Page 30 of Taming the Beast (Fairy Tales of New York)

“Any serious?”

“Only one.”

“What happened?” Not that he wanted to know particularly. No. He was merely following the conversational convention of expanding a subject. It was the polite thing to do.

“He had commitment issues,” said Mercy with a sigh. “I thought I could change him but realized after a year that I couldn’t.”

Idiot. The boyfriend. Not her. She was very much not an idiot. “You’re keen on fixing people, aren’t you?”

She frowned at him. “You make it sound like it’s a bad thing.”

It was, if she was ever thinking of applying it to him. “Where does it come from?”

“My childhood, I suspect. When I was eight I was given a pony. Her name was Dulcinea and I adored her. One day we were out riding, just the two of us. We jumped a ditch. We fell. I was fine, but she broke her two front legs. There was nothing I could do. She was shot.” Mercy shrugged, although her eyes clouded over for a second. “It affected me badly. I think I’ve been making up for my failure to help her ever since.”

Something deep inside Seb ached. He ignored it. “Lucky I don’t need fixing, then, isn’t it?”

She gave him a look that suggested she wasn’t too impressed by his insensitivity. “Indeed.” A pause. “How many lovers have you had, Seb?”

“A handful more than you,” he said, although, since the accident none of them had been anything more than a warm body. And none of them, either before or after, had been anything like Mercy…

“Ever been in love?”

“No.” And never going to be. The idea of it, of being responsible for someone else’s happiness, scared him witless.

“So how’s it going between you and Zel?” she said after a beat of silence, and whether or not the change in subject was deliberate he was glad of it.

“Don’t you know?”

“Some,” she said. “Although when we get together we tend to avoid you as a topic of conversation.”

Why? “Are you ashamed?”

She stared at him as if he’d just sprouted a second head. “What? No. Not at all. Just discreet. And you were the one who told me not to shout it from the rooftops, were you not?”

Of course he had been. How could he have forgotten? What was wrong with him today anyway?

“It’s going fine,” he said, switching his attention to the least baffling woman in his life right now and thinking that ‘fine’ was actually quite an understatement. Things were going better than he could have hoped for. He and Zel were talking – really talking – and he was learning just what a great, strong, brave, fascinating sister he had. She’d been through hell – not only because of him, she’d said, although he wasn’t entirely sure he believed that – but now she was out the other side, and not just surviving, but thriving. She’d ditched the modelling she was famous for and was thinking about putting her innate talent for languages to use in the field of translation, which was why she’d just gone to St. Petersburg for a couple of weeks to brush up on her Russian. She really was incredible and he tried not to think too much about how close he’d come to losing her.

“I was thinking of inviting Ty and Zel over for dinner when she gets back from Russia,” he said, steering his train of thought away from that before it could take hold. “It’s probably time I met him. For Zel’s sake.”

Mercy’s eyes widened for a second, then she smiled. “That’d be nice.”

Hmm. ‘Nice’ might be stretching it. He hadn’t had anyone other than Mercy over for dinner in years, although actually since they rarely got out of bed to eat possibly even that didn’t count, and he didn’t know how to do the ‘friend’ thing. The entire evening would probably be a disaster.

But maybe he could invite Mercy too, it occurred to him suddenly. She’d ease the way and smooth over all the awkward silences that were bound to arise with her beguiling charm and talent for conversation. And then he could show his appreciation in the best way he knew.

Or not, he thought, pulling up short at the direction his thoughts were going in. No. Definitely not. What on earth was he thinking? She hadn’t invited him to the Thanksgiving dinner he knew was happening this week at that pub she and her friends went to, had she? Nor to the wine awards presentation dinner she’d mentioned was taking place in ten days or so. And that was fine. Invitations out weren’t part of their arrangement. Thanksgiving fell on a Thursday anyway.

What Mercy got up to when she wasn’t with him was none of his business in any case. The times he’d picked up his cell, not to arrange a time to meet but just to see how she w

as doing, had been very few and far between and entirely down to fatigue, because every single one of those calls he hadn’t made had occurred around midnight, minutes after he’d arrived back in his dark, empty apartment.

“How’s your Russian?” said Mercy, dragging him out of his violently swinging, vaguely disturbing thoughts.

“Poor,” he said, looking at her and thinking that while what she got up to when she wasn’t with him wasn’t any of his business, what she got up to when she was with him very much was, speaking of which… “My Spanish, though, is excellent. Want me to try some of it out on you?”

“Be my guest.”

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