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Her eyebrows shoot up.

“Six months?”

“Too long?”

“I was thinking more like six weeks.”

“Six weeks?”

“Hey, I have a life to rebuild.”

I look at her. At the woman who has spent the last week telling a stone gargoyle every detail of her ruined life. The woman who has no job, no boyfriend, no home other than this one. And who somehow still manages to smile and to laugh.

“Three months,” I say.

She considers it. “Eight weeks.”

I find myself smiling because I love that she’s negotiating with me. “Ten.”

She holds out her hand. “Deal.”

I stare at it.

Then at her. “You negotiate like a fishwife.”

She grins. “And yet you just agreed to my terms.”

I take her hand.

Warmth moves through me. Immediate and powerful. My fingers tighten around hers.

April’s smile falters.

For a moment, neither of us speaks.

I can feel her pulse against my palm, almost like an electrical current. Feel how soft her skin is, and how small her hand is in mine.

And something inside my chest shifts. Something I don’t recognize.

“Can you feel the energy or whatever every time we touch?” she asks, her eyes locked on our clasped hands.

“I can.”

“Fascinating.”

I release her hand. “We’ll put it in writing.”

She blinks. “What?”

“The agreement.”

She stares at me. Then laughs again. And as much as I adore the sound of that laughter, it is grating that it is at my expense.

“You’re kidding,” she says.

“I assure you, I am not.”

“Gabriel, you’re a gargoyle.”