“Your husband is a lucky man,” he said coolly. Lily paused, tension tightening her shoulders and back.
“I’m not married,” she offered with great reluctance.
“Boyfriend?”
She paused; refused to look at him. “I was seeing someone.”
“Was?”
“Past tense.”
“A shame. He doesn’t know what he had.”
How the hell could he know that? She’d known Loren Eshu in more than just a casual way for a grand total of an hour. Of course, she’d only known Rowan a few hours before she’d crawled into bed with him…and look where that got her. Her luck with rich eccentrics seemed to have run aground. However, she wasn’t going to make that mistake again, no matter how charming this man might be.
Still, Loren tried and Lily continued to gently rebuff his advances, citing that recent split. It wasn’t entirely false…she had decided not to contact Rowan. His…problems…were a little too much for her to deal with, she told herself. Of course, the more she thought about it the more like a strange dream it all seemed. Plus, she felt the driving need to prove herself as professional to her new, albeit temporary, boss without the possibility of padding her résumé with his affections.
* * * * *
Lily threw herself into her work with a grateful vigor that surprised everyone around her. She liked having something to do—it kept her from thinking too much about…certain people. Plus, having the steady predictability of cataloging a collection gave her distraction from the fact that in the three years she’d lived in Savannah she had yet to secure more than passing acquaintances, and from the constant focus of Loren, who, to her dismay, never left the room, watched her with unnerving interest, and who appeared to greatly enjoy making her squirm.
Planting the millipede under her purse was evil. She was certain he knew it when he did it, but he seemed so delighted by her shriek that he was absolutely unrepentant when she rounded on him and unleashed a tirade that rivaled the fury of Hell. He simply draped one arm around her shoulders, squeezed her, and told her he’d never spring another millipede on her again. He leaned in like he would kiss her forehead, but she quickly ducked out of his grasp and stuffed her head into one of the many boxes.
It wasn’t that he was unattractive. He just…well, he was her boss first and foremost, and she reminded herself every time the thought cropped up. He was her employer, and she had a job to do. And her heart simply wasn’t ready for another…
Correction.
A relationship. Not another. A relationship.
Growling, Lily flung her notebook to the table and thrust her hands into her hair. Every single thought in her head always circled back around to Rowan-freaking-Keir. Even Loren’s collection took her back to him.
“Is there a problem?” Loren’s voice cut through the silence, its sarcastic edge tearing at her already raw nerves. Lily pasted a smile on her face and turned to him.
“No…not really,” she lied, and wiped her hands on her jeans. “Only that you have a massive collection in horrible shape and your constant hovering is making me nuts.”
The bastard laughed at her. “Forgive me for being interested in the future of my collection,” he replied with an amused snort. She scowled at him. “Of course, the future of my collection could be much more secure if…” Lily held up a hand to stop him.
“I appreciate the flattery, but I do prefer to work alone,” she said, trying hard not to be short with him.
“I was only going to say that it would be more secure if my temporary employee would agree to migrate to my full-time payroll.” Her blue eyes snapped up to meet his dark, nearly black ones, and her jaw felt like a broken hinge.
“Full-time?” she stammered. “Like, permanent?”
“Of course. Granted, I am certain I could come up with a list of perks that might make the job seem more worthwhile.” She didn’t like the way his features curled, or how his whole demeanor became dark and possessive.
“L-let me think about it,” she replied, and shrank back toward her work. “And I do work much better undisturbed.”
Even after the rebuff he continued to smile. “I will take the hint,” he said, and backed away, “for now.” Lily snorted and turned back to the table and her laptop, trying to appear calm and collected despite the chill settling in her stomach. As he left the room, she realized that the work before her was not complex enough to keep her imagination entirely busy.
The similarities between Loren’s collection and Rowan’s played heavily on her mind. Both contained artifacts thought to be lost to history, and spanned centuries. She wondered briefly if they’d been collected in the same manner…
That was ridiculous.
Nobody was that old. Besides, Loren didn’t have the markings…that she could see. Come to think of it, she’d not seen Loren in a short-sleeved shirt, much less without one. Her curiosity piqued, Lily found she couldn’t turn her brain away from her mysterious employer. There was one certain way to find out if he had the tattoos, but she wasn’t willing to sacrifice her dignity to find out. Granted, he was attractive enough that she might give up a little heavy petting…but no matter how she tried to imagine herself in his arms, the face atop the body always morphed into Rowan.
Plus, the thought of Loren’s hands on her felt wrong.
And she was imagining things. It dawned on her that she’d put so much stock into that stupid website that she was using it as a basis for comparison between her former lover and her current employer. Lily set her teeth hard against the growl rising in her throat and went back to scribbling notes on her list.
She threw her pen down and breathed a sigh of disgust. He’d just offered her a full-time spot on his payroll despite the constant physical objectification. Of course, Rowan had done the same thing right before bedding her, so she couldn’t split hairs there. Well, not technically. The difference was that from the first moment she’d laid eyes on Rowan, she’d wanted to climb him like a tree, or play doctor, or anything that would involve one or both of them naked and in compromising positions. And for that, she’d had her safe little world ripped open, and despite the fact that she’d been the one to do the leaving—or rather, not calling—it still frustrated her to no end that she couldn’t get him out of her head.
* * * * *
A week into her new job, Lily’s attention was pulled away by Loren’s excited hand at her wrist. “I found something you need to see,” he said, and tugged her to the far corner of the room. Standing amid a band of staves was a sheathed sword. The weapon stood taller than she, its hilt beginning even with her nose and ending nearly a foot above the top of her head.
“A claymore?” she asked as he pulled it from its place. He leaned it into her hands, where she was surprised by considerable weight. When it shifted, she nearly dropped it. “The work is beautiful, but I’ve never seen anything like it. What’s the origin?”
Loren smiled and lifted the weapon easily. With one hand he lifted it and removed the sheath. The blade glistened. It looked brand new, save the stain at its tip. The metal appeared to have been dyed black.
“You are looking at a weapon of the gods,” Loren said, his voice quietly reverent. “Gram, the Dragon-Slayer.”
Gram. She’d heard that name before, but she couldn’t remember where.
“Dragon Slayer?” she asked. She tried not to sound disbelieving, but it didn’t work so well. “Where does it come from?”
“This sword was forged on Regin’s anvil a hundred lifetimes ago. The old world saw it in the hands of Sigurd, Asgard’s most beloved hero.”
“It’s Norse?” she asked. Loren nodded. Rowan. This was his area. Odd, she thought, how after years of loneliness, the two men she had found herself in close contact with had the same fascination. Inwardly shrugging, Lily wrote it off as a funny coincidence. After all, loads of people enjoyed mythology. “And you’re telling me this sword was used to slay a real dragon?” Loren smirked at her, his dark stare twi
nkling with mischief.
“It is Norse…but even I have a hard time believing it’s the real thing. My grandfather owned it for years. He swore it was real, but I’m willing to bet it’s a replica.”
“So you’re saying the sword was real at one time, and someone made a copy of it?”
“Well,” he hedged, trying to wipe the smile from his face, “I’d like to think it could have been. I’d like to believe this could be the sword that Loki himself fought to take from the humans.”
Lily laughed. She couldn’t help it. “Are all millionaires as kooky as you? Or is this special just for me?” Loren rewarded her with a grin, and sheathed the blade again.
“I do try to entertain,” he replied with a flourish, and leaned the sword back into the corner.
“You’re really fascinated by the gods, aren’t you?” she asked, as she moved back toward her work station.
“I’ve studied them for years,” he said. “The big rumor in my family is that we’re descendents of a god.”
“Really?” she asked, her interest piqued. “Which one?”
“Eshu…the African trickster.” He moved toward her. “My grandfather said that’s why our last name is what it is…in homage to him.”
“Now that is interesting. And it certainly explains your penchant for playing pranks on me.”
Loren chuckled and leaned on the table. “That’s my way of showing you how fond I am of you. That, and the offer. Have you considered it?”
“I have…”
“And?”
“And I still don’t know. Is it all right if we wait until this showing is over before I make that decision?”
“It is…” he trailed off, his gaze still fixed on hers in a way that made her feel like he could see straight into her soul. “And now that you’ve humored me, perhaps I can be of assistance as you move through this mess. I know what most of it is. I just can’t tell you exactly where everything is.”
Lily liked the sound of that. “I’d love your assistance, especially if it makes my job easier.”
“Then let it be done,” Loren announced. “I will unpack while you write, and we’ll figure it out together. After all, with nothing but time on my hands I only have two options. I can either help or harass…and perhaps if I can get on your good side by helping, you’ll agree to have dinner with me.”
She fought the urge to grind her teeth. He was persistent, she had to give him that much. “I’ll share a meal with you, Loren, but not in any sort of romantic way.”
He smiled as he popped open a box. “Well, I must say, I feel like I’ve made progress already.”
Chapter Nine
“Look at this.” Dane dropped a newspaper on the table, covering Rowan’s book. He grunted as he shuffled the paper away from his book. “I’m serious, Rowan. You need to read that.”
“What is it?”
“Big news.”
Rowan rolled his eyes and picked up the discarded paper, then folded the pages back in their proper order. He glanced down at the headline:
ANTIQUE WEAPONRY EXHIBITION
COURTESY OF THE COLLINS-GOODWIN GALLERY.
Beneath the headline was a photo. Two people stood side-by-side, holding a claymore and smiling. One of them was Lily, and the sight of her beautiful face made his heart simultaneously race and seize. Then jealousy filled him as he realized the other person in the photo was a man. And seeing that man, his blood ran cold.
“Shall I begin packing?” Dane asked. Rowan stared at the black and white newsprint article a moment longer, then shook his head.
“No.”
“He will try to kill you.”
“I don’t care,” Rowan replied. Looking at the woman he loved standing beside that monster fueled his instincts, but not the instinct to run. “I have spent my whole life running from him. Whether I win or lose, this needs to end.” Dane stood by, silent, as Rowan rose and stalked around the table. “He has her. He has to know where I am. Otherwise, he would not have settled here under yet another false name.”
Rowan paced the length of the room, turned, and stalked back. He did this four times, all the while grumbling incoherently and muttering under his breath. He would have no peace until this was settled, one way or another. He just hated that Lily had to become involved. Rowan never stayed anywhere long, and it appeared that his pattern of duck-and-run was becoming even more of a game for Loki.
“Get out.”
Rowan paused his pacing and looked at Dane. “What?”
“You heard me,” his assistant said. “Get out. Go away. Find Lily if you must, but please get out of this house and stop pacing before you walk your way through the floor.”
Rowan scowled. “Where the hell would I go, Dane?”
“You own three houses, a yacht, a restaurant, and a nightclub. Any one of those would be sufficient. Just go somewhere and interact with people before you lose your mind.”
“It may be too late for that.” Rowan really hated it when his assistant played voice of reason between the two of them. “But if you insist on making me leave, may I at least get dressed first?”
“You have fifteen minutes.” Dane turned on his heels and stalked out of the room. Rowan stood in place for a long time, staring out the window at the cars moving around the square. He thought of his options—the places he could go—and none of them sounded particularly appealing. He didn’t want to eat. The yacht was an impulse buy that he’d never used beyond party rental. He had never been on it for pleasure himself. The other houses were too far away, and the nightclub—another impulse buy—was even less appealing. He wasn’t in the mood to dance.
But it was dark and would be a nice place to hide out.
* * * * *
In the thirteen days it took Lily to properly catalog Loren’s collection, she had done it while ducking constant pranks, flirts, and unnerving stares. She opened every box, pulled every item out of every case, she made lists, and made notes, and had the museum send over a dozen interns to create description tags from her notes to attach to the items. She shipped most of the restoration pieces out for cleaning, but she kept some of the smaller, fragile, and more interesting pieces for her own work. The weaponry, while fascinating, disturbed her. There was so much of it, and it spanned so many different time periods, that she lost track of where the collection actually began and ended.
She even found herself fascinated by that sword…fascinated to the point where she went to the bookstore and bought several books on Nordic legends. Lily read every single story about Sigurd and Regin, and even the dragon, Fafnir. On the rare occasions that Loren would leave her alone, she crept to the corner and weighed the weapon in her hands. Part of her wanted to believe in the magic of it, to know that the black stain at the end of the blade was dragon’s blood…that a true hero lived and touched the very thing in her hands. Still, the logical, rational part of her brain told her she was nuts. Told her there was no way those stories really could have happened. There were no such things as dragons, for one. Shape-shifters, she understood all too well…but dragons? No. That was going way too far.
The stories were all written as fantasy for a reason, and she knew that while Sigurd may have lived, he hadn’t slain a real dragon, just as she knew that Heracles was only a murdering madman in hero’s clothing.
Loren’s advances still came, and she continued to ignore him. It didn’t help that every time she thought she was nearing completion on the cataloging process, she found one more box tucked into one more drawer with one more bizarre artifact. Lily started to wonder if he wasn’t planting them overnight in order to keep her there.
Not that it mattered. She still had to oversee the gallery while it was open. Plus, she hadn’t given him an answer on his job offer. The money was good and the job easy enough, but that list of “perks” he had yet to bring her still frightened her. And like it or not, she was stuck with him for at least another two months.
Maybe…
Maybe it wouldn’t
be so bad. His active pursuit of her was flattering, and he was an attractive man by any number of standards. Plus he was wealthy and intelligent and provided great conversation when it wasn’t about her ass or other assets. No, he wasn’t Rowan, but in reality she couldn’t hold that against him. It wasn’t Loren’s fault she’d let herself grow inexplicably attached to a monster. If anything, she should be ready to throttle Rowan for being so damned charming.
Luckily, Loren was there to break up that train of thought with a loud and surprisingly clumsy entrance.
“Hi, gorgeous,” he said after a smooth recovery from a near-catastrophic collision with a gallery case. Lily, in a swift and solemn vow to adjust her outlook on life and men in general, hit him with a bright smile.
“Hi yourself,” she chirped, and he paused to consider her. A sly grin curled the corners of his lips, giving him a wicked, almost sinful appearance.
“My, we’re chipper this morning, aren’t we?”
“We are.” Feeling silly, Lily popped the lid on her newest find—a box of books—and slipped on a pair of gloves. “Uncovering the treasures of the eccentric millionaire’s basement does wonders for disposition,” she said. Loren laughed and settled the bag he carried on the table next to her notebook.
“Good to know my eccentricity entertains you. Danish?” He tore the bag down the side, spilling warm pastries onto her work space. She smiled, settling the stack of books to the side, and her stomach rumbled as the scent of fresh baked dough hit her nose. Her cheeks warming, she snapped off a glove and pulled a cheese Danish from the pile.
“Thank you,” she said. As she lifted the pastry to her lips, she felt like a bug under Loren’s microscope. He watched her intently as she took a bite and began to chew. “This is good,” she offered around the food.
“I know.”
“Where’d you get them?”
His grin turned impish. “From my kitchen.”
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