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She took another pull on the end. “Why?”

“Because it’s going to give you fucking cancer, Nina, that’s why. I don’t want you smoking, and that’s it.”

“Well, I don’t want you smoking either for the same reasons. How does that sound?”

I scowled. “What does that matter?”

Didn’t she understand how hard this was going to be? Didn’t she understand that I needed something to keep me from grabbing her, from loving her, from doing the only other thing in this godforsaken life that made me feel even a little bit at ease with myself? Cigarettes were a poor substitute for the calm I found in worshipping Nina de Vries. But right now, they were all I had.

“Because,” she said as she held the cigarette up and watched the ash slowly forming at its tip. “I don’t like to see people I care about hurting themselves either.” She tipped her head to one side, as if daring me to take it. “So. I’ll stop. If you stop. Do we have a deal?”

We stared at each other hard across the table. Suddenly this felt like a test. And as soon as I realized that, I also realized there was only one right answer.

People she cared about. Which meant she still cared about me.

Well, then.

“You little minx,” I muttered, as I took the cigarette out of her hand and stabbed it in the ashtray. “Yeah, all right, duchess. We have a deal.”

And just like that, Nina grinned. And I grinned back with the triumph of passing yet another test with flying colors.