But Alessandro had built an entire career on turning scraps into victories. On finding the angle no one else saw. On solving problems that everyone else had given up on.
This is what you do. This is who you are.
The voice in his head sounded too much like his father’s for comfort.
He closed the laptop and looked out the window. Clouds stretched below the jet like dirty cotton. Somewhere beneath them, the Maine coastline was approaching. A small town he’d never visited. A family he’d never met. A two-hundred-year-old contract that might be the answer or might be another dead end in a long line of dead ends.
A quick trip. In and out. Find the contract. Find the Pearls. Break the curse.
Simple.
His dragon stirred, restless. Heat prickled beneath his skin, and a single thread of smoke curled up from the cuff of his shirt before he caught it.
He pressed his palm flat against the cold window until it stopped.
Chapter Three
The Sweetwater Grand Hotel smelled like old money and mild disapproval.
Marina balanced a tray of honey lavender scones on one arm and tried to remember how to breathe. Around her, supernatural lawyers in designer suits discussed case precedents in voices designed to carry. The Supernatural Legal Summit happened twice a year: a gathering of the old families to negotiate territorial disputes, hash out business agreements, and submit ancient contracts for authentication by neutral magical scholars. The conference room was all mahogany and leather, chandeliers dripping crystal, the kind of place where a girl from a seaside bakery definitely did not belong.
You belong here. You catered this. You’re a professional.
You’re also holding the tray wrong.
She adjusted her grip. The scones remained stubbornly stable. Small victories.
“Excuse me.” A vampire in a three-piece suit materialized at her elbow, moving with the unsettling silence of his kind. “This croissant is bleeding.”
Marina blinked at him. “That’s… raspberry jam.”
“It tastes like fruit.”
“Because it’s jam.”
“I was told there would be accommodations for alternative dietary needs.” He held up the croissant like evidence in a murder trial. “This is not blood.”
“No,” Marina agreed. “It’s pastry. With jam.”
The vampire stared at her. She stared back. Somewhere in the room, someone laughed at a joke about tort reform.
“I’ll speak to the organizers,” the vampire said, and swept away with an air of profound disappointment.
Marina watched him go.
This is fine. You’re doing great. Only six more hours of this.
She deposited the scones on the refreshment table and retreated to the service corridor, where she could hyperventilate in peace. The hotel’s back hallways were mercifully empty: white walls, industrial carpet, the faint hum of air conditioning. She leaned against a wall and pressed her palms to her eyes.
Three days. She’d been preparing for this summit for three days, and she was already falling apart. The lawyers didn’t look at her when she refilled their coffee. The few who did looked through her, like she was furniture that happened to be mobile. A werewolf had asked if she could “move along” while she was restocking the pastry display. A harpy had complained that the lemon bars were “aggressively cheerful.”
You’re invisible. That’s fine. Invisible means no one notices your mistakes.
Except she kept making mistakes anyway. Forgetting names. Mixing up orders. This morning she’d called a senior partner “sir” and he’d corrected her with “Your Eminence” in a tone that suggested she’d personally insulted his ancestors.
Her grandmother would have handled this perfectly. Nana had catered events for decades, had charmed vampires and negotiated with fae and once, memorably, told a demon to wait his turn like everyone else. She’d made it look effortless.
Marina was not Nana. Marina was a disaster in an apron, counting down the hours until she could go home and never leave her bakery again.
