CHAPTER 13

“You want anything from the café?” I asked Rory, sticking my head around the door into his bedroom.

We’d both moved back home a week earlier, and though he still wasn’t able to return to work, I suspected it wouldn’t be much longer before he did. His skin glowed with renewed health and vitality, and he was getting through a full day now without having to nap.

“A coffee and a bagel would be good.” He glanced at his watch. “Aren’t you up a little early for a Saturday?”

“Tell that to my stomach. It’s the one grumbling so loud, I had no choice but to get up.” I might have outwardly recovered from the injuries I’d received during our semi-successful attempt to neutralize Rinaldo, but my body continued to demand calories and fire, suggesting it might take a while yet before I was fully back to normal. Especially since I dared not draw too much from Rory until he was back to full strength. “Besides, I’ve got that damn meeting with the inspector this morning.”

“You? Jackson’s not invited?”

“I’m sure he wants to be there, but he’s got strict orders to remain in bed and give his leg a full chance to heal.”

Rory snorted. “Yeah, like that’s going to happen.”

“It will. I called in someone to make sure he did.”

“If it’s a female someone, you know how that’s going to end.”

“Makani is wise to his ways. Trust me, until he’s more mobile, he won’t get anywhere with her.”

“Makani? Why don’t I know this wonder woman?”

“She’s the air fae who gave us the SUV to use.”

“I think she and I need to meet.”

I snorted. “You must be feeling a whole lot better if you’re thinking about future seduction possibilities.”

“Oh, I am.” His grin flashed. “Do you know what the inspector wants?”

“Probably to berate me for incorrect use of the badges and for letting the other brother escape.”

“That was hardly your fault. You weren’t to know who he was.”

“I should have checked, Rory. I had him, and I let him go.”

“He couldn’t have crawled out of that stairwell without help. Not in the state he was in.”

“I know. It doesn’t alter the fact that he did escape.” And while it was somewhat comforting to know that, with the severity of his wounds and the fact we’d decimated his forces, he’d be incapable of any sort of revenge for a while yet, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t come.

We weren’t out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot.

I pushed away from the door. “Just the coffee and croissant?”

“Bagel, not croissant.”

“Oh, right.” I grabbed my purse from the coffee table and slung it over my shoulder as I headed downstairs. Though it was still only early morning, the light shining through the foyer’s glass was bright enough for me to spot the figure waiting for me near the exit.

Sam.

I stopped abruptly. “What are you doing here?”

He peeled away from the wall he’d been leaning against, but didn’t move toward me. “We need to talk.”

“I’m due in at your office this morning. We can talk then.”

A smile touched his lips, and though it was little more than a ghost of the ones that I’d seen so often in the past, it nevertheless affected me as strongly as ever.

“No, we can’t, because that’s business and this is about us.”

I thrust my hands deeper into my coat pocket. “There is no ‘us,’ Sam. We were over a long time ago.”

“I know.” He waved a hand toward Portside, the café just up the road and the place I’d been heading for the bagels. “Shall we take this discussion to a more comfortable location?”

“There’s no point.”

“I know, but humor me all the same. I have something that needs to be said.”

“What if I don’t want to hear it?”

“I’ll keep pestering you until you do. Ultimately, it would be simpler and easier to just listen now.”

“Fine,” I muttered, and stalked past him. The morning air was crisp, but I was too aware of the man at my back to feel it.

I selected a table away from the other patrons and sat down. He slid out the chair opposite.

“What do you want to say?” My voice was flat—almost harsh.

He didn’t immediately answer; instead, he smiled at the waitress as she appeared at our table, and he ordered a coffee. I ordered drinks and bagels for both Rory and myself.

“You have until that order gets back,” I said. “Then I’m leaving.”

“Fine.” He laced his fingers together and leaned forward. “What I attempted to say in Brooklyn—and what you obviously took the wrong way—is that I can’t have any relationship until I know, one way or another, what is going to happen to me with this virus in my blood.”

I blinked. “You were having a relationship with Rochelle, weren’t you?”

“And you’re well aware that she was similarly infected.” His smile was tight. “I may not be a saint, but I’m certainly not a monk—although I’ll probably have to become one now that she’s dead.”

“So why are you telling me all this? We’re over, Sam.”

“Possibly—”

“Possibly?” Annoyance surged, and I thrust forward, my grip on the table suddenly fierce. “It’s a fact of every phoenix’s love life that the person they love will ultimately hurt or destroy them. We never get a happy ending; do you get that? Never. So as much as you might now want otherwise—for whatever fucking reason—it’s not going to happen. It can’t happen.” I paused, took a deep breath, and then leaned back. And oddly felt better for unleashing all that.

He frowned. “What do you mean, ‘never’?”

“It means, in all the centuries I’ve been alive, in all the centuries Rory’s been alive, we’ve never found lasting love. Something always happens to shatter it.”

“Something like me finding out about you and Rory?”

“Yeah.” I scrubbed a hand across my eyes. “And I probably should have told you about him, but your attitude to supernaturals and past history stopped me. Rebirth after being murdered is never a fun thing, let me tell you.”

His face paled. “No matter how angry I might have been, I would have never—”

“I know, but past loves have.” I sighed. “None of which alters the fact that you and I cannot—will not—happen in this lifetime.”

He studied me silently for a moment, and then sat back. “I’m sorry for what I said that day, Red. I’m sorry for the way I reacted. And I know I can’t change any of that, nor can I alter fate itself. But I’d really at least like to be friends with you.”

A somewhat bitter smile twisted my lips. “What, go out for dinners and the like, and act like there was nothing more serious than that in our past?”

“Yes.”

“Do you really think that’s wise?”

“Probably not. But as I said, I’m not a monk and I need—” He paused. “I need something to hold on to outside work. Something that keeps me distracted from the virus, and keeps me grounded.”

“I’m not your ground, Sam. I can’t be.”

“You have to be. I can’t infect you, Red. I can’t kill you—not with the virus, anyway.”

I eyed him for a minute. “The inspector told you about my burning the virus from Jackson’s body, didn’t she?”

“Yes. And that one fact gives me hope that a cure will eventually be found.”

“We don’t even know if I actually succeeded in destroying the virus in his system.”

“No, but he’d be exhibiting signs by now if he were infected, and he’s not.”

So the inspector had said, but I wasn’t going to get my hopes up. Not until the blood tests came back and we knew for sure.

I scrubbed a hand across my eyes. “This is madness, Sam.”

“Does that mean you’ll consider it?”

The waitress approached with our drinks and my bagels. I pushed up, grabbed some money, and paid for both.

“Em?” Sam said softly.

My gaze met his. I saw the desperation there, and the ever-threatening darkness that was the virus. I’d saved this man’s life twice now, but it was still very much under threat.

I didn’t want to get involved with him, because I knew it could only ever end badly. That was just the way it worked for us phoenixes. But by the same token, I didn’t want to see him hurt. Didn’t want to see him lose this battle.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

And knew, even as I walked away, that the decision was already made.

I just had to hope my heart was strong enough to take the mess I was about to get us into.