maybe, or just getting over the flu. And she noticed, too, that his whiskers were coming in. Ryan had a beard that just wanted to grow. Every morning he shaved, and every night he looked like he hadn’t bothered.

She’d loved that about him. By midnight those bristles were just the right length to give her chills when they rasped over her skin in bed.

Her heart skipped; her belly tightened.

“Are you coming to the mansion?”

He was getting closer, taking a few steps, then stopping as if he expected her to move toward him, looking more and more puzzled that she didn’t.

“For the reception?” she asked, knowing that wasn’t the right term but thinking there wasn’t one. Food, alcohol, stories about the deceased, traditional post-funeral activities… what did you call that? “I don’t think so.”

She didn’t want to put herself through the pretense, much less parade her belly around for the world to see and wonder about, maybe even ask about—at least the rude among them.

What she wanted to do was to rush into Ryan’s arms. At the same time she wanted to run away without giving him a glimpse of her belly or an answer to what had to be his countless unasked questions.

She didn’t do either. She just stood there.

“I don’t blame you. I don’t want to go, either.”

“Then don’t go. You need to take care of yourself first.” It was automatic, that answer.

Ryan smiled softly. “I’ve missed those affirmations of yours. Your positive-thinking tips of the day, I used to call them. You always seemed to have one for every occasion.”

“And you always thought they were cute but useless.”

“Or so I said at the time. Truth is, they stuck with me. I’ve even put a few of them into practice.”

“Oh yeah? And how’s it going so far?”

He shrugged. “I guess I ran out. I’ve been wondering what you’d say about today, about how I’m supposed to deal with things. I couldn’t come up with anything for this.”

She drew a deep breath. “Try to find something to focus on that feels just a little bit better. Try to do whatever will help you feel a little bit of relief. If you don’t want to go to the gathering at your father’s mansion, then don’t go.”

“That wouldn’t look very good.”

“Ryan, since when do you care how things look to other people? You drove your own car today instead of riding in a limo, for heaven’s sake.”

He lifted his gaze to hers. “That’s a good point. But what about my father?” He turned to look at the casket as he asked the question. “Wouldn’t he expect me to be there?”

“Right now, Ryan, your father understands everything. He’s at complete peace, at complete oneness. He’s achieved enlightenment and would no more put any expectations on you than he would… jump out of that box and dance a jig. He’s not there, Ryan. He’s in bliss. He’s with your mom. And they both understand everything you ever did, felt or thought, and it’s okay. It’s all okay.”

“That’s good. That actually helps a little.”

“I’m glad.”

“Anything else? Other bits of witchy wisdom for the infidel to try?”

“Yeah. When the things that have your attention are very bad, the be-all and end-all solution is to get distracted.”

He stared at her, even tried for a lecherous leer. “Are you… offering to distract me?”

“Yeah, just not in the way you think.” She drew a deep breath and stepped out from behind the headstone. She had unbuttoned her coat, so her belly was in plain sight.

“Son of a—”

“Or daughter. I didn’t let them tell me. But I’m pretty sure she’s a girl.”

He was dead silent, just staring at her belly. Then, all at once, his expression changed, and she knew he was asking himself the obvious question and doing the math in his head, counting how many months since she had left.

And then his head came up and he stared into her eyes. “Is it mine?”

“Yeah.”

He gaped, then clamped his mouth shut, looked up at the sky, clapped a hand to his forehead, turned in a complete circle and faced her again. “My God, Lena. My God, why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“Do you really need to ask me that?”

He frowned at her. “Uh, yeah. I really need to ask you that.”

She said, “Think about it, Ryan. Think about our last night together and then ask me why I didn’t tell you.” Suddenly she realized how pointless this discussion was, that they were never going to see their way across the chasm between them. She yanked out her cell phone and flipped it open.

“Who are you calling?”

“A taxi. It’s not like I can flag one down out here in the middle of nowhere, is it?”

“I’ll drive you back.” He lowered his eyes to her belly again, shaking his head in bewilderment. “It’ll give us time to talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Ryan. It is what it is, and trust me when I tell you, I don’t want, need or expect anything from you. I can do this alone.”

“Well, that’s fine, but I get some say in this, don’t I?”

“You had your say already.”

“Bullshit.”

Angry, and knowing she shouldn’t be—he had every right to be upset—she accepted defeat and walked toward the car, pulling her coat closed and doing up the buttons on the way. She was wearing flats, but the ground was wet. She was almost there when her foot slid on a patch of slick mud and she started going down, her arms flailing like some cartoon character.

He was behind her instantly and caught her before she fell, so she landed against his chest, with his arms around her above her beach ball and below her boobs. He stayed that way for a second, his palms turning to rest on top of her belly, and her helpful progeny chose that moment to kick hard, three rapid-fire, Jackie Chan-worthy thrusts directly where his hands were.

Automatically she looked up at his face for his reaction to what he’d just felt and then wished she hadn’t. Because his expression went from stunned to rapturous in the space of a heartbeat, and when he met her eyes again his were wide and delighted, like a little kid on Christmas morning.

She understood it. When she had first felt the baby kick, that was the moment when the whole thing took on a new level of… of realness. Up until then she’d thought of the baby more as a concept than a reality. But once it had kicked, it was real. That’s when it became a she—or he, she admitted, but probably she—wiggling around inside her body, just waiting to come out.

Ryan’s smile was the biggest, most genuine smile Lena had ever seen.

Okay, kid, she thought, good call. You made him smile on the day he buried his dad, so I guess it was worth it.

His smile died as he stared into her eyes, and his expression softened. “Are you okay?” he asked, straightening her up again but keeping one arm around her shoulders as they turned toward the car.

“Yeah, fine. I didn’t fall.”

“I mean—I mean, you know… overall? You’ve been pregnant for…”

“Almost eight months now. And yes, I’m fine, and the baby is, too. Healthy. Growing like a weed.”

“I’m glad.” He opened the passenger door and stood holding it while she got in, then went around to get behind the wheel while she fastened the seat belt in what had become her customary fashion, with the lap belt behind her, and the shoulder harness across her chest.

He started the engine and pulled the vehicle into motion, glancing at her as she buckled up with a puzzled frown. “When is the baby due?”

“Thirteen days past Imbolc.”

He frowned in confusion.

“Sorry. Mid-February. I’m calling her my little groundhog.”

He shot her a look. “‘Her’ again. What makes you so sure it’s a girl?”

She was surprised at the line of questioning. He actually sounded interested. “Well, like I said, I haven’t let the doctor tell me that for sure. But I have my own feelings about her, and I think she’s a girl.”

“Where have you been living?”

It was her turn to frown. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you vanished. The firm said you resigned. Your building manager said you’d opted not to renew the lease on your apartment. Your mother sold her place in Brooklyn—”

“You looked for me?”

“Of course I looked for you.”

“Huh.” That she hadn’t expected. She had kept the same cell number and he had called numerous times, but she’d chosen not to answer. And after a while he’d just stopped.

“You didn’t need to hide from me, you know.”

She sent him a quick, sharp look. “I wasn’t.”

The look he returned was an “Oh, come on now” sort of expression, as if she’d said something ridiculous.

“No, really. Bahru knew where I was the entire time. In fact, he’s the one who tipped me off about the place.”

Ryan sent her a searching look. “Bahru?”

“Yeah. I went to say goodbye to him and… and to Ernst. And as he hugged me, Bahru slipped me a note with a URL on it. Turned out to be a real estate listing. He said he had a feeling it was meant for me from the moment he’d seen the place. And when I saw it, I knew he was right.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s an old vineyard near Ithaca, right on the shore of Cayuga Lake. Kind of decrepit, but we’re restoring it as we go along, and it’s just full of character. It was called Havenwood. Someday I’d like to replant the grapevines and try my hand at making wine.”

She almost added that she and her mother were convinced the place had a resident ghost, too, but decided against it. He’d never taken her beliefs seriously, and frankly, she was enjoying his interest too much to want to ruin it by eliciting his skeptical indulgence of things he didn’t understand.

“I’d love to see it,” he said.

She met his eyes but didn’t answer. Because he might be asking permission to visit, which might mean after the baby came, which might mean he was actually asking to be involved in her life. Both their lives. And she wasn’t sure she wanted that. Nor was she sure she didn’t want it. And moreover, she wasn’t sure she had the right to make that call. It was really up to her little groundhog.

In response to her silence he said, “You look tired. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good. But it’s been a long day. How about you? This must have been a grueling day for you. I know how things were between you and your father. Did you ever… you know, make up?”

“We weren’t really estranged, just…”

“Cold,” she said. “Distant.”

He shrugged. “That was his choice, not mine.”

Okay, still touchy on that subject, she thought.

“I’ll be all right,” he said. “Why don’t you lean your head back. Close your eyes. We’ve got another forty minutes back to the city. Here, I’ll find something soothing.” He found a new-age station that was right up her alley—the same station she always used to tune in to during those beautiful weeks of their passionate and life-altering fling.

He remembered….

He was acting more like the prince she had mistaken him for than he ever had… in this lifetime, anyway. She took his advice and leaned her head back, closed her eyes and drifted back to the night she had first met him at that fancy-assed ball honoring his father.

It was him, it was him, it was him!

She had tried to contain her childlike enthusiasm as she stared wide-eyed at her reflection. All alone in the restroom of the posh Waldorf Astoria, she tried to come to grips with the fact that she had just met the very prince from her childhood fantasies. That vision in her mamma’s black mirror. Her prince.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lena,” she whispered to her reflection. “That was a fairy tale from childhood. A fantasy. Imagination. There’s no handsome prince, no exotic palace, no garden oasis in the desert.”

Oh, yeah? Then where the heck did she come from? she asked herself.

Because the instant she had set eyes on Ryan McNally, she had heard, very distinctly, a woman’s voice from close beside her saying “He’s the one you’ve been waiting for.” Except no one was there. Then, as she had scanned the crowd, she could have sworn she’d seen her old friend Lilia meandering through it.

She closed her eyes and concentrated. “Lilia was an imaginary friend. She was not—I repeat, was not—out there. Because she does not—I repeat, does not—exist.”

Soft laughter came from behind her. Oh, hell, she wasn’t alone in the restroom after all. She opened her eyes and stared into the mirror again—and saw Lilia standing right behind her left shoulder, all decked out in white robes like a desert angel, shoulders bare, skin like copper, hair jet-black and blowing in a non-existent breeze like a model on a magazine cover. And glowing. She was definitely… glowing.

Lena spun around, but of course there was no one there.

All right, this is ridiculous.

She pulled out her cell phone, flipped it open, hit the listing marked Mom.

“I was just going to call you,” Selma said without even a hello first. “I had the oddest feeling—”

“My imaginary friend is back, Mom.”

Selma was silent. Lena could see her as clearly as if they were on Skype, frowning and fingering her oversized pentacle the way she always did. Her mom wasn’t a broom-closet sort of woman. She was more an in-your-face witch. Or had been until they’d moved to the country. She’d been a lot more discreet since then.

“Well? Say something, will you? I’m freaking out here.”

“Where are you?” Her mother was calm, composed, like always.

“At the Waldorf Astoria. The reception for my new assignment, Ernst McNally, eccentric, world-traveling billionaire. Any of this ringing a bell, Mom?”

“Yes, of course, just calm down. Take deep, cleansing breaths. Come on, now.”

Lena nodded, closed her eyes and set the phone down. Then she inhaled nasally, raising her arms over her head, and exhaled thoroughly, lowering them in front of her body. Three times was the charm. She was calm, centered. She picked up the phone again.

“Better?” her mom asked, uncannily knowing she had returned.

“Yes.”

“Now tell me what happened.”

“I was at the reception. Chatting with Mr. McNally and his spiritual guide, a really eccentric-looking man called Bahru. Wait, I snapped a pic when he wasn’t looking.” She took the phone from her ear, located the picture and emailed it. “I like him. He’s very wise.”

“Ernst or Bahru?”

“Bahru. Ernst seems more sad and searching than wise.”

“Oh, got the pic,” her mother said. “Wow, he is eccentric-looking. He wore that to the Waldorf Astoria?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Lena said, seeing again the red-and-white sari-style getup. “Ernst says he wears it everywhere. And the dreadlocks are all the way to his butt.”

“Go on, what happened next?”

“Okay. Okay, this is… this is…”

“Just tell me, Lena.”

Lena nodded again. “This man came over. Ernst introduced him as his son, Ryan. I looked up at him, and—and I swear, Mom, he was the prince from that silly fantasy-vision I had when I was a little girl. You remember the one, the first time you let me try mirror-scrying?”

“The Arabian prince who was going off to war but promised to return to carry you away. How could I forget? You wrote an entire collection of storybooks about him. I didn’t let you scry again for two years. But, Lena, you do realize that was the same summer Aladdin came out, right?”

She sighed. “Yes. But there’s more. Just as I thought it couldn’t possibly be him, a woman whispered right into my ear—not my head, Mom, my ear. Out loud. ‘It’s him. The one you’ve been waiting for.’ And I turned fast, but there was no one standing there, and it was clear no one else had heard her but me.”

“Huh,” her mom said.

“So I scanned the room and I thought I saw Lilia.”

“Your imaginary friend?” Selma asked. Now she sounded worried.

“And then I came into the restroom and she was right here. Standing right behind me in the mirror, laughing.”

“Hell’s bells,” her mother whispered. “Honey, maybe you’d better come home.”

“Soon as I can. But I have to go back out there. This is my biggest assignment so far, taking over the McNally account while Bill recovers.”

“All right, then,” her mother said. “Here’s the thing. None of this sounds dire. I mean, it’s odd, but… you always insisted Lilia wasn’t imaginary. I was obviously wrong in not accepting that. She’s clearly some kind of otherworldly guide. That’s nothing to be afraid of, honey. It’s a blessing, actually. Later, when you’re alone, talk to her. See if she can tell you why she’s come. And as for Ernst’s son—”

“Ryan,” Lena said, and the name whispering from her lips sent shivers down her spine.

“Ryan. He’s in the tabloids a lot, you know. Player. Big-time player. Irresponsible, spoiled, self-centered—you know the type.”

“I do.”

“But if he’s your prince, then, baby, gird your loins and go for it.”

Lena stared into the mirror. Her wide eyes had returned to their normal size and shape. Her lips stopped quivering and pulled into a little smile. Her spine straightened. Her cleavage rocked. “You always know what to say, Mom.”

“Well, of course I do, sweetheart. It’s my job. Have a great time. Call me tomorrow.”

“I will. Thanks, Mom.”

“Blessed be, Lena.”

Lena snapped the phone closed and slid it into her handbag, then pulled out her compact and touched herself up. Then she smoothed her hair, popped a breath mint, plumped her “girls” and turned decisively to head out of the restroom.

Ryan McNally was waiting on the other side of the door.

She smiled at him. “Men’s room is over there,” she said, pointing.

“I was waiting for you.”

“I know you were.”

His brows went up. “Confidence. I like that. Would you like to get out of here?”

She smiled. “If by that you mean, would I like to go somewhere for sex, then no. But I would like to dance.”

“Dance?” He turned toward the ballroom, where the band was playing something fast, then back to her. “Can we wait for a slow one?”

“Oh, no. Slow dancing must be earned. You have to make an idiot out of yourself in public first. But don’t worry about looking bad, Ryan. Sometimes my dancing causes people to dial 9-1-1 and report a woman having convulsions.”

He laughed. He smiled, and not that suave “charm the lady’s panties off” grin he’d been wearing before. This one was real, with tiny laugh lines at the outer corners of his eyes that made them seem even bluer and a flash of white teeth. He had a thick layer of beard coming in, shadowing his jawline in a way that made her stomach knot up.

“If that’s the price of a slow dance, then it’s worth paying.” He held out a hand, and she took it, and then he led her out onto the dance floor just as the band jumped from one very old song to the next: “Twist and Shout.”

“Ah, the dance gods love me tonight,” Ryan said. “Twisting I can do.”

“Shouting, too?”

“Ask me later.”

He had a twinkle in his eye, and she had to laugh, because he was clearly kidding, not hitting on her. Though maybe a little of that, too. They twisted, and she felt ridiculous, but she kept hearing her mom’s voice telling her that if he was her prince, she should go for it.

She had never gone for it with a guy in her life. But it felt like now was the time. And she thought it was working, because he seemed to be enjoying himself.

They twisted to the end of the song, and then, when he went to get them drinks and asked her to scope out a table, she chose to join his father and Bahru at theirs. Ryan didn’t look too pleased when he returned, but he tried to cover it as he put down their drinks and asked, “Dad, can I you get something? Bahru, a carrot juice or anything?”

That was slightly nasty, Lena thought. But Bahru only held up a hand and shook his head.

Ernst said, “No, I’m fine.”

Then Ryan returned his focus to her. “Lena. Is that short for anything?”

“Magdalena,” she told him.

“Magdalena.” He nodded slowly. “It’s an old-fashioned name.”

“Very. My mother said it just came to her the first time she held me, and she never questions things like that.” She leaned forward. “She’s a witch.” Normally she wouldn’t bring that up in front of a client, but she knew Ernst was a spiritual seeker. She wasn’t worried about judgment from a guy who traveled the world with a guru at his side.

“The Wiccan kind?” Ernst asked.

She nodded.

“So you were raised…?”

“Casting and conjuring since I was four,” she said.

“Delightful.” The billionaire really seemed sincere.

“You just get cuter and cuter,” Ryan said.

“One’s belief system is sacred,” Bahru said softly. “Not cute.”

She sent Ryan a “so there” lift of her eyebrows. He rolled his eyes.

“What’s your belief system, Bahru?” she asked.

“I was raised Hindi, but I have learned from countless holy men, shamans, priests, priestesses, swamis, monks, nuns and more, all around the world. I am an eclectic, I suppose.”

“That’s fascinating.”

“I have never studied with a witch,” he said. “I would love to talk with you about your path one day.”

“I’d like that, too,” she told him.

“Hey, don’t you owe me a slow dance?” Ryan asked.

She studied him. He was bored with their discussion. Strike one, she thought. But maybe he would come around, given time. “All right,” she said, getting to her feet, “but I can’t ignore the man I’m supposed to be working for tonight.” She nodded at his father.

“Consider yourself off duty, beautiful Magdalena,” Ernst said. “Enjoy the party. I think I’m going to call it a night anyway.” He rose as well. “I am very much looking forward to working with you, my dear. I’ll phone you in the morning.” He opened his arms for a hug.

The feminist part of her thought he wouldn’t be hugging a male PR person. But the rest of her was touched. She hugged him briefly, and he took the opportunity to whisper into her ear, “Be careful, my dear. He’s a heart-breaker, my son.”

“He’s the one who’d better be careful,” she whispered back. “I am my mother’s daughter.” She kissed him on the cheek, knowing they were going to be close, whatever happened between her and Ryan.

Then she extended a hand to Bahru. “It was lovely meeting you. I look forward to those talks.”

“As do I.” He clasped her hand in both of his and bowed over it twice.

Then she was swept into Ryan’s arms, and she forgot all about his calling witchcraft “cute,” along with his rudeness toward Bahru and apparent boredom with spiritual discourse. None of it compared in the least with the feeling that swept over her when he wrapped one strong arm around her waist and held her close. She inhaled, breathing him into her, and then closed her eyes against an inexplicable rush of dizziness, as if his aura was a drug and she had no resistance to it. Lowering her head to his chest, she let him move her around the floor as visions raced into her mind.

There was a bubbling spring, very small, shaded by a trio of exotic palm-like trees that all seemed to grow from the same roots. The ground around the spring was nourished by the nearby water and sprouted plants in gratitude. They had thick, fibrous stalks and coarse, sharp-edged leaves, and yet they bloomed in tiny pink and purple flowers. She did not know what they were called.

And there in that beautiful miniature oasis, she was in the arms of a handsome prince. She felt his chest beneath her head, his arms around her waist. She breathed him in, and it was the same. The same essence. More than a scent, it was an energy. An aura. The same man.

Fantasies I spun when I was a little girl, under the influence of Aladdin and I Dream of Jeannie reruns. I’d had the Jasmine and Aladdin dolls. I’d created an entire life for them in which Aladdin was the prince and Jasmine the slave girl. I’d drawn pictures, made little chapter books that told their love story, their adventures, with construction paper and Crayola crayons. It wasn’t real.

Then how can he be the same? she asked herself.

He can’t, that’s the answer. This is some kind of break with reality, and I’d better get a handle on it, because I cannot afford a mental breakdown at this point in my life. My career is about to take off, for Goddess’ sake!

She closed her eyes and tried to keep her head in the moment. Which was, after all, a pretty amazing moment, because Ryan was gorgeous and…

And his hand was trailing down her spine, lightly, gently, slowly, lower, over the ultra-sensitive small of her back to just above her tailbone, and then, just as exquisitely, back up again. She shivered, and she knew he felt it. He dipped his head a little lower, and his bristly cheek brushed over hers as he whispered near her ear, “You seem so familiar to me. Are you sure we’ve never met before?”

It’s just a line, said her brain.

Oh, God, that warm breath on my ear, said her body.

“I’ve been asking myself the same thing,” said her voice, because she didn’t like to lie. She never had. “But I’ve decided not to worry about it. I’m just going to enjoy the moment.”

“I think that’s a very good philosophy.”

“It’s the only one, really. All your power is in the now. The past no longer exists, and the future’s not here yet. Now is really all there is, and since it is always now, it’s endless. The eternal present.”

“Deep.”

She shrugged. “I take it you’re not all that into deep, philosophical discussions?”

He angled his head downward. “I’m afraid I’m guilty.”

“Why? Your father is such a spiritual man.”

“Exactly.”

She frowned, searching his eyes. “Meaning?”

He smiled, a charming, killer smile. “Let’s not go there. Let’s be in the moment. You’re in my arms, you’re beautiful, you smell good, and I’m not going to think about anything else right now. Okay?”

She smiled. “Okay.”

He twirled her around, pulling her even closer.

And she let herself surrender to the moment, which became another moment, and then another, all unfolding one after the next until the moment when he was carrying her, with her arms linked behind his neck and her legs wrapped around his waist, her black velvet dress bunched up around her hips while he kissed her, into his apartment.

They’d danced again and again, and she’d had several more drinks, probably a few too many. Enough so that she’d stopped questioning the wisdom of sleeping with the son of her firm’s most important client. Enough so that she stopped wondering how he could be so identical to the man in her childhood fantasies—Aladdin to her Jasmine. Enough so that she just fell into those stories and let herself believe in them. Like a little girl, she was making believe that her fantasy prince had finally come to take her away, because really, there was no better way to fully relish this particular moment.

She let everything go and allowed it to just flow over her. His mouth fed from hers as hungrily as if he adored her, even though she knew he didn’t.

Shut up and enjoy it!

As he kicked the door closed behind him, his fingers found the zipper low on her back, and he slid it smoothly downward, his hands following its path, hot fingers trailing over her spine, rubbing delicious tiny circles right at the base, then slipping inside her silky panties. He squeezed and pulled her harder against him at the same time.

They moved through his place in the dark, their way lit only by moonlight, which she saw when he mouthed her neck, making her tip her head back in pleasure. He nipped, and her eyes opened wide, startled and delighted at once. She saw the gibbous moon high above, through skylights in the ceiling, and realized this was the penthouse. Of course it was.

They stumbled through another doorway, and then he swept aside the blankets on a king-size bed and lowered her onto satin sheets, his knees between her thighs, his hands sliding the unzipped gown from her shoulders just before he laid her down on the plush nest of pillows. Then he was leaning over her, caressing her breasts, teasing their peaks, making her gasp and pant and want him. Her hands slid over his chest, and she unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it off. She kissed his naked chest, his magnificent shoulders, his belly, where she couldn’t help but touch him again and again, because he had the kind of abs you only saw on fitness-club commercials.

He groaned, then backed up enough to make her reach for him. When he returned he was naked. He helped her wriggle the rest of the way out of her dress and panties, and then he was touching her where she so, so wanted him to, teasing her from “ready” to writhing and whimpering before he finally lowered himself between her thighs and nudged just a little.

Impatient, she reached to guide him in, closing her hand around him and smiling with evil delight at his size. He tore open a wrapper with his teeth, sheathed himself in latex. And then he was sliding into her, stretching her, filling her.

There was a flash of light before her eyes, and she thought there had been heat lightning outside. And then a voice whispered, As the rod is to the God, so the chalice is to the Goddess. And together they are one.

She wondered if he’d heard it, too, but by then he was moving inside her and she forgot all of it, forgot everything but the pleasure he was creating inside her. She moved with him, clinging to his back and holding on for dear life as he drove her beyond sanity, beyond reality, into momentary, mind-blowing, blissful release. In her mind she saw swirling desert sands and heard her beloved prince saying to her, “I will return for you, my love. Never doubt it. And when I do, you’ll be my bride.”

She snuggled closer, embracing the fantasy, a fantasy that lasted for several more hours of pleasure. Until, a few hours before dawn, just as she was falling into blissful, sated sleep in his arms, he bent to kiss the top of her head and said, “Would you like a snack before you go?”

Before I go? Before I go where? she wondered.

“I can make us some microwave popcorn.” Instead of holding her, basking in the afterglow of what had been the most powerful and meaningful lovemaking of her entire life, he jumped out of bed and walked naked toward what she assumed was the kitchen. “I’ll call down and have the doorman start the car for us, so it’ll be nice and warm by the time you’re ready for me to drive you home.”

“How… thoughtful.” She frowned and thought, So much for my fantasy.

3

“Lena?”

His voice was soft and close, and as she let it swirl around inside her head it melded with the dream, so that she thought they were back there, in the past, still dating. And that nothing in between the day she’d left him and now had ever happened.

And then she realized she had fallen asleep and dreamed all that.

“We’re here,” he said.

She opened her eyes, blinking things into focus and looking out the window at the familiar shape of his father’s Westchester mansion. And then she frowned. “I thought you were taking me back to my hotel?”

“I am. But, uh—even if you want to skip the socializing, there’s the meeting first. I thought you knew.”

“Meeting…?”

“Dad’s attorneys. The will. You’re named in it.”

“Oh.” She blinked softly. “I didn’t know. That Ernst was going to do that, I mean. It’s not something I was looking for. I don’t need—”

“Did he know?” Ryan asked. “About the baby?” She met his eyes, saw the hurt in them at the thought that his father would have kept something like this from him. A hurt he’d once worked very hard to convince her he was incapable of feeling. “I honestly don’t know, Ryan. We haven’t been in touch since I left. But…”

“But?” he prompted when she trailed off.

“Bahru knew,” she admitted. She felt as if she was tattling. “He knew before I left.”

“Bastard could’ve told me.”

She shrugged. “He might have assumed, like I did, that it wouldn’t have mattered.”

He slapped his palms on the steering wheel, not violently, but in frustration. “Why the hell would you assume that?”

She frowned at him. “How can you ask me that? Do you really not remember the last conversation we had, Ryan?”

He looked as puzzled as if she’d lapsed into ancient Babylonian.

She rolled her eyes, sighed deeply. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” she said. “Bahru did mention that I would have to be present when the will was read, but he didn’t say when. So you’re saying it’s now?”

“Yeah.” He looked at his watch. “Right now. In Dad’s den.” He looked toward the house, the people wandering in and out. Then he popped the clutch and drove the car around to the back.

The wide stone deck was devoid of furniture. The umbrella tables had been put away for the winter, and the pool was sealed tight. Even so, the back of the house had a much more relaxed feel to it than the front.

“Come on, we’ll miss the crowds this way.”

Lena got out. She was feeling pretty pissed that he hadn’t yet figured out why she had left him, much less apologized for it. Or, God forbid, taken it back. But what the hell? It was water under the bridge. They had tried. And they had failed. She would never regret it. And maybe the whole thing—the vision, the fantasy, his resemblance to her prince—maybe all that hadn’t happened to fulfill their star-crossed love affair from the long-ago past lives she was convinced they’d had. Resolving that, might never have been the reason. Maybe it was all about the baby. She’d found him, been drawn to him, and he’d given her a baby. Perhaps that was the purpose all along.

He came to her side quickly, his hand on her elbow irritating her for no good reason. She jerked it away from him before she could stop herself.

“What?” he asked.

“I’m pregnant, Ryan. Not injured or weak or fragile. I’ve been waddling around just fine without you holding on to me for months now. I think I can make it to the back door without help.”

“Oh.”

He stood where he was while she headed up the three broad stone steps onto the deck and across it to the French doors. And then she paused, because she wasn’t sure whether to knock or wait or what the hell to do.

He came up beside her and reached past her to open the doors, and they headed inside. The French doors led directly into the den, which had been Ernst’s favorite room in the house. And no wonder. From it you could see the entire back lawn and the gardens, and you could walk straight out to the deck and then to the pool off the far end of it, any time you felt like a break. It was a perfect place to work.

Bahru was sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed, holding on to that quartz pendant around his neck. Another man sat at Ernst McNally’s big desk, shuffling papers. They were the only people in the room.

Must be a small will.

“Ahh, Ryan, good. And you must be Lena,” said the man behind the desk, getting to his feet and coming around with a hand extended. “Ernst spoke very highly of you.”

“Thank you, that means a lot to me, Mr.…?”

“Aaron Samuels,” he said. “Please, have a seat.”

She nodded and headed for the two chairs that were situated in front of the desk. Bahru was sitting just past them. As she drew closer he opened his eyes, and they flashed red as they met hers. She sucked in a breath and stumbled backwards, crashing into Ryan’s chest. His arms came around her fast.

“Hey, I thought you said you could walk without help, sunshine?”

Turning her head, she looked up into his eyes. Her heart was pounding, and she opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say.

“What is it, Lena?” he asked.

“I—” She looked at Bahru again. No glowing red eyes. He was getting to his feet and smiling as warmly as ever. So she glanced back at the French doors to see the bright orange of the sunset beaming in through them and sighed. “Nothing, I’m fine.” And jumpy, she thought. “Good to meet you, Mr. Samuels. Hello again, Bahru.”

He pressed his hands together and bowed slightly over them.

She let Ryan keep hold of her and seat her in the first chair, and then he took the other chair—the one she’d been heading for, the one that was closer to Bahru—himself.

“I know this has been a miserable day for all of us,” the lawyer said. “So I’m not going to spend a lot of time on the minutiae.”

Lena glanced at Ryan as the man went on, and they shared an unspoken “Who the hell says minutiae?” moment. He even smiled a little.

The lawyer was still going on. “… right to the gist of it, which is really simple enough.”

“Ryan, you of course inherit the bulk of the estate. The holdings, the money, the mansion, the fleet of cars, both jets, the businesses—”

“I was afraid of that.” Ryan sighed and leaned forward a little, as if something very heavy had just landed on his shoulders.

Lena reached out and slid her hand over his, then tried to take back the intimacy of the move by patting it instead of holding it. “You can sell it all. You can let the board run it. It doesn’t have to be a burden to you, Ryan,” she whispered.

He nodded.

“As for you, Magdalena,” the lawyer went on, “Ernst was very specific. First off, the deed to your home has been marked ‘paid in full.’“

She blinked. “What? But I don’t—”

“The vineyard belonged to Ernst, Magdalena,” Bahru said softly. “He was afraid you wouldn’t want it if you knew. He’d bought it long ago, hoping to retire there one day with his beautiful Sarah. They had such plans for the place—but then she died and…”

“That’s the vineyard where you’ve been living?” Ryan burst out.

“I bought that vineyard from Ernst?” she shouted at the same moment.

Samuels held up both hands. “One of his holding companies, to be specific, but yes, that’s what it comes down to.”

“But I wanted to do this on my own.”

“Dad didn’t like to let anyone he cared about do anything on their own,” Ryan said. “Trust me, Lena, I totally get your indignation.” He tugged her arm until she looked at him. “But hey, it doesn’t have to be a burden on you,” he said, repeating her own words back to her. “You can always sell it.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I know.”

All right, all right, she knew what he was saying. Her homilies about him being able to sell his father’s empire, about not letting it be a burden, were beside the point. The man had imposed his will on his unwilling son, and it didn’t feel good. She shared the feeling firsthand now and acknowledged that with a slow nod. His expression said that he received the message.

“If you don’t mind,” the lawyer said, clearing his throat to get their attention, “there’s more.”

She sighed but didn’t sit back down. “What else?”

“Ernst collected an impressive number of books and even some scrolls on his travels. Hundreds of writings, obscure religious texts and—”

“The sacred teachings of all times,” Bahru explained. “He said you were one of the few people he had ever known who would appreciate his collection.”

Lena blinked in absolute stunned shock, and thudded heavily into her chair again. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe he did that.”

“Wait, wait,” Ryan said. “He gives you a vineyard, you’re pissed. But he gives you a pile of musty old books and you’re in tears?”

She spared him only a quick scowl before turning to Bahru. “But you should have them, Bahru.”

He shook his head. “They were meant for you. Where would I put them, once I am free to return to my endless journeying?”

“The books will be delivered to you at your home by week’s end, Magdalena,” said the attorney. “I have people packing them up for shipping right now.”

She opened her mouth, but he held up a hand. “I promise you, these are men who know how to handle precious and rare manuscripts. They’ll be safe. Ernst also set up a trust for your child, the current balance of which is…” He shuffled papers. “Ten million dollars. With interest, it will be worth significantly more as time passes. But you are in complete control, and may use the interest at any time and in any way you see fit. The principal is to remain untouched until you deem the child mature enough to take control of it. He said he trusted you completely.”

She felt as if the air had all rushed out of her body and her muscles had turned to gelatin. “But the interest on ten million dollars would be…”

“At the current rate, it’s earning about five hundred thousand per year.”

Her jaw dropped.

“As for you, Bahru, Ernst left you exactly what you asked for. The guesthouse on the vineyard, with the caveat that it’s all right with Magdalena—”

“What’s this?” Ryan asked, sounding angry again.

She put her hand on his shoulder. “Easy, Ryan.” And then she turned to the bearded holy man. “Bahru?”

He smiled softly. “He wanted me to stay close to the child, Magdalena. To advise you and your baby just as I have advised him, and to watch over things.”

“And is that what you want?”

“I want nothing more.”

“Well, you got more,” the lawyer said. “He’s leaving you enough stock to provide a small income for the rest of your life, Bahru. And he told me not to take no for an answer.”

Bahru’s face darkened. “I told him no money!”

“He insisted.”

Lena smiled, recognizing the irony of what she was about to say. “It’s what Ernst wanted, Bahru. It would be an insult not to take it.”

He frowned but looked down. After a moment, though, he met her eyes again and nodded once. “I accept—if you will accept my presence in the guesthouse, Magdalena.”

“Of course I will.”

“Lena, I don’t know about all this,” Ryan began, but he stopped when she sent him her patented glare. She had learned it from her mother, who could wilt roses with it.

“Fine. Fine. It’s not like I have any say in it anyway.”

“That’s right, Ryan.”

He was really fuming. She knew he’d never trusted Bahru, but surely he could see now that the guru had never been after his father’s fortune. He’d been clearly angry when Ernst had left him money.

“Are we finished here, then?” Ryan asked.

“Actually,” Samuels said, “Lena and Bahru can go now, but I need one more moment with you, Ryan.”

Ryan sent Lena a look, as if to ask if she would be okay without him for a few minutes. She had been okay without him for her entire life, minus eight blissful weeks, she thought, but she didn’t say it out loud.

“I’ll venture into the reception,” she said with a nod toward the door. “Come on, Bahru. It would be rude of us not to at least put in an appearance.”

Nodding, Bahru got to his feet. Lena turned back to Ryan. “I’ll wait for you, okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll find you when I’m done here.”

She didn’t know whether to look forward to that—or dread it.

Ryan rose when they left, then stood there staring blankly at the door for a long moment. It was like a twister had just swept through his life. He’d buried his father and found out he was going to be one himself, inherited billions he’d never wanted, and learned that the man he disliked more than anyone he knew was being installed as a fixture in his child’s life, when he himself had not yet been granted access. All in one day.

“Are you all right, Ryan?”

“Yeah. I—” He shook his head hard, as though he was shaking away the fog. “Yeah. Good. Let’s get on with this. I’ve got… a lot to deal with.”

“That’s got to be the understatement of the year.” The lawyer bent to pick up an oversized briefcase, then laid it on the giant antique desk and snapped open the clasps. He opened it and picked up a wooden box that looked centuries old, at least. Its lid was completely engraved, so that there wasn’t a smooth spot anywhere. Vines with leaves and buds, stars and spirals in between.

As the attorney held it out to him, Ryan took it and looked more closely, realizing that the more you looked at the thing, the more you saw. Swirls in the vine’s barklike texture revealed an eye here, a hand there, a crescent moon in another spot. He wanted to roll his eyes. “I don’t know how many times I told the old man I just wasn’t into all his spiritual hocus pocus bull. I guess he just had to try one last time to capture my interest.”

And he had. The box was spectacular—there was no denying it as a work of art. And that spoke to Ryan’s soul, though he would never admit it. But there was more. Something that seemed to grab his attention and pull him in.

He lifted the lid to see what was inside.

There was no earthly reason for him to feel as if he’d been hit between the eyes with an invisible blast, and yet that was what he felt at his first glimpse of the blade. It was a simple piece. A double-edged dagger with a gleaming gold hilt. It looked real. Weighed enough, too.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. He said I was to give it to you in private, and to tell you to keep it to yourself.”

“And why’s that?”

Samuels shrugged, snapping the briefcase closed. “I don’t know any more than that, Ryan.” Then he rose and extended his hand.

Ryan closed the lid of the wooden box and accepted the gesture. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’m sure we’ll be in touch. Let me know if there’s anything you need. And again, Ryan, I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks.”

The lawyer nodded and left. Ryan watched him go. Then he opened the box again, wondering what the hell this was all about.

He went to pick the knife up, but his hand stalled just before making contact, as if he was afraid to touch it. Which was completely illogical. And then his palm started tingling like nothing he’d ever felt before. For just the barest instant the golden blade seemed to glow.

There was a knock at the door, and he slammed the lid as fast as if he’d spotted a cobra inside. Damn, he was jumpy. Emotional overload. A trick of the light. Some weird combination of the two.

“Ryan?”

It was Lena’s voice. He shoved the box onto a nearby shelf and went to open the door. She searched his face, hers full of concern. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Fine. It’s just been… it’s been a crazy day, that’s all.”

“I know it has. For me, too. And the energy out there is just…” She raised her hands to her head and made the universal gesture for crazy.

“Nuts?” he asked.

“Frenetic. And fake, too. A lot of those people are only here for their own ends. To see or be seen, or… I don’t know. Definitely not out of any love for Ernst, that’s for sure.”

“They told you that?”

She frowned, cocking her head and wiggling her fingers in a woo-woo gesture. “Of course not. Witch, remember?”

He almost smiled, because he’d forgotten how expressive she was with her hands. And her face. She could never hide her feelings, and he didn’t think she saw much reason to try. “Right.”

“I’ve got to get back home, Ryan. I don’t like it here anymore, and it’s upsetting the baby.”

He nodded, stepped aside and took her arm, drawing her back into the den. Then he closed the door behind her. “We can slip out the back, and I’ll drive you to the hotel and your car.”

“I took the bus.”

“The bus?”

“Don’t act like I just said I rode a donkey. For crying out loud, Ryan, not everyone can afford a three-hundred-dollar flight for a day trip.”

“No, not everyone. But you can. Now.”

She met his eyes, and hers flashed with what looked like anger. “I will never touch a penny of that money. It’s all going to fold right back into itself for the baby. I don’t want it, didn’t ask for it and don’t need it.”

“All right, all right, I wasn’t insulting you.” Damn, she was sensitive.

She shrugged and turned away.

“Listen, I want to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Bahru. I don’t trust him, Lena.”

“You never have. But I thought his insistence that he didn’t want any money from your father’s estate might have convinced you that he was sincere.”

“His insistence wound up getting him an income for life and a free place to live. Not to mention a VIP pass into the life of my child, who, in case you forgot, just inherited a fortune.”

“Your child?”

“Our. I meant our.” He turned away, pushing one hand through his hair, knowing he was blowing this utterly.

“You’re jealous, aren’t you?” she asked.

He gave her a don’t-be-ridiculous look, but she went on anyway. “You’ve always been jealous of Bahru. And no wonder, Ryan. Your father abandoned you but took Bahru with him, and that was wrong of him. As much as I loved the man, I know that was wrong. But it wasn’t Bahru’s fault.”

“I am not jealous.”

“How could you not be? You were eleven. Your mother had just died, and your father left you behind and walked away with his guru. No one in their right mind could blame you for how you felt. And now it looks as if Bahru has once again usurped your place, this time in the life of our child. But you’re forgetting one very important element in all this, Ryan.”

“What element is that?” he asked. He knew he sounded angry, sarcastic, and while he regretted it, he couldn’t seem to help himself.

She walked up to him, slid a hand over his shoulder. “Me.”

Frowning, he lifted his head and turned to face her even though there were hot tears burning in his eyes, tears he hadn’t thought he had in him—not for his father.

“I am not a stupid woman. Nor am I a gullible one. I am, in fact, probably the most powerful woman you’ve ever met in your life—besides my mom, anyway—even though I’m powerful in ways you don’t respect or even understand. But you can trust me on this, Ryan. I would never keep you from being in our baby’s life.”

“I don’t know if I believe that.” How could he believe it? he wondered. “I mean, look at you. You’ve been pregnant for how long? And you never said a word.”

She sighed as if emptying her lungs to the bottom, nodding, not arguing. “I know it looks bad. But, Ryan, I truly had no intention of keeping this from you. I just kept putting it off, and the next thing I knew months had gone by. And the longer I waited, the harder it was. But I always meant to tell you—and I swore I’d do it before she was born. That’s the truth.” She lowered her eyes, then they shot back up to his. Laser beams. “You know I don’t lie.”

He nodded. “I remember that about you.”

“So you believe me, then?”

Long pause, then he nodded. “I believe you.”

“And you can believe me about this, too. There is no way Bahru will ever be more involved in our child’s life than her father. Not unless that’s the way you want it to be.”

His doubts thinned. Her honesty had never been a question to him. She didn’t lie. His tension eased a little. “Thank you for that,” he said.

“I’m not finished yet.”

He gave her a half-genuine smile. “I didn’t think you were.”

“Am I talking too much? I am, aren’t I?”

“You always talked too much. I’ve missed the hell out of it.”

She averted her eyes all of a sudden. Had she felt what he had just then? That old familiar unnh, right between the belly button and points south? “Besides,” he went on, “you’re one of the smartest people I know. So please, keep on talking.”

She got a little pink-faced at the compliment, but then something else replaced embarrassment in her eyes. Sympathy. Like she could feel the unexpected heartbroken sensation in his chest. Like she knew how he was hurting right then. Like she could see it in his eyes, but even more, like she could feel it.

“All right, I will.” Her voice came out more softly than he’d heard it since she’d come back into his life this morning. Maybe softer than he’d ever heard it. “I just have one piece of advice for you today. Don’t let things outside yourself control the way you live your life. Not your father, not all he put on you—the businesses, the money—”

What a notion that was. Not to let the 3000-ton weight on his back knock him flat. If only that were possible.

“And not me,” she added, compelling his attention. “Not even this baby. You need to make up your mind what you honestly, truly want and then do it, no matter what it is. You want to keep being the spoiled, rich playboy? Then go ahead. Let the boards of directors run the companies, cash your checks and bag a different supermodel every night of the year. You want to be involved in your daughter’s life? Then figure out a way to do that. That’s all you can do. It’s all you’re supposed to do. Life should be lived, Ryan. Relished. Not spent enslaved to ‘I shoulds.’“

He looked at her face, her beautiful face, the one he’d missed way too much, and wondered how she ever got to be so smart.

“As for me, I’m gonna catch a cab to Port Authority and a bus back home, because I had no idea how much I’d miss Havenwood. This has all been… too much.”

He drank in the sight of her for a long moment. “I have a better idea.”

“Really? And that is?”

“I’ll drive you home. How ‘bout that?”

She gave him a quizzical look, like a puppy who’d just heard an odd noise.

“Maybe I’ll stay awhile,” he said, leaning in to kiss her.

She dodged his mouth with an elegant dip and a bob, and wound up standing a foot away. She looked scared. “I said you could be in our child’s life, Ryan. Not in mine.” Turning, she headed for the exit. “She’s due in February. You can come and visit then, if you want.”

4

Lena didn’t know what she was expecting when she made her exit. Maybe for him to come chasing after her, begging her not to go. Maybe at least an apology. But he did nothing, said nothing, just let her leave. So she sat amid the masses of humanity on the bus ride home, hiding behind a pair of very large, very dark sunglasses. She’d picked them up for three times their worth at Port Authority when she’d realized she was teetering on the brink of tears for the twelfth time since she’d jumped into the taxi.

Stupid to cry over him. So freaking stupid. Stupid to keep remembering that last night, the awful things he’d said. Stupid.

She leaned back in the seat, closed her eyes and thought about it anyway.

She’d decided she was going to tell him she was pregnant that night. It was time, she’d thought. She’d cooked dinner at his place, and she hadn’t thought of it as trying to show him how domestic she could be or anything, although she could see where someone else might have thought so. She roasted a small chicken with lots of veggies and dollops of sour cream. It was nice.

He wasn’t.

Oh, they were getting along great at first. And then, after they’d eaten, when they were all snuggled up on his sofa and surfing through the pay-per-view channels, she sort of took the cowardly way in. She told him a friend of hers was pregnant, and that she was wondering what the guy she’d been dating was going to say about it, and what did he think about that?

And it went zoom, right over his head. “If the guy has any brains, he’ll run screaming in the other direction,” he said, and he was dead serious.

Lena felt like he’d slapped her. “Why’s that?” she managed to ask through her rapidly closing windpipe.

He was manning the remote, pausing to read the info on anything that looked interesting to him, not looking at her. “Isn’t it obvious? She’s trying to get him to marry her.”

“That’s not true! She doesn’t want to marry the guy. She just thinks he has a right to know he’s going to be a father.”

“Right. She doesn’t want to marry him.” There was more sarcasm in his tone than there had been sour cream on their roasted veggies. “Tell me this, does he have money?”

“Well, yes. Quite a lot of it, actually. But that doesn’t mean—”

“Yeah, it does.” He set the remote down and looked at her. “No one gets pregnant by accident in this day and age, Lena. And believe me, before I met you, every woman I dated was after one thing and one thing only—my father’s fortune. They’d have done anything. Some of them even tried, but I was too smart. I was careful. I protected myself.”

“Did you, now?” She focused on her hands in her lap, thinking she needed a manicure, unable to meet his eyes. Mainly because there were hot, angry tears surfacing in her own.

“I did.” He shook his head. “I pity the guy, but it was his own stupidity. Guys with money need to be more careful than anyone about shit like this. He should have known better. Now he’s doomed.”

“Doomed?” That brought her head up, and the anger burning a path up the middle of her chest rose with it. “Marrying her would be his doom?”

“Marrying a woman who tricked him into it, yeah. Doom.” He smiled at her, still completely oblivious. “You know, this is something I wanted to talk to you about right at the beginning, and I kept getting distracted. Totally your fault, by the way.” His eyes softened, and he pushed her hair behind her ear and kissed the lobe, sending a warm shiver down her spine, despite how pissed off she was at him. She wished she could grab that warm shiver by its neck and choke it to death.

“Talk to me about it now, then,” she said. She didn’t think she was going to like this discussion, but she figured she needed to hear it.

“Well, I just… you know… have no intention of… you know…”

“No, I don’t know. I’m a witch, not a psychic. You have no intention of what?”

He sat back, and the lightbulb finally went on in his eyes. “Whoa. You’re pissed.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “No, I’m not.” She sighed, then shook her head hard. “Yes, dammit, I am. I thought we had something wonderful happening between us, Ryan.”

“We do,” he said quickly. “We really do. I mean, it’s been great. I’m enjoying the hell out of being with you.”

“But you don’t want anything… more?”

“No.” He looked away. “I mean, certainly not now, anyway. It’s been eight weeks, Lena. Don’t you think it’s way too soon for this particular conversation?”

“Oh. You think I should wait until I’ve put in eight months and then find out I’ve been wasting my time?”

He was hurt. She saw it in his face. She was being completely irrational. Under any other circumstances it would be too soon to be having this conversation. But she was carrying his child. Not that he would ever believe she hadn’t planned it. She realized that now, and it was crushing her heart slowly. Like a vise with some big guy gradually turning the screw.

“You think that unless we’re heading for marriage, you’re wasting your time?” he asked, handsome and dense and so out of touch with his feelings that it was beyond belief.

Or was he just out of touch with her feelings? With who she wanted him to be? Her dream prince. The one who would have died for her.

She lowered her eyes, knowing she’d hit on the truth. “No. Of course I don’t think that. Our time together has been…” She tried to swallow and couldn’t. “It’s been the best time of my life, really.” Her tears were audible that time, her voice tight and strained and an octave deeper than usual.

He tried to look at her eyes, but she turned her face away. “Are you crying?” he asked.

“I have to go.” She got up, went to the door, needing to escape. Now.

“Hey. Wait a minute.” He followed. “What the hell just happened here?”

She turned slowly and forced herself to look up at him. To let him see her tears. It was the honest thing to do, though it made her feel like a fool. She saw him through her swimming eyes and knew beyond doubt that if she told him she was carrying his child, he would believe she had planned it that way, intending to trick him into marrying her so she could get her hands on his dad’s billions.

Which was a joke. Ernst adored her. If she’d wanted money, she probably could have just asked him for it. But she didn’t want his money. She wanted his son. She had allowed herself to fall—had fallen willingly, knowingly—into her own childish fantasies, where he had been her exotic desert prince and she had been his beloved slave girl.

“Lena?” he asked. And he sounded genuinely puzzled.

“I think we want very different things, Ryan.” It was hard to talk, hurt to force the words through her spasming larynx. “I think my feelings for you are getting close to the point of no return. If you’re not heading in the same direction, then…” She let the sentence just hang there.

He stared at her as if she’d grown a second head. “It’s good between us. Why fix what isn’t broken?”

“Because if I stay, it’ll be my heart that gets broken.” She blinked as fresh tears flooded, and then she stood on tiptoe and pressed her mouth against his, drinking in the taste of him one last time, promising herself to remember it forever. “I don’t regret a day of it, though.”

And then she turned and she left. She knew his head was spinning, and that he must think she’d lost her mind. But he’d made himself clear. Which meant she didn’t have a choice.

Lena snapped herself out of the memory, realizing it was doing her no good. She was more eager than ever to return to the rural community she now called home, the low-key people there, the easy, laid-back pace. The peace and serenity of it. That old vineyard had healed her since she’d been living there with her mom. She’d just reopened an old wound, that was all. Maybe she had to let out a little of the poison that had been festering there. She would heal again. Just as soon as she returned to Havenwood, her little piece of heaven.

Ryan sat in the den, doing what he supposed could be described as brooding, until it hit him that his father’s mansion was emanating a feeling of emptiness. The post-funeral gathering must have ended. No one had come in to bother him. No one had come in to say goodbye. He doubted anyone even knew he was in there, other than Bahru, and God knew there was no love lost between the two of them.

The funeral and the attendant gathering were over. It was all over. Lena was gone, and she’d taken his baby with her.

Sighing, he got up out of the chair where he’d been sitting like a tranced-out zombie for the past two hours. He had to get home.

Why? What’s the hurry?

Shut up.

He went to the bookshelf to get the ornate wooden box, and for some reason he opened it again. The gold-colored knife lay there nested in its red velvet. He reached for it, and that same tingling sensation started up in his palm, but he ignored it this time. Pushing past it, he closed his hand around the gleaming hilt and picked up the knife.

The tingling moved up his arm, and as he frowned at that golden blade, it seemed to glow again. Just like before. Only the sun had gone down now and the desk lamp was on the far side of the room, so there was no believable explanation for that glow.

“What the hell is this?”

He lifted the knife a little higher, turning it slowly to examine that gleaming double-edged blade and then the engravings he realized were inscribed into every millimeter of the hilt. There was even a symbol on the flat end of it, he noted, and he tipped the blade forward to get a better look.

There was a pop and a recoil, snapping his wrist back as if he’d just fired a gun—and the curtains were on fire!

Ryan swore a blue streak, lunging across the room to yank the drapes, poles and all, out of the windows and stomp on them before they set off every fire alarm in the place. Finally it seemed he’d put it out. And he just stood there in the smoke, staring down in disbelief at the blackened edge of a burn hole about the size of a grapefruit and the way the thin gray ribbons still winding up from it encircled his calves.

Blinking, he looked from that smoke to the blade in his hand, and then, after a few final stomps to be sure the fire was out, he retrieved the box and pulled out the red velvet in search of an explanation.

Underneath the velvet lining there was an envelope with his name scrawled across the front in his father’s unmistakable handwriting. He opened it and started to read.

Ryan,

I found this knife in an undiscovered burial mound in the Congo. Could’ve been arrested if I’d been caught smuggling it home, but something told me I had to. That you needed it. I know you don’t believe in that kind of thing, but I do, son. I do. And I’m sorry I haven’t been a better father to you since your mother died. I fell apart. I don’t know why, but something told me this was the best way I could make up for it. To get this blade for you. So I did. And I keep dreaming that you’re not supposed to tell anyone you have it. So, keep it to yourself. It’s something to do with you and Lena. That’s all I know. I love you. And I’m sorry.

Him and Lena? Ryan thought, almost bitterly. Why did everything have to keep coming back to him and Lena?

He returned the knife to its box and set it in an empty drawer, kicked the ruined curtains behind the sofa and sank into his father’s chair, remembering that first night. That very first time. When he and Lena had been snuggled in each other’s arms in his bed right after round one and she’d said, “It felt powerful to me. Did it… did it feel that way to you, too?”

Here we go, he’d thought. He didn’t think she was a gold digger. She was probably one of the romantics. Those who thought they were in love after their first—and subsequently only—encounter.

And yet, beyond his cynical side, some deeper part of him whispered that he’d felt it, too, and he knew it. “Powerful how?” he’d asked, stalling for time.

“Like the Great Rite.”

Frowning, he’d rolled over and searched her face. God, she was beautiful. “The great what?”

“The Great Rite. It’s the most sacred ritual of witchcraft.”

“Witchcraft?” Rising up to rest his head on one elbow, he said, “Tell me more.”

“Well…” She pulled on one of his T-shirts that he’d tossed onto a nearby chair and bounced out of the room, flipping on lights on the way. “Wow, this is nice,” she called. He heard rattling, water running. Her footsteps headed back in his direction, lights going off in her wake.

Then she was beside the bed, a wineglass half-full of water in one hand and a carving knife in the other.

A little sizzle of alarm shot up his back. “What the—”

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