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“I’m not lying! She did that. Ask Dair. She’s terrifying.”

My eyes widened as Ro shrugged as though it was all no big deal. “Even if that is somehow true, he must not have minded too much. They’re one of the happiest married couples I’ve ever seen.”

“Yes, because she plotted it that way.”

Ro shrugged again. “She can help me plot out my life too, if that’s the result.”

It boggled the mind. Those two conniving women together made me shudder in dread. Oh the schemes they could concoct if they teamed up. “What can I bribe you with to make sure that never happens?” I asked her archly.

She just laughed.

The next morning I found a picture on my desk of a small pink unicorn stomping another, much bigger blue unicorn into a rainbow puddle on the ground at its feet while Mayhem watched with glee.

“A bit violent for children, don’t you think?” I shouted.

“Oh that’s not going in a book!” she called back from her office. “That one was for you to keep. Don’t you like it?”

I loved it.

I had it framed by the end of the day and hung it directly across from my desk where I could look at it constantly.

That bit of mischief was going to be worth money someday.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I PRACTICED VIOLIN a few days a week. I’d played since I was a child. While I didn’t take it as seriously as I used to, I still kept up with it so I wouldn’t lose all mastery of the craft.

It was a natural stress reliever for me and I often played in my office when I got stuck on a part of a novel and just needed to step away.

I noticed pretty quickly that Ro was enamored with it. When I’d play she’d hover nearby, close her eyes, and listen.

As soon as I caught on to that I was practicing more than ever. I liked to watch her like that, unguarded and peaceful. She looked different, her face wiped almost clean of everything but innocent pleasure.

It reminded me rather pointedly that I’d like to see what it looked like filled with the other kind of pleasure.

“How can you play like that when you’re… you?” she asked me one day just as I was putting my instrument away.

She’d wandered into my office while I played that time, even sitting on my couch, leaning her head back and closing her eyes to listen. I’d practiced longer to keep her there.

“Play like what?” I asked, already half-smiling at her potentially ornery answer.

“Like you’re a romantic,” she said promptly. “When you’re a cynic down to your soul.”

I laughed. She wasn’t wrong but the way she said it was so judgmental that I could tell she was looking to get a rise out of me.

“Don’t look too much into it. Just sit back and enjoy.”

“You’re really good,” she pointed out.

She was talking about the violin, of course.

I purposely took it wrong. “You have no idea.”

She wrinkled her cute little nose at me. “It’s hard to take all of the pieces of you and make sense of you as one person. You’re a lot, Turner.”

I was pleased. “Why, thank you.”

“I’m not sure I was complimenting you,” she said but even that was a compliment from her. I’d take an almost compliment from Ro over gushing praise from anyone else, any time.