Duely frowned. “I wonder if one of the Kamlock females would be able to fool a man who wasn’t spoiled and wealthy. Someone who had to work hard for what he had and didn’t assume they would always be given the best…”

That was a very interesting question. The Kamlock women had no legacy of money. They married it. With each generation that died, so did the money they’d possessed from the men they’d taken it from. Simply put, they ran through their money and had no ability to handle wealth properly. I knew of no Kamlock woman to show interest in a man who didn’t have riches.

“I can’t think of one in our history who ever tried,” I replied, after thinking it through.

“Didn’t you date a regular guy once?”

I paused and looked away from Duely. I didn’t want to talk about that. It was a very brief teenage relationship. “If we go by that then the answer is all men are idiots. Because, he too, ended up in bed with Geneva.”

Duely snarled as if he was disgusted. “True.”

“If you two are done catching up,” my Aunt Marigold called out loudly from the back veranda, “The staff is arriving. Please go make yourselves presentable before the guests arrive.”

I was still wearing the jeans I’d had on all day. Duely, however, was in a designer suit. He turned to his mother and held out his hands as if exasperated. “What’s wrong with this?”

She waved a hand in his direction and the black shirt he had on under his coat turned white while his hair was suddenly slicked back instead of his curls being free. “That’s better,” she replied then glared at me. “Now you go do something with yourself before Persephone sees you.”

When Marigold went back through the open double doors with a swish in her lavender formal gown, I turned to look at Duely.

“I like my fucking curls,” he complained.

“I do, too,” I assured him, then gave him a quick wink before his hair returned to its former style. “Blame it on me,” I told him.

“Thanks, and I will. Only because you’re the only one they don’t fuck with.”

“That’s not true,” I said, thinking of how they torture me and make my life hell daily.

He rolled his eyes. “Please tell me you don’t still believe that. You’re twenty years old, Catalina. If they weren’t scared of your power, they’d have forced you into the power of three by now. They haven’t because they’re scared of what you can do.”