“How?” I blurted, my eyes running over the lines of text. Did he have some sort of never-ending line of demonic credit? Was there a currency exchange where he could swap out ‘Dollary Dooms’ or whatever they called their Hell bucks for human currency? Did they even have money in Hell?

Well, he’d managed to get that box to me the night of too much wine and not enough common sense. But I hadn’t given thought to the how of it all. And that had been through some evil magic—the same stuff that had zapped my phone with his text messages …

This … this was a proper box of donuts, from my favourite market stall. With their logo and everything. But then, how had the delivery beat me home? It had only been a half hour ago that I’d been slipping out of a unisex bathroom, my lips still hot from his.

I narrowed my eyes at the donut in my hand. The last time I’d eaten food delivered by SJ, I’d ended up on an interdimensional slippery slide to Hell, with a piece of my soul sucked into that little coin of his.

I shrugged. Things couldn’t get any worse than that, could they? And I was ravenous. I took a monstrous mouthful.

“Your boyfriend, Jemma?” Ez prompted.

“I … uh … it’s new,” I mumbled as I chewed, not meeting his eyes.

“So new that he visited you at the hospital yesterday? So new, that apparently he has a pet name for you. So new, that I—your best friend—heard about this through the hospital gossip mill?”

Damn it. Of course Sally would have been yapping about his visit to anyone who would listen! She’d been very enamoured with him.

You were very enamoured with him …

But that had just been acting. He’d told me I needed to pretend. I’d pretended. My soul depended on it.

“Is it the man from the markets?” Ezra asked sharply. I almost choked on a mouthful of donut. Luci woke up with a little hiss and leapt off his lap, snuffling towards my donut box. I snatched it out of her reach, jumping up and staggering to the kitchen, pouring a big glass of water to wash down the mouthful. I busied myself with filling the kettle and putting a teabag into a mug. Anything to not have to look Ezra in the eyes.

“What on earth makes you think that?” I asked faintly. Because it was the man from the market. But it was nothing like what Ezra was imagining.

“Ellie described him to me, when I was doing her obs this morning. Tall, blond, posh looking with ‘all the rizz’. Sounded suspiciously like our fanfiction Draco … and I did glimpse him at the donut stall around the same time as you … and I’m almost positive I saw you follow him across the road, too.”