Dae-Matthew hit the elevator button and shoved his hands in his pants pockets. “Where do you want to go? Chef Antoine’s? Cafe on the Rise?”
“Oh fancy!” Ashley exclaimed and Dae grinned at her. “Café on the Rise would be wonderful. I’ve been meaning to try their croque monsieur.”
“On the Rise it is, then.”
When the elevator chimed, and the doors slid open, Dae-Matthew let Ashley enter first as he held the door for her. She slid inside and tried to act as nonchalantly as possible even though she was practically buzzing.
“Matthew?” Isla called.
They both looked out the elevator at Isla. She rose from her desk chair like she wanted to intervene, like she wanted to say or do something other than stand there with her mouth hanging open.
And then the elevator closed and the Matthew face slipped away. Ashley burst out laughing. “That was brilliant!” she said and the adrenaline from the whole charade had her throwing her arms around Dae’s neck.
Dae laughed too, his cinnamon-clove scent filling her senses. “You did quite well, love,” he said, easily sliding back into his British accent.
When she shifted to meet his eyes, she realized she was close enough to kiss him, and realizing that made her eyes drift to his mouth. She could imagine kissing him. She could imagine what he might taste like and what his hands would feel like on her bare skin.
As if sensing the trail of her thoughts, his tongue flicked out, wetting his bottom lip.
A thrill ran down the center of her and pooled between her legs. She stepped back. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be.” He leaned against the elevator’s wall, grinning to himself. “I’m not sorry at all.”
Chapter 11
ASHLEY
When they emerged from Edmington & Walsh, Ashley’s earlier enthusiasm slipped away. She blinked up at Dae, her bag hanging awkwardly from her arm.
“Well,” she said and cast her gaze to the sidewalk. “I suppose I’ll just go home then. Play hooky another day. Thank you for that. That whole thing...it really made...like...my entire life.”
“Go home?” He frowned. “I thought we were getting breakfast?”
“Oh. You were serious?”
“Quite.”
She liked the way he took regular words like quite and breakfast and made them sound sophisticated and sexy.
Several people walked past them on the sidewalk. The woman in her yoga pants. The dad pushing a stroller. The woman with the briefcase and the cell phone at her ear. Everything about this moment was normal for everyone other than Ashley.
In this moment, she was shedding whatever life she’d thought she was destined for, and in its place she was emerging as something other. And that girl was going to breakfast with Dae Blackwell.
Dae frickin’ Blackwell.
Was this even real? She would never stop asking herself that.
New butterflies took flight in her stomach.
“Come on,” he said and offered her his arm. She took it, curling her fingers around his bicep. It was a large bicep, solid even though he wasn’t flexing. She wished he wasn’t still wearing the business suit.
I wish he wasn’t wearing anything at all.
What?! Where did that come from?
She shook the thought away. This was a business transaction and Dae was a mythic being who had magic and granted wishes, apparently. She most certainly was not going to let that side of her imagination run wild.
Someone like Dae would never look at someone like her, anyway.
As they walked, Dae pulled out his cell phone and selected a number from his favorites. The other end answered quickly. He said, “I’m ten minutes away. Make sure I have the garden table.”
He hung up without saying goodbye.
He must have felt Ashley staring up at him in awe because he shifted his eyes to her and said, “Is something the matter?”
“Do you get to do that for everything you want? Just call and tell them and they do it?”
“Well, not everything.” He smiled.
They waited at the next street corner as traffic rushed through the intersection. It was a beautiful day for a walk in the city. Spring had begun to fade into summer and the air was warm enough that Ashley didn’t even need the sweater she’d worn to work and forgot in the rush to get out.
Perhaps this weekend she and James would pack a picnic and....
Oh.
Though it had only been a few days since she received the divorce papers, Ashley was still stuck on that route, thinking she was still a married woman with a husband to make plans with. Though they’d been separated now for months, they still got together sometimes for dinner or a walk in the park. But…now that Ashley looked back on it, she realized she’d always been the one to initiate it.
Now Isla would be the person James would go for walks with. It would be Isla he’d take out to dinner.
“Ashley?”
Ashley inhaled as Dae’s fingers brushed against her cheek. Her skin tingled from the heat of the contact. His attention was squarely on her, concern knitting the space between his brows.
Was that real concern? She knew little about Dae, but what she did know was that he was obviously a very good actor. The Matthew ruse was indication enough.
“Are you all right, love?” he said.
“Yup. Definitely. Totally fine. Why?”
“We have the right of way.” He nodded at the intersection and the pedestrian signal blinking at the next street corner. They were the only ones left on this side of the street.
“Oh. Sorry. I was daydreaming.”
“You need to stop apologizing so much.” He pulled her along through the intersection, quickening their pace to beat the light switch.
“It’s habit,” she said.
“I know. With determination and vigor, habits can be broken.”
On the next street, once they rounded the corner, Café on the Rise came into view. It was situated on the edge of Halle Park in the heart of the business district. It was called Café on the Rise because it’d been built into the hillside. The top level of the café, at the top of the hill, overlooked the English gardens in Halle Park while the lower level, designed after ancient wine cellars in Italy, had been constructed below ground.
Though Ashley had walked past it many times in all the years she’d worked in the district, she rarely ever visited it. James thought it was too pretentious (his words). It was pricey to eat there, but for good reason. Chef Johan had been the star of the café for several years. He specialized in French food, in particular French breakfast. And Ashley was obsessed with food. Really any kind. She loved how food was universal, but so very different depending on where you lived. Food fascinated her for the way it brought people together.
As far as tastes went, she found she really enjoyed French food, and although it was rich and heavy, she never felt exhausted after eating it like she did when she ate heavy American food. French food had its own kind of magic.
When James had to work extended hours on the weekends, she would sometimes drive clear across town to the specialty markets to buy ingredients to make foreign food. Her favorite was the Monte Cristo, which was a fried ham and cheese sandwich. The croque monsieur was another version of the sandwich that she had heard was absolutely amazing at Café on the Rise.
Never mind the fact that she was about to order it with Dae Blackwell beside her while overlooking the English gardens from the garden table.
How was this even happening?
At the café’s entrance, Dae held the door open for her and she reluctantly entered ahead of him feeling extremely out of place, even though, by a sheer stroke of luck, she’d decided to dress up today.
When Dae came in behind her, he set his hand at the small of her back. His touch was feather-light, but Ashley’s entire body buzzed from the contact.
Dae guided her inside. The hostess nearly lit up like a casino sign when she saw him come in.
The girl, much younger than Ashley, shifted her hips and straightened her shoulders causing her boobs to stick out even more. Ashley had to admit, the girl was beautiful. Young, dark and thin, she was everything Ashley wasn’t. And then she said, “Ça fait longtemps, Monsieur Blackwell!” in a flawless French accent.
Dae responded in French, though he was so quick with it, none of the words registered with Ashley.
She was so out of her league. Embarrassment painted her face in bold, red strokes.
What was she even doing here? This had seemed like a good idea in theory. In practice she felt like a turnip trying to squeeze into a flower bouquet.
“Is the garden table ready?” Dae said and the hostess nodded.
“I think I’ll use the restroom real quick,” Ashley said. “I’ll meet you there?”
“Of course.” Dae pointed to the back of the café, to the round booth rimmed in the diffused light of mid-morning. “That’s our table. Shall I order for you?”
“Tea. And...” She was about to order the croque monsieur, but then thought better of it. It was a fried ham and cheese sandwich. She didn’t want to end up with cheese hanging from her lip. “I would love a croissant with jam.”
Dae raised the line of his brow. “Is that all?”
“Yes, please.”
“All right.” He nodded to the far right corner of the restaurant, to a hallway tucked into the shadows. “The restrooms are down there.”
“Thank you.” She hurried off, choosing to follow the perimeter of the dining room instead of weaving through the tables. She thought that might be the path of least awareness, but the diners had already noticed whom she’d arrived with and she could feel their eyes trailing her as she made her way to the bathroom.
Was this what it was like being a Blackwell? She’d known they had celebrity status in Blackwater. They were notoriously rich. Notoriously handsome. Notoriously powerful. But she hadn’t realized until just now what that meant and what it might feel like.
Once in the privacy of the bathroom, she propped the heels of her hands on the edge of the counter and sucked in a deep breath. There were no stakes here, she reminded herself. She was not on a date. She wasn’t in a business meeting. She didn’t have to be anyone other than herself.
Who cared what these people thought of her? At least she’d worn something sexy today. She could pretend for one morning that she was the kind of person who belonged in a place like this beside a man like Dae Blackwell. And she could enjoy it without guilt, dammit. Or self-deprecation.
She checked her teeth in the mirror, then her makeup to be sure it wasn’t smudging around her eyes. Lastly, she popped a mint in her mouth, and while it dissolved, she applied a fresh layer of nude lipstick.
“You can totally do this,” she said to her reflection.
She looked pretty damn good.
She belonged here. She belonged because Dae had invited her.
She left the bathroom with a renewed sense of confidence. But as she made her way down the hall, she noticed a man staring at the framed pictures on the wall, his eyes faraway and glassy. It was such an odd sight, a grown man, masculine even, growing teary-eyed at a vintage portrait in the middle of the day in the middle of a café, that she stopped to ask, “Are you all right?”
“I was reminiscing,” the man said in an accent that Ashley couldn’t place.
“About life?” Ashley guessed.
The framed portraits on the wall were all over a hundred years old. The bronze plaques attached to their frames said as much. There were so many stories in the faces that stared back at her. But it was the young woman with her hair twisted up in a tight bun that the man stared at.
“About my daughter,” he said.
“Does this woman remind you of her?”
“She is my daughter.”
Ashley frowned as she redid the math in her head even though she already knew it was physically impossible for this man to be this woman’s father. He didn’t look much over thirty, and even that was being generous. The portrait said it was taken in 1876.
The woman would have been 142 years old this year.
“Well you’re looking pretty good for having a hundred fifty-year-old daughter.”
“We are immortal,” he said quietly.
Ashley almost swallowed her tongue. “We?”
“Djinn.”
He finally turned to her and the hair rose on Ashley’s arms. She took a step back.
The way he moved…
It reminded Ashley of the fluidity of Dae’s movements when he rose from the wingback chair in the Blackwell library.
There was more though. This man had an eerie stillness about him.
Like a predator. Like a jungle cat peering out from the bushes sizing up those who were clearly weaker.
“I’m Dae’s grandfather,” he said. “Red Blackwell.”
He did have a striking resemblance to Dae.
The sharp cheekbones, the strong jawline, the cunning eyes. He was paler though and he smelled somehow colder.
Everyone in Blackwater said Red Blackwell was the uncle, but Ashley had never seen him before now. There weren’t many pictures of him floating around the Internet or social media. He rarely left Blackwell House and when he did, it was in a large black Jeep with heavily tinted windows.
“So…” Ashley looked at the framed portrait again. Her mind was trying hard to catch up to all of this new information. She knew djinn were real. She knew magic and wishes were real.
But her brain was getting tripped up over the idea that Red and Dae might be immortal?
“Okay…” she started again. “So what you’re saying is…this is Dae’s mother?”
Red nodded and turned back to the portrait. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen this picture of her. It’s my favorite.”
Ashley shifted so she too could look at the framed portrait head on. Now that she knew, she could see the similarities between all three of them. The woman had an ethereal beauty to her and a depth to her eyes that couldn’t be faked. Both Dae and Red possessed the same kind of hooded shadows.
“What was her name? Your daughter?”
“Artemisia.”
This felt more intimate than anything that had come before it, this bit of information. She suspected that Dae didn’t share this kind of thing with any of his wish-takers and the fact that she possessed the knowledge made her feel immediately special and privileged.
“She was beautiful.”
“She was. And fiercely self-possessed. Afraid of nothing. Not even death. She didn’t get that from me.”
Ashley might have just met Red, but she could read between the lines. He was afraid of death? How did a djinn die if they were immortal? And why had his daughter died long before him? Ashley was hungry to know the details. Maybe it was that curious part of her that wanted to try all the foods in the world and to know the secrets of those cultures that cooked and baked and grilled those foods. She wanted so much more than just the little that Blackwater and her boring cubicle job had given her so far. She wanted more out of life. She’d always been content to have James and their cookie-cutter suburban house, but had she been settling this whole time?
Red finally turned away from the portrait. “Have you wished yet?” he asked.
“Oh. Um. Yes. Just one so far.”
He nodded. “Mind your wording. Be sure to use clear, concise language.”
“Right. Of course. I totally will.”
Totally? Oh my god.
How old was Red?
Did he internally cringe when she said things like totally?
Because she was internally cringing.
“Dae will give you clean wishes. I will make sure of it.”
She nodded. “Thanks.” Then, “How did you know it was Dae that made my deal?”
Had he told Red about her? What did he say? Was it good or bad?
“I can smell him on you,” Red said. “Spice. Cloves. Cinnamon. Anise. That’s D
ae’s scent.”
Ashley had been smelling that a lot lately. She thought it was some kind of exotic cologne. “When you say it’s his scent…”
“His magic tells others that you have already been claimed and are under his protection by Law of the Djinn.”
Claimed.
Ashley wasn’t sure why that word in particular gave her a thrill unlike any other.
But it did.
And she rather liked the fact that, for now anyway, she belonged to him.
“What is your scent like?” she asked.
“Wind-swept winter nights.”
“Oh...you...you kind of have that scent now.”
Red nodded. “It’s always there. It’s stronger when we’re invoked.” He motioned for her to take the lead and said, “Shall we?”
She surged ahead, wondering what she was getting herself into.
The Blackwells were even more of an enigma than they had been before.
Immortal djinn. Rich, powerful. Damn sexy.
Yesterday she thought she might just die of heartbreak.
And now today….
She was about to have breakfast with Dae and Red Blackwell. She was under Dae’s protection.
And she still had two wishes left.
So far, Dae had already given her more than she could have hoped for.
James had definitely been jealous this morning. And he hadn’t acted like that in a very long time. Ashley didn’t like manipulating him, but she had to admit, she liked seeing a bit of desperation on his face because something was out of his control. He hadn’t expected her to be...well...okay in such a short amount of time.
He probably expects me to be an emotional wreck. Well, no more. It’s time I showed James just how strong I can be.
Chapter 12
DAE
Dae had been eating at Café on the Rise since it was built in 1895—ten years after his mother’s death. It had originally been built to commemorate her, but the café had quickly become an icon in the city and it was almost required that if you visited Blackwater, you went to the café. Now over a hundred years later, everyone had forgotten the origin story. Everyone but the Blackwell family.
Midlife Wish (Blackwell Djinn Book 1) Page 5