“Whoa!” he whistled appreciatively. “That dress!” He bent to kiss me on the cheek. At the touch of his lips, I felt the gold tattoo beneath my skin flare into life, but whether with desire or to ward him off, I couldn’t tell. I stepped back and took the bouquet, which looked like it had been handpicked. There were tea roses, sweet pea, black-eyed Susans, and Queen Anne’s lace. Fat raindrops clung to their petals. Looking up I saw that rain clung to Duncan’s hair and eyelashes. He’d walked through the rain to pick flowers for me.

I lifted my hand to brush the rain from his hair, determined to see if touching him aroused desire in me, but he caught my hand in his and turned it in the sun so that the emerald ring cast a spray of green sparks across the foyer floor.

“A gift from Liam?” he asked, tilting one eyebrow up. “I have to confess that I’m jealous.”

“Oh,” I said, looking down at the flowers and wondering why he would be jealous if he were the incubus. “I didn’t mean to make you jealous. Liam wasn’t really … real. At least he was almost real. If I’d loved him …”

“Yes!” Duncan said, stepping closer. “That’s what I realized today. You didn’t love Liam, or he’d have become real. So I don’t really have any reason to be jealous, do I?”

As he stepped over the threshold I felt the gold coils in my blood flare as he moved closer.

“Let me put these in some water,” I said, stepping backwards. “You can make yourself a drink in the library. There’s some Scotch on the sideboard and there’s a fire laid if you want to light it.”

I turned away and walked through the library to the kitchen, feeling his gaze on my back. In the kitchen I ran cold water over my hands while I filled up a vase and then arranged the flowers with shaking hands.

When I came into the library the fire was crackling in the fireplace and he was pouring himself a glass of Scotch from the crystal decanter I had set up on the sideboard.

“More of Liam’s stock?” he asked holding the glass up to me. I hadn’t turned on any lights so I couldn’t quite make out his expression in the flickering firelight, but I heard the edge in his voice.

“Sorry,” I said, lifting my own glass from the coffee table. “I guess I developed a taste for the stuff. This is the last of it, though. I thought we’d finish it together.”

His teeth flashed in the firelight. “Good, I like the idea of finishing it.” He held his glass up to me. “Here’s to new beginnings.”