When he didn’t, and I’d given him ample time to do so,Iturned, pulled off my T-shirt and slipped on the dress that coasted like hot oil down my body, stopping mid-calf, then fastened the strip of brown leather I used as a belt. It was only after I was done buckling yesterday’s espadrilles that I looked up at Jarod. He hadn’t moved, and his eyes had gone serial-killerdark.
I walked over to him and chucked him under the chin, giving him a dose of his own medicine. “I’ll see you downstairs.” I kissed his scruffy jaw. “Maybe give me a little time alone with Celeste, though,okay?”
His Adam’s apple worked in his throat as he offered me a heavy nod. My pleasure at leaving him in such a perplexed state—only fair—faded when I remembered our wake-up call. I hoped Muriel didn’t think terrible things ofme. . .
Steeling my spine, I went downstairs to findout.
“Bonjour, ma chérie.Your friend’s in the dining room. I laid out some breakfast.” Muriel sounded so cheery that I was both relieved and mystified. “Would you like scrambled eggs? I’m making some for Celeste.” She smiled wide, revealing the thin gap between her front teeth that somehow added to her classicalbeauty.
“Um. Sure.” Even though the guard who stood in the checkered foyer didn’t look my way, a blush pricked up my neck. “Thank you,” I added, all but diving into the diningroom.
Celeste’s gaze rushed to me, but she stayed seated, rigid as a breadstick, amber eyes rimmed with circles that rivaled the tint of my dress. “Had a good night? Because minesucked.”
“I’m so sorry, honey. My phone was on silent mode.” I took the seat next to hers. “But I told you I was cominghere.”
“You didn’t tell me you’d be sleeping over! This is a freaking mobster’s house,” shehissed.
“Iknow.”
“Do you?” she said so harshly Ibristled.
“He’s my sinner; not yours.” Even if her heart was in the right place, her words were out ofline.
She must’ve sensed she’d overstepped because her brow pleated. “I started imagining—I was soworried.”
I laid my hands over the ones buried atop her narrow lap. “I know, sweetie, but I promise you don’t need to be worried. Jarod didn’t force me to stay, and he was a perfectgentleman.”
Celeste must’ve trusted me, because her gaze didn’t stray to the rug underneath my chair for a fallenfeather.
I squeezed her clammy hands. “Thank you for checking up on me,though.”
Her big eyes filled with tears, and she lunged toward me, hooking her arms around my neck. “I’m going to miss you somuch.”
I smiled into her hair. “Just because I stayed over one night doesn’t mean I’m moving in withJarod.”
“Oh, Leigh,” shesobbed.
“How about we spend the whole day together? And tonight, we can go to that Japanese ramen place in the First you wanted totry.”
Sniffling, she pulled away. “You’ll be gone beforetonight.”
“Gone?” I frowned. “Where is it I’mgoing?”
“Asher revised hisscore.”
My pulse went from zero to a hundred in a second. “What?”
“Asher changed Jarod’sscore.”
Ice.I becameice.
“You’re going to ascend today. And I won’t see you for—” Her lower lip overtook her upper one and wobbled. “For so many years. Maybe forever at the rate I’m building mywings.”
Asher had altered Jarod’s sinner score? He’d admitted his wrong and made itright?
Even though a part of me had dared hope for this, had even prepared for this, I had trouble wrapping my mind around it. “Wow. I’m—I—wow.”
Celeste palmed her shiny freckled cheeks. “You did it,Leigh.”
