“Are you crazy?” he asked me. “Are you trying to lead the police to my door?”

“Part of my assignment was to make sure we weren’t followed,” Barbie said. “I lost our tail down in South Philly before I even headed this direction.” She smiled her most Barbieish smile and gave Raphael an appraising look. “So, we meet again, Mr. Brewster,” she said. “Amazing that you and Morgan are such close friends, under the circumstances.”

Okay, maybe having Barbie bring Brian to Raphael’s house hadn’t been such a hot idea. She knew Tommy Brewster was possessed, but she had no idea he was no longer possessed by his original demon. Nor was there any way it would make sense to her that an exorcist was hanging out with a demon she’d once been hired to exorcize.

Raphael looked like he was about one step short of killing me. His fists were clenched at his sides, his cheeks flushed with rage. “You couldn’t have consulted us before inviting her here?” he asked, and he was mad enough that I saw the phantom glow in his eyes.

I shrugged. “You would have said no. Quit crying over spilled milk.” I then tried to pretend Raphael didn’t exist. “Barbie, this is …” I let my voice trail off as I looked at Saul, suddenly realizing I couldn’t remember what name he was using. It’s customary for demons to adopt their hosts’ names on the Mortal Plain—I was going to have to try to remember to call Raphael “Tommy.” But though I’d had to give my building staff Saul’s name, I was drawing a complete blank. Did I tell them Paul? Or had we stuck with Saul and just made up a last name?

“My name is Saul,” he said, striding forward and offering Barbie a smile and a handshake. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise,” she said, and I could see the questions gathering in her eyes. To her credit, she refrained from asking any. Her beauty-queen smile was getting on my nerves, but she put it to good use, trying to charm my demon bodyguards. “Why don’t the three of us get acquainted while Morgan and Brian have a little chat?”

Raphael was still fuming, but Saul’s eyes sparked with interest. From the way he was looking at Barbie, I guessed that he, like most demons, swung both ways. I doubted he’d had the chance to do any swinging one way or the other since he’d returned to the Mortal Plain. If hopes of getting laid would keep him distracted, I was all for it.

Heart fluttering in my chest, hands clammy, I finally turned to look at Brian. He was wearing his lawyer face, the one that gave nothing away. It was an improvement over the fury and the coldness, but it wasn’t what I’d hoped to see.

I cleared my throat, afraid my voice would come out froggy if I didn’t. “Come on back,” I said to Brian, jerking my head toward the hallway that led to the guest room I’d appropriated.

He didn’t speak, just followed me like a brooding shadow. I had to rub my hands on my pants legs or I might not have been able to get the door open. Again, Brian followed without speaking, closing the door behind himself, then leaning his back against it.

The only place to sit in this room was the bed, and Brian’s body language told me not to bother asking. I sat down because I wasn’t sure my knees would hold me if I didn’t. Brian waited for me to speak. From the living room, I heard the TV turned on. I’d bet anything it was Barbie who’d thought of putting the TV on to give Brian and me some extra privacy.

I took a deep breath in a futile attempt to steady my nerves, then forced myself to meet Brian’s eyes. Still nothing.

“You’re still mad at me,” I said. “Even though you know now that I didn’t cheat on you.”

“Yes.”

I expected him to elaborate, but he didn’t. Obviously, he wasn’t going to make this easy for me. “Care to tell me why?”

His shoulders drooped, and he shook his head. “The fact that you even have to ask …” His voice faded out, and he wouldn’t look at me.

I’ve always known I’m a bit dense where interpersonal relations are concerned, but once he said that, I knew exactly what I had done wrong. Again. But it was something I was never going to regret.

“Was it so wrong of me not to want to … burden you with what I’d gone through?” I asked softly.

Brian pushed away from the door, but he only took one step closer to me, and his lawyer face was morphing into his mad face. “It was wrong of you to keep secrets, to lie to me! Or had you forgotten you’d just promised not to do that again?”

My knees felt a little steadier, so I stood up to face him. “I didn’t lie to you.”

He made a grunt of disgust. “A lie by omission is still a lie in my book.”

Brian’s book had always had a hell of a lot more stringent rules than mine. “So that’s it?” I asked, anger making my voice break. “I fail to tell you what I had to do to save your life, and that’s the end of us?”

Brian hid his own anger under the lawyer face again. “You still don’t get it. If this were an isolated incident, sure, I’d get over it. But it’s a pattern of behavior. Would you like me to list all the times you’ve lied to me or kept me in the dark ‘for my own good’ in the last couple of months? Because if I start ticking them off on my fingers, I’m going to need another set of hands.”

It was true that I’d kept a hell of a lot from him, but I had good cause. “Can you really blame me for trying to protect the man I love?” My voice broke again, but damned if I was going to let myself cry.

“When your idea of protecting me is to treat me as if I’m not able to take care of myself, then yes, I can blame you.”

“But, Brian—”

“And you know what? You may tell yourself you’re being noble by trying to protect me, but what you’re really doing is protecting your own damn self. You didn’t tell me about your deal with Adam because you didn’t trust me not to act like a caveman and treat you like damaged goods if I knew. How could you possibly believe I’d be mad at you for what you did? If there’s anyone to be mad at, it’s Adam, not you. But did you give me enough credit to believe I’d act rational? No!”

I gasped, appalled in more ways than I could name. I had never even considered that Brian might have interpreted my silence that way. Unfortunately, he wasn’t finished.

“Every time you’ve chosen not to tell me something, it’s because you’ve believed that if you told me, I’d do the worst possible thing. I’d dump you, or fly into a jealous rage, or throw myself in front of a speeding truck. So you’ve never once trusted me to look out for your best interests, or to agree with your plans, or to act like an intelligent adult. I can’t keep living like that.”

Despite my best intentions, my eyes were starting to sting. I blinked frantically, wishing I could tell him he was completely off base, and knowing I couldn’t. Time and again, he’d proven that he was someone I could trust. And time and again, I’d failed to fully trust him. How could I blame him for not wanting to be with someone who always expected the worst of him? My throat ached so much I couldn’t even talk.

There was no missing the pain in Brian’s eyes. There was also no missing the implacability. “I still love you, and probably always will. I wish things could be different between us. But I’m tired of fighting the uphill battle, and I’ve had enough. I’m sorry.”

He didn’t wait for me to regain my voice, just turned from me and slipped out the door, closing it behind him. I wanted to run after him, maybe throw myself at his feet and beg. But I knew there was nothing I could say that would change his mind.

The tears came, and I plopped down onto the floor, my back against the bed, my knees drawn up to my chest, and sobbed my heart out.