Hideaway (Devil's Night 2)

“Uh.” She swallowed, still looking around, for what, I didn’t know. “Uh, I thought it would be a good opportunity to discuss the wedding. This is a nice space for it. Should I reserve it?”

I laughed under my breath. “Sure. Why not?”

Whatever. I wasn’t getting fucking married, and even though I no longer needed access to the hotel, I really loved having access to her. I liked her.

A lot.

Plus, she was my only link to Damon. I wasn’t ready to give her up yet, and she’d be gone the second I told Gabriel there was no deal.

“Did you already have your ‘confession’?” she asked.

“No. I haven’t done that since…” I lowered my voice. “Since the last time with you.”

“Really? But you come here every week.”

“Do I?” I teased.

Now how would you know that?

But both of us knew she’d been my own personal satellite, circling me from a distance for God-knows-how-long before I showed up at Gabriel’s that day.

I moved toward her, down the aisle, and let my eyes roam the vast hall. Dark wood gleamed everywhere, from the ornate arches a hundred feet above us, to the confessionals in the back to the dozens of rows of pews around us. I hadn’t been here for a mass in years, but the smell of incense and sickly sweet flowers still lingered from Lent six months ago.

“Did you know that out of Michael, Will, and Damon, Damon was the first one I met?” I told her. “We didn’t all become friends really until high school, but I knew Damon long before that. We were both confirmed here when we were ten.” I looked up and around again before meeting her eyes. “Together. Classes every Wednesday.”

Her eyes shifted. “And you come here, because…”

“Because I might not know where he is, but I know where he’s been. He’s as likely to come back here as anywhere.”

She thinned her eyes, looking confused. “Why would he have any reason to return here? To the cathedral?”

She really didn’t know? Huh.

Well, I suppose Michael and Will didn’t know, either, so it wasn’t odd for Damon to keep things to himself. Some things anyway.

Things that made him vulnerable.

Well, I wasn’t going to be the one to educate her. I came here every Wednesday, the same day of the week we had our classes when we were ten, for several reasons, the most important being I knew this church was significant to Damon.

In this one instance, though, I liked being one step ahead of her, and since she still wasn’t on my side, I wasn’t going to give up my information.

“You look really pretty,” I said, noticing some faint mauve lipstick that closely matched the regular dark pink of her lips.

“You’re not answering my question. What aren’t you telling me?”

“Everything that you can use to get ahead of me.”

She looked away, annoyed. But she knew she’d do the same in my position. We weren’t partners—not yet.

“Fine,” she bit out, backing away. “Fair enough. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

Spinning around, she headed for the back doors, but I called out, stopping her.

“I saw the charges on the company card,” I informed her. “Why aren’t you wearing your new clothes?”

“Oh, I am.”

She twisted back around, reached inside her jacket, and lifted up her shirt, displaying a dark gray lace piece of lingerie accentuating the fuck out of her stomach, perfect bre