He leaned back and studied me. An imperceptible shift took place in the way he sat, in the line of his shoulders, and in his eyes. Apparently we were done talking about work.
“What?”
“I missed you,” he said, his lips stretching into a slow, lazy smile. The ice in his eyes began to melt. “Did you miss me, Nevada?”
He said my name. “No.”
“Not even a little bit?”
“No. Never thought of you.” Just because I usually chose not to lie didn’t mean I couldn’t.
Rogan grinned and all of my thoughts went to the wrong places. He was almost unbearably handsome when he smiled.
“Stop it,” I growled.
“Stop what?”
“Stop smiling at me.”
He grinned wider.
“Why did you even get involved in this? Trying to punish your cousin?”
“Yes.”
And he’d just lied. I squinted at him. “Lie better.”
“Nice, Ms. Baylor. That was a partial truth and you still tagged it. Been practicing?”
“None of your business.” I hadn’t just been practicing. I’d been actively working on being better. I studied my books, I worked on arcane circles, and I experimented with my magic. I enjoyed it too. Using my magic was like stretching an aching muscle. It felt good.
“Mmm, prickly.”
“You’re not answering my questions. Why should I answer yours?”
He surveyed me, his eyes half closed, as if wondering if I were a delicious snack. I had an image of a massive dragon circling me slowly, eyes full of magic fixed on me as he moved, considering if he should bite me in half.
“Dragons.” Rogan snapped his fingers.
Oh crap.
“I wondered why I kept getting dragons around you.” He leaned forward. His eyes lit up, turning back to their clear sky blue. “You think I’m a dragon.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” My face felt hot. I was probably blushing. Damn it.
His smile went from amused to sexual, so charged with promise that carnal was the only way to describe it. I almost bolted out of my chair.
“Big powerful scary dragon.”
“You have delusions of grandeur.”
“Do I have a lair? Did I kidnap you to it from your castle?”
I stared straight at him, trying to frost my voice. “You have some strange fantasies, Rogan. You may need professional help.”
“Would you like to volunteer?”
“No. Besides, dragons kidnap virgins, so I’m out.” And why had I just told him I was not a virgin? Why did I even go there?
“It doesn’t matter if I’m the first. It only matters that I’ll be the last.”
“You won’t be the first, the last, or anything in between. Not in a million years.”
He laughed.
“Rogan,” I ground out through my teeth. “I’m on the clock. My client is in the next room mourning his wife. Stop flirting with me.”
“Stop? I haven’t even started.”
I pointed my bottle at him.
“What does that mean?” he asked me.
“It means if you don’t stop, I’ll dump this bottle over your head and escape this compound with my client.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
The door opened and Cornelius stepped out. His face was flat, his eyes bloodshot. All my selfish embarrassment evaporated. Rogan’s sensual smile vanished and I was once again looking at a Prime—cold, hard, collected, and looking for revenge.
Oh. He’d done it on purpose. He’d riled me up and pulled me out of the terrible place I was in after I saw the video. The awful loop of death no longer played through my brain.
Cornelius sat in a chair and looked at Rogan. “What are you offering?”
“You have an excellent investigator,” Rogan said. “Ms. Baylor is competent, thorough, and holds herself to a high professional standard.”
I waited for the other shoe to drop.
“But her firm is small. It lacks resources and power. Things I have in abundance.”
Was he trying to get Cornelius to fire me?
“I, on the other hand, require Ms. Baylor’s services,” Rogan said. “She has the ability to greatly speed up the search for the murderer of my people.”
“Because she’s a truthseeker,” Cornelius said.
I sighed.
“I’m not an idiot,” Cornelius said quietly.
“We’re after the same thing,” Rogan said. “I propose we join forces.”
“I need a few minutes with Ms. Baylor,” Cornelius said.
“Of course.” Rogan rose and went inside.
Cornelius waited until the door shut behind Rogan and leaned back against the cushioned seat. “I realize that this is an uncomfortable question, but I have to ask. What’s your relationship with Mad Rogan?”
“We cooperated to apprehend Adam Pierce.”
“I know that. I meant emotional relationship.”
He deserved an honest answer.
“It’s the same old story.” I made my voice sound as nonchalant as I could. “Billionaire Prime meets a pretty girl with a little magic, billionaire Prime makes the girl an offer, and the girl tells him to hit the road.”
And then billionaire Prime makes all sorts of heated promises and dramatic declarations that make the girl think that maybe he might actually view her as more than a pleasant diversion, except he disappears for two months and doesn’t follow through.
“Will it be difficult for you to work with him?” Cornelius asked.
His wife was dead, Rogan had offered him the deal of a lifetime, and Cornelius was thinking of my comfort. In his place, I didn’t know if I would be capable of that much compassion.
“It’s very kind of you to take my feelings into consideration.”
“We’re a team. I’m asking you to put yourself at risk for my sake. I want to know your opinion.”
“I’m a professional and so is he. We’re able to put things aside. Whatever discomfort I may or may not feel is irrelevant.”
“Do you think I should agree to this?”
“Rogan is a cold-blooded bastard, but he’s right. We’ll need muscle, money, and firepower. He has them; we don’t. And, despite all of his high-handed arrogance, he keeps his word.”
“How do you know?”
“He spared Adam Pierce. I needed him alive and Rogan refrained from killing him even though he would’ve loved to twist Adam’s head off.”
A hawk shrieked. Talon swooped past us and a dead mouse fell on the table. The big bird turned and landed on Cornelius’ shoulder. The animal mage raised his hand and stroked the bird’s feathers gently, his face thoughtful.
The hawk was trying to feed him. Even Talon realized Cornelius was grieving.
“Think of Rogan as a dragon,” I told him. “A powerful, ancient, selfish dragon who’ll devour you in a blink but who also has an odd sense of honor. If you make a deal with him, make sure to spell out all of the important things now and get him to agree to them.”
Cornelius picked up the dead mouse and held it up to Talon. “Thank you. Not hungry. You eat it.”
Talon regarded the mouse with his round amber eyes, grabbed it out of Cornelius’ hand, and flew off to the tree line. Cornelius walked over to the window and tapped on the glass. Rogan stepped out and joined us at the table.
Cornelius took his seat. “We’ve considered your proposal and I have some conditions. Only one, actually.”
“I’m eager to hear it,” Rogan said.
“I understand that there are forces bigger than all of this,” Cornelius said. “I’m not interested in that. I want the person who killed my wife. There may come a moment when that person may become extremely valuable to you because of the information he or she carries. You’ll want to keep them alive as an information source or a hostage. You must understand that I don’t care.”
Cornelius’ voice dropped into a quiet, fierce growl. The pain was so raw on his face he didn’t look quite human.
“No matter how important that person is to you, you’ll give them to me. My price is the life of Nari’s murderer. I, and I alone, will take it.”