Diamond Fire

“You need distance,” Catalina declared. “It will wear off with time and distance.”

Alessandro hung his head, his longish brown hair falling over his face. “Per l’amor del cielo !”

I turned to Rogan. “What did he say?”

“No clue.”

“I’m not under the influence of your magic. I’m not climbing the walls to get to you. I’m just here to invite you to go for a quick drive.”

A long pause ensued.

Alessandro tilted his head and gazed at the window. Modern-day Romeo in luxury jeans next to his one-hundred-and-seventy-thousand-dollar steed.

Silence stretched.

“Is there going to be an answer?” Rogan asked me.

“No.”

“She’s just going to leave him standing there?”

“No, I meant that the answer will be no.” I smiled at him. “Let’s go. This is hard enough for Catalina as is, and we’re not helping.”

“I hate that window,” Rogan said, as we got into his car.

Across the street, a heavy crate rose a few inches off the ground.

“Don’t you dare,” I told him. The memory of the last time we had an argument at that window was still fresh. Rogan was a Prime Telekinetic and he didn’t like fighting with me from the street. He’d stacked half of the contents of his motor pool against the wall of our warehouse, so he could get to the window and talk to me face-to-face. “Seriously, this won’t help.”

The crate landed back on the pavement. Rogan drove out of the parking lot. “Poor count.”

I glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

“Alessandro is a count. Conte di Sagredo. They date back to the twelfth century.”

“Don’t tell Catalina,” I said.

My sister was self-conscious enough around regular people. Carrying on a conversation with someone who came from an old noble family would cause a complete shutdown. She would obsess over every word trying to make sure she didn’t say something embarrassing or draw attention to herself.

It was enough that Alessandro was handsome, a Prime, and a verified teen heartthrob. Throwing a title in there would only make things worse.

The long road veered gently between rugged hills rising from the green cushion of ashe junipers and live oaks. We were climbing our way northwest, into Texas Hill Country. The ground looked dry, with big limestone boulders thrusting through the thin layer of topsoil. After the humidity of Houston, looking out of the car window made me thirsty.

“Why here?” I asked.

“She says the hills remind her of home,” he said.

“Where is home?”

“Spain. Basque country, near Navarre, in the mountains. I’ve been there. It’s not a perfect match, but it’s dry and rugged in places, like here.”

The road turned, and as Rogan smoothly took the curve, I saw the house. It crowned the hill, a beautiful Mediterranean mansion, its adobe walls interrupted by tall gleaming windows. We kept turning and the house kept going and going . . .

“What if she doesn’t like me?”

“She will like you. I love you and that’s all that really matters. But my mother will like you.”

The road brought us to the apex of the hill, to a stone wall topped by a red clay roof. A sturdy metal gate guarded the entrance. It swung open at our approach and the Range Rover smoothly rolled down the long driveway, past the landscaped lawn to another arched entrance. We passed through it to the courtyard with a beautiful fountain in its center. Rogan brought the car to a stop.

“That’s a giant house,” I said.

“Mountain Rose. Twenty-two thousand square feet. Ten bedrooms. Twelve bathrooms. Two swimming pools. Tennis court, gardens, the works.” Rogan grimaced. “I once asked my mother why she needed a house that large, and she said, ‘For the grandchildren.’”

“You don’t have any siblings, do you?”

“No.” He moved his hand, indicating the length of the house. “One bedroom for her, one for us—that leaves eight bedrooms’ worth of grandchildren, all on our shoulders.”

“Great.” It wasn’t my shoulders I was worried about, but if I told him that, it would take him another ten minutes to get all of the funny innuendo out of his system.

We sat for a long moment. I didn’t want to get out.

“Chicken?” he asked.

People lied every day, sometimes a dozen times a day, often for the best of reasons, but every time they bent the truth, my magic warned me. So I had long ago made it a point to lie as little as possible, and to Rogan not at all. He couldn’t lie to me, and we had to come to this relationship as equals. “Yes.”

“It will be fine.” He reached over and kissed me. It was a quick kiss, meant to reassure, but about half a second into it, Rogan changed his mind. His hand caught my hair. He tasted like sandalwood, mint, and Connor. I sank into it and kissed him back. There was nothing like kissing Rogan. All my worries vanished and it was me and him, his taste, his smell, his touch . . .

We broke the kiss. His blue eyes turned darker. He looked like he was going to go in for seconds.

We couldn’t just stay in the car making out. Arrosa Rogan was a Prime. She lived in a mansion with Prime-level security, which meant our kissing was likely splashed in horrifyingly HD detail on the internal security screens.

I opened my door. He grinned at me and we got out of the car.

The inside of the house was as impressive as the outside. The walls, covered with delicate swirls of beige and cream plaster, swept up to tall ceilings. The floor was travertine, laid in large slabs rather than typical tiles. The furniture had the same timeless quality as the pieces in Rogan’s house, but where his furnishings were solid and almost plain, with a lot of square angles, the couches and chairs here were more ornate. There was something undeniably feminine about it.

Nobody came to greet us. Odd. Was this a power play of some kind? Was she putting me in my place by making me wait? All my nervousness came right back.

Rogan strode to the kitchen and opened the huge fridge. I almost called to him to stop but caught myself. To me it was a mansion. To him it was his mother’s house, and like any kid returning home, he made a beeline for the fridge. I did the same thing when I walked through the door into the warehouse this morning.

“Would you like a drink?”

“What are my choices?”

“Sparkling water, iced tea, juice . . .”

“Tea. Thank you.”

The kitchen was vast, with dark brown cabinets and beautiful granite countertops. State-of-the-art appliances waited to be used. The cooktop looked like something out of a kitchen competition show.

Rogan poured us two tall glasses of tea. I slid my butt onto a stool at the other end of the island and he pushed one glass toward me. I picked it up and drank.

Eight bedrooms’ worth of grandchildren. Right.

I always wondered why Rogan was the only child. Primes warred with each other like medieval city states, and most Prime families took pains to ensure an heir and a spare. There was no spare. There was only Rogan. I’ve been meaning to ask him why but kept forgetting, and right now didn’t seem to be the best time.

A mechanical whisper made me turn. A woman in a motorized wheelchair rolled into the kitchen. She was middle-aged and beautiful, with dark hair touched by grey, bottomless dark eyes, and bronze skin.

Oh.

Rogan walked over to her, leaned, and kissed her on the cheek. “Hi, Mom.”

She smiled at him. They looked so alike.

“There is smoked brisket in the fridge,” she said.

“I saw.”

Arrosa turned to me. “Hello, dear.”

“Hi.” I remembered to get off the chair, took a few steps forward, and stopped, not sure what to do with myself.

“She’s nervous, because you’re scary,” Rogan told her.

You traitor. I would remember this.

My future mother-in-law leaned her head back and laughed.

We sat under the roof of a balcony on the second floor. Rogan had gone inside to make tea for his mother. The rain finally came, and the air felt crisp and cold.

“He didn’t tell you about the chair, did he?” Arrosa asked.