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“Not at the moment, but yes.”

“What are you going to do if I break the contract? Sue me?”

“If necessary.”

She throws her head back and giggles some more. “Oh, my God.” She wipes at her eyes. “In what court? The Supreme Court of Statues?”

I close my eyes. I have made a terrible mistake. A catastrophic one.

This woman is going to drive me insane.

But when I open my eyes again, she’s smiling at me. I find myself smiling back at her, and not for the first time. Somehow she manages to pull that out of me when so few who knew me ever could. Perhaps her flavor of insanity won’t be so terrible.

After all, I’ve endured worse. I’ve endured eternity. Surely I can endure ten weeks with April Stevens.

And when my curse is broken, she’ll leave. I’ll have my house back. I’ll have my life back—my freedom.

It’s a perfect arrangement.

chapter

five

April

“So, how exactly do we break a curse?”

Gabriel looks at me from his position on the sofa.

He’s sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him, looking entirely too comfortable for a man who has spent the last hundred and forty-three years as a lawn ornament. Well, a balcony ornament. Whatever.

“I don’t know,” he says.

I blink. “You don’t know?”

“No.”

“Not even a little?”

“If I knew how to break the curse, April, don’t you think I would have done so by now?”

“Well, excuse me for asking.”

He sighs.

I sigh back.

We stare at each other. This is going to be a very long ten weeks. Except for the fact that it is not a hardship to look at him. He is ridiculously attractive. He’s almost more believable in his statue form than he is in human. I mean, really… who looks that perfect? Perfect body—and I do know this because I have seen all of him. Perfect face with his model-like bone structure and piercing gray eyes. Ugh.

Pretty though he may be, he is not the friendliest. Still, listening to his voice is always pleasant. I think it’s the faint accent. It’s certainly not his words since he’s so arrogant and bossy.

“You look as if you are having an entire conversation with yourself,” he says.

“Maybe I am,” I say. “Let’s start with the basics. What do you know?”

“I was cursed.”

I roll my eyes. “Yes, we’ve established that.”