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“I’ll need one of your hands,” he said, reaching out to me. I hesitated, and he added, “It’s okay. Nothing will happen to you, but I need to see if this spell is specific to you or if it’s a more general spell simply meant to enhance these shoes.”
I tentatively reached my left hand out to him. He laced his fingers through mine, and I thought I’d die on the spot. Did he have any idea what he did to me? When this was over, I’d have to avoid him for a while or risk spontaneous human combustion.
His eyes went unfocused as he held his other hand over the shoes. He blinked, then smiled. “It looks like you were right, it’s definitely Ari, and the spell is specific to you. Which means she, or someone she was working with, knew you were going to lose your immunity. I think there’s even a transmitter in there, too. That could be how you and Rod were affected last night. As long as you were wearing those shoes, they could influence you and the people around you.”
“So that’s evidence, then?”
He nodded. “Unfortunately, that means I can’t disenchant your shoes yet. I’ll need to take them to the office Monday and document everything.”
I sighed. “That’s okay. It’s not like I have anywhere to wear them anytime soon.”
“What size do you wear? I may be able to come up with something you can wear home.”
“Seven. Don’t tell me you keep ladies’ shoes lying around the house.”
“No, but my downstairs neighbor should have something you can borrow. She doesn’t get out much anymore, so it’s not as though she’ll be needing snow boots.” He got up and picked up the red shoes. “In the meantime, I’d better put these away where they’ll be safe.”
As he went out into the hallway, I leaned my back against the sofa and wondered what would happen next. I hoped his mention of shoes to wear home didn’t mean he wanted me to leave. This place already felt more like home to me than my own home did. Maybe it was the fireplace, or the Christmas tree, or even the cat, who got up from her spot in front of the fireplace and crawled into my lap. Then Owen came back into the room and I knew what it was that made this place feel like home. It was the man who lived there.
I felt disloyal for even thinking it, since my roommates had been my friends for so long, but in the months I’d worked at MSI, he’d become my closest friend in so many ways. He was the only person I didn’t have to hide things from, especially now that I’d told him all my secrets—all, that is, except the one big secret of how I really felt about him. I didn’t know what to do about that one.
“I like your Christmas tree,” I said, as he sat next to me.
He turned a lovely shade of rose. “Oh, that. Gloria had me help her put up her decorations at Thanksgiving, and that made my place look bare when I got back home. Normally I don’t put much of anything up.”
“We don’t have room to put anything up.” I glanced around the spacious living room, which was the size of our whole apartment. “This is such a great place.”
“Thank you. I was lucky to find it. If you think it seems big now, it was originally built as a single town house. Now it’s two units, two floors each. My downstairs neighbor used to own the building. When her husband died, I bought it from her, and now I lease her home to her.”
If I knew him, he probably rented it to her at a fraction of what he could get from any other tenant. Was he trying to make me fall in love with him? “I still don’t think you’re for real,” I said.
He groaned. “Don’t start that again, please. I’m just on my best behavior with you.”
I liked the sound of that, even though I doubted he meant anything by it. I played with the fringe on the Oriental rug we were sitting on. “So, what now? We have our suspect and our evidence. Do we bust her, or what?”
“I don’t think so, not yet. All we have is proof that she was targeting you. It makes sense that she’s also our spy and that she therefore works for Idris. But we don’t have that evidence.”
“We’ll have to set a trap,” I said, thinking aloud. “We’ll have to goad her into acting.”
“Now that we know who it is, we can be much more specific in what we set up,” he said, nodding in agreement.
“The trick will be thinking of a trap.”
He looked over at me. “Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?”
It was like he’d read my mind. I could think of nothing I’d rather do on a snowy Saturday than spend the day strategizing ways to save the company while snuggling in front of a fireplace with a man I was crazy about. Okay, so snuggling wasn’t likely, given that he seemed reluctant to touch me except under extreme circumstances, but a girl could hope.
While he washed the breakfast dishes and I dried, he thought out loud. “I don’t think you should let on that you’re getting your immunity back once it starts coming back. Make her think you’re still affected.” He handed me a plate to dry. “Do you think you could fake being affected while pretending not to be affected? You did a good enough job of fooling most of us.”
“I may not have to fake it. I don’t know how long it’ll take to come back.”
“And you definitely shouldn’t let on that you know about the shoes.”
“Yeah, but how are we going to get every man in sight to follow me around acting all besotted?”
“Easy. We set our trap for the company Christmas party Friday night. Trust me, after a couple of hours at one of our parties, all kinds of strange things start to happen.” He suddenly grinned. “In fact, I believe I have an idea.”
I loved his idea, and hated it at the same time. It gave me everything I’d ever wanted, but with the hollow awareness that it was all for show. By the time he bundled me up in a pair of his neighbor’s snow boots and one of his old coats and walked me home that afternoon, I had a date for the company party and an excuse to wear my new dress. I also had a better sense of how devious he could be beneath that angelic face. I almost had to pity the bad guy dumb enough to take on Owen Palmer.
