Page 61 of Immortal Unveiled

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Kim disconnected the call. “Okay, she’s expecting me this morning.”

Manus, freshly showered and looking even more handsome than the night before, nodded. “Great. Then let’s do this. And don’t worry: I’ll be with you the entire time.”

“Is it really necessary for you to be invisible?”

“It’s better this way, at least for now until I can be sure you’re not being watched by the demons.”

“But didn’t you say yourself yesterday that you can’t tell a demon from a human?”

“That’s right, but at least I’ll be able to see if anybody is following you. And if somebody is, then it’s most likely a demon. Nobody else has a reason to keep tabs on you.” Then he smirked. “Besides, I like watching your ass.”

Kim rolled her eyes but didn’t take the comment as an insult. Manus had proven to be a very considerate lover and not the cold-hearted macho his colleagues apparently believed him to be. “You’re incorrigible!”

Manus winked at her, oozing with charm. “Maybe if you try harder, you can correct my many faults.”

She felt a flame ignite inside her. After everything she’d found out about Manus, she felt she knew him. And the many faults he referred to weren’t really faults. Some of them were qualities. Loyalty and love had made him run into a burning house to save his parents. Not pride or foolishness. Loss and grief had turned him into a commitment shy man. Not callousness and coldness. But she also recognized that he wasn’t quite ready to see that yet. Just like a hurt animal, he needed to trust again. And it was up to her to help him in that endeavor. But she was realistic too. Once all this was over, once they’d found what the demons were after, he would go back to his world, and she to hers. Yet that knowledge didn’t stop her from dreaming of what could be if they both belonged to the same world and not to different ones. After all, Mayor Wallace and her husband, Hamish, seemed to make it work. She so wished she could ask her best friend for advice, but Manus and his colleagues had made it abundantly clear that she could never tell a soul who they were, what they were. And without telling Jennifer why she thought there was no future for her and Manus, there was no point in even telling her that they were intimate.

“Everything okay?” Manus suddenly asked, concern in his voice.

She quickly pasted a smile on her face. “All is good. Let’s go then.” She grabbed her handbag and her keys and headed for her apartment door. When she opened it and looked over her shoulder, she couldn’t see Manus. “Are you—?”

A warm hand on her hip stopped her.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this,” she murmured, then left her condo and locked up.

She took public transportation, now and then feeling Manus’s touch, reassuring her that he was still with her. It was a strange feeling but not an unpleasant one.

Arrived at her destination, Kim got off the bus and waited on the sidewalk for a moment, giving Manus a chance to catch up, then she walked the few steps to the entrance of the Museum of Antiquities, where her mother had been a curator.

At the info desk, she stopped and addressed the employee on duty there, “Hi, I’m here to see Emily Clyster.”

The employee already reached for the telephone. “Is she expecting you?”

“Yes. Tell her that Kim Britton is here.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. I knew your mother. So sorry,” the young man said.

“Thank you.”

It took only moments for him to announce her to Emily, who’d been her mother’s assistant for many years. When he put down the phone, he pointed to an elevator behind him. “Go to the top floor. Emily will be meeting you there.”

“Thank you.”

Kim walked past the information podium and pressed the elevator button. The door opened instantly, and she stepped in, taking her time. Slowly, the doors closed.

“Manus?”

“I’m still here, no worries,” he said in a low voice. “And don’t be so nervous. You’re not committing a crime. You’re just gonna look at a few things and ask some questions.”

She fidgeted. “I know that, but it still feels wrong to snoop around when it’s not technically my mother’s office anymore.”

Manus squeezed her arm. “You can do it.”

A moment later, the elevator doors opened. In the hallway, Emily was waiting. She was a woman who should have retired a decade ago but always claimed she would get bored if she didn’t have a job to go to. The last time Kim had seen her was at her mother’s funeral.

Emily opened her arms, and Kim walked into the embrace, allowing the older woman to hug her tightly to her big chest and the warmth emanating from there to seep into her. It was a comfort she hadn’t enjoyed in a long time.