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“Good. You don’t need people like that around you. It infuriates me that they so easily turned on you. I’m sorry that happened. It may be that everything will settle once they’ve had time to get used to it. It’ll be old news soon.”
“But things won’t ever be the same. There’ll be people who won’t trust me, or who won’t trust my control when I’m drunk so will insist I don’t drink at parties, or who might even avoid me altogether or keep their kids away from me.” Raini let her forehead rest on his chest. “Your demons—people who don’t even know me, who didn’t grow up with me—accepted my ability better and more easily than some of my own lair members did.”
He palmed her nape. “I don’t think it would have worked out that way if our history had included a Doyle. They haven’t seen how destructive your ability can be, or lost people to a rogue demon with said ability. We don’t have the scars that your lair has.”
“I know. And I know it isn’t rational of me to think that everyone from my lair might have taken the news a lot better—”
“It’s not irrational that you’d hoped that they would have reacted differently.” It was merely an emotional hope. He squeezed her nape. “Come home with me.”
She raised her head. “I was going to have a hot bath and relax and watch TV.”
“If you stay here, your relatives will appear to check on you and keep you company because they love and worry about you. But I don’t think you could deal with the fuss right now.”
“You’re right, I couldn’t. I still feel too overwhelmed by everything.”
“Then come with me. I have a bathtub and a TV, remember. You can stick to the plans you had. You’ll just follow through with them somewhere else.”
She swallowed. “I’d be really shit company. I feel so … lost at the moment.”
She looked it, and it made both him and his demon anxious to fix everything for her. Maddox let his fingers drift through her hair. “You’re not lost, baby. I have you.” He gave her nape another gentle squeeze. “And I’m not looking for company or conversation. I just don’t want you to be alone. So I’m not taking no for an answer. You’re coming with me.”
She let out a weak chuckle. “You’re a bossy bitch at times.”
He felt his mouth curve. “It doesn’t bother you as much as you thought it would.”
“You know, weirdly enough, it doesn’t.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As they stood at the hostess station of the Underground restaurant a week later, Raini found herself torn. Should she be the bigger person and ignore how the hostess ogled Maddox, or should she do as her demon wanted and quite simply set the woman’s shoes on fire?
It wasn’t like the burns and blisters would take more than an hour or so to heal. There’d be no permanent scarring or anything. It would be a not-so-friendly warning, that’s all. A life lesson, even. Life lessons were important. It would stop the hostess from making the same mistake with another couple, and that could only be a positive thing, couldn’t it? Raini would be doing her a favor, really.
Maddox slid his arm around Raini’s waist and settled it on her hip. “You all right?”
“Just a little tired.” Of people who’d bat their eyelids at a man right in front of his date.
Okay, so Raini wasn’t really his date for the evening. They were only on an anchor outing. But the hostess didn’t know that, did she?
Maddox often took Raini places these days. Harper had switched from being annoyed by how he tried monopolizing Raini’s time to approving of it. It was as if he’d passed some sort of test in the sphinx’s estimation. Harper probably just liked that he wasn’t doing a half-assed job at this anchor business.
Whenever he and Raini spent time together, they’d talk, share, learn more about each other. And, of course, he’d repeatedly hint at her joining his lair. If she couldn’t even handle watching a hostess ogle him, she’d hardly handle seeing him jump from one relationship to another. It would be easier if they were part of separate lairs. She’d know of his flings and relationships, but it wouldn’t be in her face all the time.
“I like a good dessert as much as the next person,” said Carmen. “But a dessert restaurant? No. No, this ain’t my thing.”
Hector snickered. “What you mean is … you can’t bring yourself to eat here because you know you’d stuff your face with all different kinds of cake.”
“Yes, that is what I mean,” Carmen admitted with no shame.
“Well, I’m gonna order something,” he told her.
Carmen frowned. “We’re here on guard duty, Hector.”
“Doesn’t mean we can’t eat while we’re here.”
Raini smiled. The Underground was jampacked with cafes, diners, and restaurants. But this was a favorite of hers. And yes, it had everything to do with the fact that it served purely desserts.
