Chapter 6
SIX
NADIA
Later that evening, stuffed with pasta and tiramisu and more than a little tipsy thanks to some special brew of Sofia's, I found myself on the front porch saying goodnight.
"Thank you," I said, meaning it more than she could know. "For dinner, for the business idea, for everything."
"Thank me by making those corporate scum regret coming to my town," said Sofia, before pulling me into a powerful hug.
"And you," she said, smacking Daemon's arm with the back of her hand. "Walk her to her car like a gentleman."
"Yes, ma'am," said Daemon, rubbing his arm in mock outrage.
"Even better," said Sofia, eyes twinkling with mischief, "give her a tour of the garden. It looks lovely with those solar lights you installed. Let her see you're not altogether hopeless."
I caught the look that passed between them. Part exasperation, part affection, all family.
"I should get going," I said, even though I didn't want to. "Early morning tomorrow."
"Just a quick tour," said Daemon, his voice casual. "Sofia's right. The garden looks beautiful at night."
It was a reasonable suggestion. Innocent enough, given his landlady had suggested it.
But we both knew it was a lie.
The short walk from Sofia's front porch to the back garden felt like miles. I was hyperaware of him beside me. His height, his warmth, the way he wasn't quite touching me but may as well have been.
"So," I said as we rounded the corner of the house, "does Sofia hit you often?"
"Only when I deserve it." He stepped aside to let me enter the garden. "The first week I lived here, I made a crack about her doilies. She chased me around the living room."
I laughed, picturing it. "And yet you still live here."
"Yeah, well," he said, leading me down the path. "Some things are worth a little pain."
Focused as I was on the gorgeous man beside me, the garden took a moment to register. Sofia was right; the profusion of solar lights showed it off in a big way.
"Wow, that's a lot of garden gnomes," I said, unable to stop my snort of laughter. The small concrete figures were everywhere. Lining the paths, under trees, and clustered around a large ornamental pond, rods at the ready.
"You're not a fan?" asked Daemon, laughter in his tone. "Might be best to keep any opinions to yourself."
Surrounded by Sofia's riot of garden art, I knew I should leave. Should hustle to my car and go home to my empty apartment, my business problems, my safe, ordered life.
Instead, I heard myself ask, "So what's the chance of a nightcap?"
Daemon's eyes darkened. "Is whiskey okay?"
"Perfect."
Once inside his shrine to chintz, he poured two glasses, neat, and handed me one. Our fingers met around the glass, and for a beat neither of us moved. His fingers warm against mine, the whiskey between us, and fourteen ceramic cats watching with what I took to be blank intensity.
I stepped back first and looked around the room properly. The pink lamp. The doilies. The needlepoint sampler above the doorway that read Bless This Mess in cheerful, aggressive cross-stitch.
"I want you to know," I said, "that I've catered for troops in tents in one-hundred-degree heat with no running water, and this is still the most challenging environment I've ever faced."
His laugh came from low in his chest, the real one, not the charming one he used at events. "Sofia's very attached to her aesthetic."
"Sofia has a gift." I took a sip of whiskey and let it settle warmly in my chest. "This is good."
"Single malt. Cole gave it to me for Christmas.
" He leaned against the kitchen cabinets, glass in hand, watching me move around the small space.
There was something in the way he did it.
Not performing, not working an angle. Just watching, like he was content to do exactly that for as long as I'd allow it.
I picked up one of the ceramic cats from the shelf. A tabby, painted in alarmingly creepy detail, its smug expression suggesting it was questioning my life choices. Huh, get in line.
"I get the impression this one judges me," I said.
"That's Flossie. And I still don't feel I've reached her high standards.
" Daemon pushed off the cabinets and crossed the room to stand beside me.
Close enough that I could feel his warmth.
He took the cat from my hand, his fingers brushing mine again.
Deliberate this time. "She's been here longer than I have.
I'm sure Sofia uses her to screen tenants. "
"And you passed?" I said, careful to keep my tone light.
"Apparently," he said, setting Flossie back on the shelf. "Though it was touch and go for the first month."
"What did you do?"
"Left one of Sofia's cast-iron pans soaking in the sink."
Nothing could have stopped my horrified gasp, my caterer's soul weeping for his landlady.
"I thought it would make it easier to clean," said Daemon, looking like he was still processing Sofia's anger.
He was lucky to have survived his crime against cast iron, let alone not be evicted. I looked at Flossie, unsure if the contempt in her painted face was real or imagined. "To be fair, I don't blame Flossie or Sofia for that response."
"She's also a single-malt kind of judge." He nodded at my glass. "You're holding yours like you're not sure whether to drink it or use it as a shield."
I looked down. He wasn't wrong. I'd been doing it since my first sip, keeping the glass between us like it was something. "I'm deciding."
"On the whiskey?"
"On several things."
He didn't push. That was the thing about Daemon I hadn't expected and still hadn't quite calibrated for. He knew when to wait. He returned to lean against the counter, giving me space, watching me the way he'd watched me all evening. A subtle presence, and I found I liked it.
I took another proper sip and let it settle. Then I looked at the lamp.
It was genuinely terrible. A Pepto Bismol base, topped with a shade painted in overlapping roses, the shade a deep mauve that cast everything in a pink both too warm and too much. Under it, the entire room looked like the inside of a Reno brothel that had lost the plot.
"She painted it herself," Daemon said, following my gaze.
"I know. You mentioned that."
"She asks about it every time she comes in."
"What do you say?"
"That I love it." He said it without a trace of irony. "Because it makes her happy, and she's eighty-six, and it's a lamp."
I looked at him then. Really looked for the first time. The man who pretended to be straightforward but wasn't. Who'd installed solar lights in an old woman's garden and called a terrible lamp beautiful and spent six months not pushing past what I could give.
"You're not what I thought you were," I said.
He didn't respond right away, as if he were searching for the right words. "What did you think I was?"
"Easier to understand than this."
Something changed in his expression. Not a smile. Something more careful than that. "Is that a complaint?"
"No." I set my glass down on the nearest doily-covered surface. "It's an admission."
The room felt smaller than ever. It had always been small, but now, with him this close and the whiskey warm in my chest and last night sitting between us like something neither of us had found the words for, it felt smaller still.
"Daemon," I said.
"Yeah," he said, his voice dropping.
"About this morning."
Something moved across his face. "You don't have to—"
"I called it a mistake." I held his gaze while I worked to get my heart out of my throat. "I panicked. That's what I do when something matters more than I planned for it to." I fought to steady my nerves, for all the good it did. My "I'm not panicking now" came out thin and squeaky.
He looked at me while the lamp hummed, and I swear Flossie watched each of us in turn, as if we were playing tennis.
Then Daemon set his own drink down, stepped forward, and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his thumb tracing a slow line along my jaw, like he was in no hurry at all and wanted me to know it.
"Then what do you want me to say?" he asked quietly.
"I want you to tell me this is about more than sex. That last night meant something. Because if it didn't, I need to know now before I do something stupid."
"Like what?"
"Like this."
I closed the short distance between us and kissed him.
For a heartbeat, he froze. Then his arms came around me, and he kissed me back with an intensity that made my knees weak. This wasn't the desperate, champagne-fueled passion of last night. This was deliberate.
When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard.
"It meant something," he said, his voice rough. "Last night meant everything. I'm terrified of screwing this up, of being the guy you regret, but yeah, Nadia. It meant something."
"Good," I said. "Because I'm about to do something stupid."
"How stupid?"
"Stay-over stupid."
His eyes searched mine. "You sure?"
"No," I admitted. "But I won't let that stop me."
Daemon grinned, and it transformed him, made him look younger somehow. "Then welcome back to the Ceramic Cat Museum."