She’d been studying samples of luxury vinyl plank, all of which were currently laid out on the carpeted floor of the house he’d bought a few weeks earlier.Now she looked up at him and blinked, her expression mystified.
“Why in the world would you say that?”
He hitched his shoulders.“Just a feeling.I don’t want to make things uncomfortable for you.”
At once, she stepped away from the sliding glass window — she’d placed the samples near it because she wanted to see what they looked like in natural light — and came over and slid her arms around his waist.
“Have I told you lately that you’re the nicest quarter demon I’ve ever met?”
He couldn’t help smiling.“Well, that’s kind of a low bar.”
“Maybe, but I meant it.”She paused there, her lovely face now very serious.“And I wouldn’t have asked you to go if I hadn’t wanted you to be my date.”
That was what he’d been hoping to hear.Still, the expression in her eyes seemed almost wary, and he guessed there was more she wanted to say.
“Is something else going on?”
Delia’s mouth tightened for a fraction of a second, and she took a step back, ending their embrace.However, she remained close enough that Caleb couldn’t take her shift in position as a rejection, more just a quiet acknowledgment that she’d given him a reassuring hug, but now it was time to get down to business.“This morning, I asked Pru to look into the chapel.Just in case.”
Clearly, she was worried that she might have overstepped by doing so, even though it was her cousin’s wedding and some might have said she had a familial duty to make sure the place wasn’t owned by the Mob or something.
Or worse.Aegis Holdings might have fallen apart, but they had only been a subsidiary of the Styx Group, the shadowy company that seemed to have been in cahoots with Calach, the original demon Caleb and Delia had tangled with back in January.He knew Pru had been investigating Styx as best she could, although it sure seemed as if she hadn’t done much more than run into repeated brick walls in her search for who…or what…ultimately controlled the corporation.
“That was a good idea,” he said, gratified by the way Delia’s expression brightened at once upon hearing his words.“Has she found anything?”
“Not a whole lot, but to be fair, she only started her research about an hour ago.But she also said she was glad I’d gotten in touch because she wanted to get together with the two of us and talk about what she found regarding the Styx Group.”
Caleb found himself frowning.“I thought she wasn’t having any real luck with that.”
“That was my impression, too, but it sounds like she has something she wants to discuss.”Delia paused there.“Is it okay to meet at my place around six, or would you rather get together at your house?”
“Your place is fine,” he said at once.True, his house was bigger, but Pru and Delia had been friends long before he came along, so it just seemed more logical to have their meeting someplace where Pru was more comfortable.
Although Delia didn’t come right out and say she was glad they’d decided on her house for the little get-together, something about the way her posture seemed to relax told him she’d been hoping for the same thing.
“Great,” she said.“Then I’ll go ahead and text her.”
She went over to the kitchen peninsula, where she’d left her purse, and picked up her phone and tapped out a quick message.Once that was done, she returned to the flooring samples and set her hands on her hips, frowning slightly as she stared down at them.
“I think Nordic Oak is the way to go,” she said at length.“Having lighter flooring will make the house look bigger.Does that sound okay to you?”
The question was a courtesy, nothing more.Or rather, while Caleb realized she wouldn’t make those sorts of decisions unilaterally, he also understood that Delia knew way more about this stuff than he did, and it was better to go with the flow unless he was violently opposed to one of her choices.
“It sounds great,” he said.“I like what you’ve chosen for the house.”
Which wasn’t a lie.He could tell she was doing whatever she could to make the little tract home feel light and bright and airy, choosing finishes that looked much more expensive than they actually were.Whoever ended up buying the place was going to get a great deal.
“Then I’ll go ahead and place all the orders,” Delia responded.“I’m pretty sure everything is in stock, but I’ll double-check that to make sure.No point in having this project hang on any longer than it needs to, not when you have a bunch of cash wrapped up in it.”
Like he cared about that.Yes, he’d rolled a decent chunk of the profits from the sale of his previous home into buying this one, but he had many times that stashed in various accounts around town.His finance guy had recommended a broker, and early earnings on his stock portfolio looked promising, giving him yet another source of income.Caleb wasn’t quite sure why he hadn’t wanted to be more hands-on about the stock market stuff — it was gambling in its own way, he supposed — and yet he honestly didn’t care what was happening with his portfolio as long as he wasn’t losing money.
Maybe investing in the stock market wasn’t immediate enough for him.After all, it wasn’t as if he was sitting down at a blackjack table with a bunch of other investors and trying to see who would come out on top.
Delia’s phone pinged, and she picked it up.“Okay, we’re good for six o’clock at my place,” she said after taking a quick look at the screen.“And I have just enough time before my three-thirty client to swing by the flooring warehouse and get this order taken care of.”A pause, and she slanted Caleb a glance from under her eyelashes.“Can you manage to stay out of trouble until six?”
“I’ll do my best,” he drawled, even as he wondered exactly what he would do with himself until then.Even though Las Vegas appeared to have been swept clean of demonic influences, he hadn’t had much appetite for gambling after that mess with the tournament at the Desert Paradise casino, and even though his house backed up to a golf course, he still didn’t have the slightest desire to take up the game.
Well, he could always have a swim when he got home, maybe take a look online to see if any other promising properties had popped up.Although he would prefer not to buy another flip until this one was finished and on the market, if the right house came along, he might go ahead and pick it up anyway.
