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“Can I just say, I am really looking forward to three-way cuddling all the time?” I didn’t open my eyes. I knew both my guys would smile. “And in a less creepy location?”
“A roaring fire, excellent music, a very thorough foot rub, and you still complain?” Neil scoffed.
“‘I’m Sophie, I don’t like this mansion. I like my other mansion,’” El-Mudad teased in a breathy, high voice.
“Oh, shut up, both of you.” I opened my eyes. Above the Moroccan tile fireplace stood a tall Grecian urn. “That thing is probably full of somebody’s ashes.”
Neil shifted uncomfortably.
I pushed myself up on my elbows. “It’s not full of somebody’s ashes?”
“I...believe it’s an embalmed heart,” he said haltingly.
“No!” I’d thought it was strange when he’d told me he’d saved Emma’s baby teeth. “A heart?”
“He’s making that up, Sophie,” El-Mudad said, as though he were trying to calm a child. “Don’t tease her.”
“I’m not teasing. I’m serious!” Neil insisted with a laugh. His eyes were wide as if he shared our horror. “My father bought that hideous thing at an auction when we were young. Supposedly, it has the heart of some obscure French poet in it.”
“Why did your father want the heart of an obscure French poet?” El-Mudad asked, sitting up to face Neil.
“Why did you keep it?” I added, shuddering in revulsion.
“It wasn’t a matter of choosing to keep it!” Neil raised his hands, still fighting to contain laughter. “I just never thought to get rid of it. It’s been up there since I was a child.”
I pushed his thigh with my foot. “You’re so full of shit.”
“I am not!” He crossed his heart. “I swear to you both, there is a preserved or mummified, however you’d like to describe it, actual human heart inside that urn.”
“Seriously?” My skin crawled at the idea. “No, seriously? Because that would so freak me out.”
El-Mudad sighed in exasperation and pushed himself to his feet. “There’s no heart in there, Sophie.”
Neil’s posture improved dramatically. “What are you doing?”
El-Mudad reached for the urn and held it gently by its base and not its delicate handles.
“That’s very expensive!” Neil warned.
El-Mudad hesitated with one hand on the lip of the opening. “I have a lot of money.”
“Priceless, some might say!”
“Everything has a price.” With a shrug, El-Mudad peeked inside.
I squealed and covered my eyes.
“Oh,” El-Mudad said, and I pulled my knees up to my chest to bury my face against them. “There’s a heart in here.”
“No!” I wailed, bolting to my feet.
El-Mudad and Neil both utterly lost it as I ran for the door.
“Sophie! It was a joke!” El-Mudad called after me.
I hesitated. Barely.
“There’s no heart,” Neil promised. “It’s just one of mother’s antiques. I swear, there aren’t any organs in it.”
“None of the major ones,” El-Mudad said, sputtering with laughter again before he could stop himself.
I put my hands on my hips. “You guys are assholes.”
Then someone knocked on the door behind me, and I almost peed my fucking pants in terror. Which, they only seemed to find funnier.
“If you’re a ghost, I’m going to be so super pissed!” I warned whoever was on the other side and opened it to reveal a very stunned member of the housekeeping staff.
“I apologize sincerely for frightening you, ma’am.” The guy couldn’t have been older than thirty, but his ginger hair was already thinning, and his translucent skin gave him an unsettling glow in the dimly-lit hallway. Maybe he was a ghost. He peered past me into the room. “Excuse me, Mr. Ati?”
El-Mudad cleared his throat, his mouth still stretched in a wide grin. “Is everything ready?”
“Yes, sir, they’ve just finished. And the parcels have been delivered upstairs.” The servant looked nervously at us.
I would have been suspicious that they were going to try to scare me again or something, but Neil looked too convincingly confused for me to doubt his sincerity. He didn’t have the range.
“Wonderful. That will be all that we need tonight,” El-Mudad said. “Please dismiss the staff. And tell the night guard to give us privacy.”
The housekeeping guy nodded and left us.
“What was that about?” Neil asked, his eyes narrowing as El-Mudad casually replaced the urn atop the mantle.
“I have a gift for you both,” he said. “But I needed help.”
“It’s not Christmas, yet,” I pointed out.
“It isn’t a gift I could give you once the rest of your guests arrive.” He motioned to the door. “Go up to our room. There’s something for you there. Then meet me in the conservatory in one hour.” We hesitated, and he made a shooing motion with his hands. “Go, go.”
Haltingly, Neil and I left him and headed upstairs. Well, headed for the particular set of stairs that would lead us to the right part of the upper floor. The place was a needlessly complicated maze.
“Do you think we’ll even have time to get to the room in an hour?” I quipped.
