Casey furrowed her brow.
Kat cast her eyes toward Nate, then whispered, “It’s not as if I failed to pick up on the sparks between the two of you, or missed the reason why he kicked us out of the game last week.”
Casey blushed, and lowered her face.
“Hey, this isn’t a bad thing,” Kat said, gently squeezing her arm. Casey raised her eyes. “I always thought you’d be the one to break the spell.”
She laughed as if Kat were crazy. “What spell?”
“I truly believe he’s been in this dark spell after what happened with Joanna. And that eventually somehow the spell would be broken,” Kat said. She was clearly even more of a romantic than Casey.
Casey shot her a smile, but shook her head. “I don’t know that he’s under a spell. I think he’s made a deliberate choice.”
Kat shrugged happily. “I believe what I believe. And I’ve always believed it would take a very special woman to break that spell for my brother. Someone he trusts with his whole heart. Who else would that be but you?”
“Oh, Kat. Even if I believed in fairy tales like that,” she began, and the funny thing was Casey did believe in fairy tales, and in the kind of love they promised, but as she glanced at the beautiful man leaning against the car, she knew that it couldn’t ever be with him. Because he’d made his choice to live on the other side of the dream. “He so clearly doesn’t.”
Kat pulled her in for another hug. “Spells are made to be broken.”
But Casey wasn’t so sure. The practitioner of this one had a particularly strong hold on Nate, had molded him, put him in the kiln, and baked him into this kind of stone—impermeable to love. There was no give in this area of Nate’s makeup. No room for change.
Besides, whatever dark magic Joanna had wrought was more like a curse, and it showed no signs of being reversible. She had to remember that. She had to remember what Nate was good for. He was amazingly good at two things—being her friend and sending her into a most frenzied state. She hoped to achieve many of the latter in London, and that’s why he had the car swing by her office, where she ran upstairs and grabbed her very own LolaRing, clutching it tightly to her chest as she raced back down, an electric thrill charging through her from the knowledge that she was finally going to have what The Happiest Ladies in the World were having.
Next, the car made its way to the west side, stopping by the Nate’s apartment.
“Be right back,” he said as the car pulled up to the curb.
“I need to pee. I’m coming with you.”
When they stepped out of the car, they both froze, their eyes landing on a tall, gorgeous, completely captivating black-haired beauty with green eyes that were bewitching. She was dressed all in black—black tank top, black jeans, black lace-up boots, and a thin black scarf, even though it was June. Casey had never met her, and hadn’t even seen a photo, but there was no doubt in her mind this woman was the Dark Queen.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
New York, late night . . .
His gut twisted. He hadn’t seen her in years, and perhaps if he had actually returned her calls he wouldn’t be seeing her tonight. But he didn’t want to return her calls, or respond to her emails, so he hadn’t done either. She couldn’t possibly have anything to say that he would need or want to hear.
He started walking into his building, like a man on a mission. Maybe he could even ignore her and march straight up to his apartment, grab his suitcase, change his shirt, and act as if he’d never seen her. Hell, maybe she was simply an apparition.
But judging from the tension on Casey’s face, the way her lips were parted and her jaw dropped, Joanna was very much real, in the flesh, and waiting for him.
“Nate!” Joanna took a step towards him. He took a step away. She took another step. He closed his eyes briefly, wishing her away, then opened them. She was still here.
“Yes?” He could’ve said why are you here, what are you doing, what do you want, but he didn’t want to give her the courtesy of that many words.
“You haven’t returned my calls or responded to my messages,” she said, sounding oddly apologetic. “So I had no choice but to come here in person.”
“Actually, you did have a choice. You had a choice not to find me. You always have a choice. You just chose different things. Let’s not confuse the issue, Joanna,” he said, biting out the words. Perhaps he had more to say to her than he’d thought.
She nodded, seeming to admit that he was right. “In any case, I’m here because I wanted to see if you still have the sculpture of your hands.”
The world slowed. Her strange request echoed in his ears, and he was sure he was hearing things. This is what she wanted from him? A work of art?
“That’s why you’re here?”
“Yes. There’s a museum in Chicago that’s putting together an exhibition of all my work, and that seems to be the one missing piece. I hope it’s not too much to ask, but I really think it could round up the exhibition quite nicely. And, truth be told, I was always rather proud of it.”
He scoffed, his derisive huff carrying into the breeze of the warm June night, trailing over the noise of the cars and buses on Columbus Avenue. “Well, in that case, since you’re proud of it, let me just go take it off my dining room table where it’s the centerpiece,” he said staring hard at her. “I like to enjoy it every night. Have dinner with it. Gaze at its beauty. I’m rather proud of it too. But since you want it, I will of course give it to you.”
She pursed her lips, lifting her chin up high. He wondered how he’d ever been in love with her. As he looked at her now, he had no clue how he’d intended to share his life with this person who only cared about taking—taking what she wanted, when she wanted it, at any time. But that was his big problem—he hadn’t seen it coming. He’d had no clue that he couldn’t trust her. He might possibly be the worst judge of character when it came to love, and he damn well needed to stay far away from the foolish emotion.
“Touché,” she said calmly, then gestured to Casey and extended a hand. “Hi, I’m Joanna Simone. You must be?”
His ex-wife stood there waiting for an answer from Casey, and that made his blood boil. But Casey was classy, always classy, and she took her hand, saying, “Casey. I’m Nate’s friend.”
Joanna turned her focus back to Nate, tapping her toe. “I’m really sorry to bother you, but might you have it?”