“Oh, come on, Jesse. You want us to be honest with each other? Then let’s be honest. You had to have suspected.”
“No, Susannah, the possibility of Paul Slater being your nieces’ father never entered my mind, and I’m wondering how you knew.”
“Because Lucia told me,” I said, before I could think.
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I saw in his eyes the betrayal I’d inflicted. But it was too late to undo the damage.
“Lucia told you?” Jesse looked as if he’d been slapped. “And you never said a word to me?”
I backpedaled at once.
“I wasn’t going to say a word to anyone,” I insisted. “It seemed like the kind of thing that ought to be kept a secret—”
“From me? We’re supposed to be getting married!”
“What do you mean, supposed to be?” My heart twisted. “Jesse, I can understand you being angry with me, but don’t you think it’s a little extreme to get this angry—”
“I’m not angry with you, Susannah.” He dragged a hand frustratedly through his thick dark hair. “I . . . I don’t know what I am.”
“Use your words.” It was a phrase we’d employed frequently with the triplets.
“Fine.” He glared at me. “I’m disappointed.”
“Disappointed?”
I don’t think he could have chosen a word that hurt more. Lord knew Jesse and I had argued in the past, but he’d never before trotted out that particular weapon from his arsenal. It pierced my heart like the blade of a stiletto, the pain causing in me a wild desire to hurt him back.
“Are you kidding me? Oh, excuse me, Dr. de Silva. I didn’t mean to disappoint you. God knows I’ll never be as elegant a lady as your precious Miss Boyd. I thought I was doing you a favor tonight—”
“I’ve told you before I don’t want favors from you, Susannah,” he snarled. “I’ve never expected any and I’ve never asked for any. All I’ve ever wanted from you is the truth.”
“Which I’ve always given you, Jesse,” I said. “I admit I may not always have told you things as promptly as I should have, but I’ve always told you eventually.”
“Eventually? You mean years later, in the case of what happened between you and Slater on graduation night. And would I have even found out about your little plan for tonight if David hadn’t called?”
“Which little plan?”
His lips twitched cynically. “So many you can’t even keep track! The one involving the bargain you made with Slater.”
Oh, that plan.
“I was never actually going to go through with that bargain, Jesse. I was going to use the handcuffs and taser on him that you put in the car for Father Francisco. But then—”
“Nombre de Dios.” He looked heavenward. “I suppose because I showed up here, you couldn’t. And it’s a good thing that I did. A man like Slater, who has no scruples about using force against a woman, would only have enjoyed—”
“No. I used those on Delgado. Paul would have figured out what I was up to if I’d brought that bag up to his hotel room. I used the sleeping pills on him instead.”
Jesse shook his head incredulously. “And did you see how effective they were? He takes pills like those for recreation, Susannah!”
“I know.” My shoulders sagged. “I guess noncompliant living persons aren’t really my specialty.”
“I wouldn’t say that. Come here.”
I’d been studying my shoes. Now I looked up, feeling a twinge of hope. “What?”
“I said come here. You’re shivering.”
I took a step toward him, and he peeled off his suit jacket and laid it over my shoulders.
He might have been angry with me—and part demon—but unlike Paul, who was all human, he was still a gentleman. The heat from his body quickly penetrated mine, warming me all over.
More than the warmth from his jacket, however, the fresh clean scent of him and the brush of his fingers against my skin reminded me how much I loved him.
“Oh, Jesse,” I said. “Can we not fight? It’s the worst.”
He appeared unmoved. “No, Susannah. The worst is hearing that your future wife has volunteered to open a mediator school in her old home for the sole purpose of educating Paul Slater’s daughters.”
“Jesse, come on. You know that it isn’t what I meant. Not a school. I was thinking of the clinic we’ve always talked about opening. You’ll look after children’s physical well-being, and I’ll look after their mental health. You should see the promo design CeeCee came up with . . .”
“You can’t open a medical clinic in a residential neighborhood, Susannah.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, yeah, you’re probably right. We’ll just have to live there, then.”
“In the house where I died?”
“In the house where we fell in love. A house I scored for free, in case you missed that part.”
Any couple that had spent as much time as we had in a long-distance relationship (not only because we’d been away at different colleges, but because one of us had been undead for a part of the time we’d been together) was bound to fight—us maybe even more than other couples, given our peculiar situation . . .