Another pause.

“Yes, that’s fine.” His voice is clipped. The dragon is alive and well and it’s taking aim at poor Denton.

The longer I’m on the line, the more my knees tremble. It’s a matter of time before my voice starts to shake. I have to quit while I’m ahead.

“So what time tomorrow, Mr. Hale?” Reagan hands me a pen and notepad as if there is any chance I would forget.

“How about ten at my office? I can send Benson to pick you up.” His tone is softer.

“Ten works but I don’t need a ride. Professor Denton will feel very slighted if I ride with anyone but him. But thank you for the offer.” I stick to British gentility, which is going to be my theme tomorrow.

“My pleasure, Elisa.” It sounds like he wants to say something else. He stays on the line.

“Thank you for putting this together so quickly for my benefit. I’m sure you have better things to do with your time.” Reagan breaks into a cheerleader dance, using napkins as pom-poms.

“It was…cathartic. I’ll see you tomorrow, Elisa.” He hangs up.

Cathartic? Does this man ever speak in plain, transparent English? I stare at the receiver, amazed that it survived the commotion. Reagan takes it from my hand and places it back on the wall.

“You were brilliant,” she says. “A total pro. If Aiden thought you were going to pine for him all day, he’s sorely disappointed. Now the real question is, what are you going to wear?”

She sprints to her closet mumbling to herself while I call Denton. When I finish, I have no time to take in what happened because Reagan is bombarding me with possible outfits. She thinks I should go for sexy and has four dresses that belong in a bar, not a boardroom.

“Reagan, no way. These are too obvious. I’m not going there looking like I’m begging for him to notice me. I just need to get through tomorrow with as much dignity as possible and deal with the rest of this mess on my own.”

Reagan pouts. “Okay, I see your point. It’s not that I think you should lure him. I just think you need to remind him of what he’s missing.”

Remind Aiden? Aiden doesn’t need reminders. He will remember every part of me—every flawed, inadequate part that couldn’t keep up with the fantasy—forever in his eternal mind.

“Do you want to see what I’m going to wear tomorrow?” I ask gently.

She smiles and lets it go. “Yes! Although I think it should involve a hat. Or at the very least a fascinator.”

She follows me into my room, discussing the merits of a birdcage hat. I dig in my microscopic closet for a garment bag in the back. This is one of my most precious treasures. My mum’s dress that she wore on her first interview at the Ashmolean. It’s one of those timeless pieces that look like something Jackie O. would wear. Lilac, three-quarter length sleeves and tailored. I’ve never had a chance to wear it. When I show it to Reagan, she whistles.

“Elisa Cecilia Snow, this is an amazing dress! Yes, forget everything else. That’s what you’re wearing.” She does not touch the silky fabric but looks at it with reverence.

“But you have to wear my lucky Louboutins,” she orders, her eyes still on the dress.

“Lucky? How are they lucky?” I’m all for luck these days.

“No man has ever turned me down when I was wearing them.” She shrugs.

“Reagan, that’s because you’re you. It has nothing to do with your shoes.”

She ignores me, bolts out of my room and comes back before I can blink, carrying the nude Lucky Shoes with their signature red soles.

“If I click the heels together three times, will they return me home?”

“Only if home is here, luv.” She throws her arm around my shoulders. “You’re really into him, aren’t you? I’ve never seen anyone’s knees give out from the sound of a voice alone,” she says with feeling.

“Yes, I guess I am. But that’s how it is for every woman after her first time, isn’t it?”

Reagan perches on my bed, shaking her head. “Not always, Isa. I was head over heels after my first time, but we had dated for a whole year. And I didn’t tremble at the sound of Jason’s voice. But you have it harder than I did because Jason was not a dragon in the morning. And he didn’t pay a million dollars to get me out of his life.”

“He’s also saving me, Reg,” I mumble.

“Yeah, out of guilt.”

I pick at the blanket that Maria knitted for my last birthday. “It’s my own fault anyway. I knew it was going to end and I still let it get here.”

She grips my hand. “You listen to me right now,” she says, squeezing my fingers on each word. “This was not your fault. You thought you’d get hurt because you had to leave. Not because you opened up to a man who treated you like a hooker in the morning.”

I sigh. The feeling is strange, empty—the way the wind may blow through a vacant crypt.

“You should get some rest,” Reagan says. “Big day tomorrow.” She pecks me on the cheek and leaves the room.

After she closes the door, I sit on the bed a little longer. Oddly, even though she listed all the reasons to be angry with Aiden, anger leaves me like smoke from a fume hood.

I take a deep breath and start organizing my ammunition for tomorrow. Terms of sale? Check. Supply of paperclips? Check. Dad’s picture so he can come too? Check. Baci chocolates for after? Check. Frantic heartbeat? Check and check.

The preparation takes only twenty minutes. The rest of the night is a different matter. I plug in my dinosaur stereo—a garage sale find—curl in bed and turn off the light. Lana croons quietly about million-dollar men with dangerous flaws.

I can’t be with you… Start living your own life.

His husky voice echoes in my head. I turn up the volume to drown it, afraid of another nightmare. But my heart pumps faster as if its beats are numbered. I recite the periodic table over the music to calm it. It doesn’t work and I know why. Because these aren’t nerves. It’s terror. Terror that he woke me up so I can feel too much. That he is saving me from ghosts only to haunt me. That he is giving me freedom, yet I’ve never felt more bound.

That this is still the end, not the beginning.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The Heart Of Business

I wake up to the simultaneous sounds of a knock on my door and my alarm clock. Before I can blink, Reagan barges in with a curling iron.

“It’s your first million-dollar sale, and you’ll look like a million bucks.” She giggles.

I yawn and sit up. “Good one, Reg. We have three hours. Do your worst. Or best.”

After I shower, she sets herself loose on my hair. The whole time, she fires pearls of wisdom at top speed.

“Stay close to Denton. Don’t sit by Aiden because then you’ll smell the cologne and that’s a toughie. If you get all hot and bothered, say some Hail Marys and think of your period. Bloating, cramps, the works. Also, avoid being alone with him. An advanced guy like that only needs two minutes tops to break a woman. So, if he tries something like ‘Elisa, let me show you my office’, you say ‘thanks but no thanks’ because the moment that office door closes, you’re a goner. And anger works really well. Do you have any anger left?” she asks, brandishing the curling iron at me like a sword.

I shake my head. “No. It’s kind of hard to be mad at the man who is saving your life.”

“Sure, but it’s not like he’s doing charity. He’s getting a really cool invention in return and you’re investing the money in his companies so he’s not out anything. That’s why today, you can walk in there with your head up high.” She continues to point the curling iron at me as if I’m thinking of crawling on the floor at Aiden’s feet.

I nod, and that’s all the encouragement she needs. She’s off again. “Okay, so let’s practice. I’m Aiden, obviously.” She clears her throat and deepens her voice trying, and failing, to imitate the timbre of Mr. Sin. “Elisa, we should celebrate tonight. I own a multibillion-dollar club and there’s a table floating on water with ten thousand candles around it and unicorns for waiters. Would you like to go?”