“Good. Don’t put yourself at risk for anyone, Olivia. Ever. It isn’t worth it.”

In his car again, telling her she was imagining things, saying exactly the words that would hurt her the most. You’re delusional. Laughing when she said they were friends. That voice in his head screaming for him to stop, but a louder, more determined one prodding him on. You have to do this. Disillusion her. Teach her not to trust anyone, especially you. Hurt her a little now, and you’ll save her that pain later.

He wasn’t her fairy prince. The idea was ludicrous. If she expected him to ride in and rescue her . . .

Except she didn’t expect that. She never had. And that wasn’t what Gwynn had done anyway, was it? No knight-in-shining-armor there, but a selfish bastard who didn’t even have the guts to try to win Matilda from Arawn. He’d betrayed his friend. Betrayed his lover. Forced Matilda to choose when she already had. Gwynn refused to share her time or attention. He’d lied and manipulated and betrayed everyone he supposedly cared about, because he didn’t really care about anyone except himself.

And Gabriel said he wasn’t Gwynn?

But that was their choice, wasn’t it? That’s what Olivia meant—they weren’t really Matilda and Gwynn and Arawn. Olivia was no flighty girl, believing Gabriel’s lies, accepting his betrayals. Ricky wasn’t simply her friend, and he wasn’t the arrogant Lord of the Underworld, either—he cared about Olivia and he respected her, and if Gabriel ever suggested the kind of pact Gwynn had with Arawn, Ricky would tell him to go to hell.

Ricky and Olivia had broken from their roles. And Gabriel . . . ?

The memory changed. He was standing in his bedroom doorway, Olivia sitting up in his bed, her eyes wide from whatever she’d been dreaming. No, not whatever.

“You left,” she said, “and I didn’t know why. I was trapped in the dark, and I couldn’t get out, and I called and you wouldn’t come.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

The memory shifted. He was eating dinner tonight. He couldn’t even remember what it was—takeout bought at a drive-thru, mechanically eaten as he’d sat at the table, staring at a pile of papers and pretending to read. Then his phone rang.

Olivia’s ring tone. She’d set it up a week ago. They’d been talking when a client called, and he’d gotten annoyed because he’d had to pause the conversation long enough to check his call display.

“You need ring tones,” she said. “So you’ll know if it’s important without needing to take two entire seconds to check.”

“Do you really think I know how to set a ring tone?”