Divine Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

do one in the office for the longest time, but Damien had no interest in the holidays. “It would be a homey touch.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t do homey. But order some holly if you like. Or ivy. You can put it on your desk—or wear it on your head, if you prefer.” Damien took a good-natured swipe at Karen’s devotion to the holiday.
    “Don’t be nasty. What about mistletoe? I think you need some of that too. It’s traditional,” she added. “It might help you get lucky with your spinster.”
    “Don’t be absurd. And go away,” he grumbled. “I’m reading, and Mace is trying to sleep.”
    There came a second asthmatic wheeze from under the desk, which Karen understood to be agreement. “You males always stick together,” she muttered.
    “It’s for the preservation of our gender identity in the face of feminine wiles,” Damien replied.
    Karen sniffed but didn’t argue.
    “I was meaning to ask if you would mind if I left a little early tonight.”
    “Not at all. Shop to your heart’s content.”
    “It isn’t that.” Karen hesitated, and after a moment Damien looked up. He raised a brow.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Probably nothing. I think maybe I’ve acquired an admirer. Normally I wouldn’t mind, but…” She trailed off, unable to explain her uneasiness. “Anyhow, I’d like to leave before dark.”
    “And so you shall. But I’m sending you home in the car.”
    “That isn’t necessary.”
    “Of course it is,” Damien answered, returning his attention to his manuscript.

Chapter Three
It is all very well to keep food for another day, but pleasure should be taken as it comes.
—Ninon de Lenclos
But Words are things,
And a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew upon a thought,
Produces that which makes thousands,
Perhaps millions, think.
—Byron, Don Juan, canto III
You should have a softer pillow than my heart.
—Byron’s supposed words to his wife on their wedding night
    Brice Ashton climbed out of the cab, taking her small suitcase with her. The snow felt like soft laughter and made her smile in spite of her annoyance at being late for her appointment—if appointment it could be called. She had simply announced her pending arrival to Damien Ruthven’s secretary and then hung up the airport pay phone.
    And she was very tardy, possibly unforgivably so, but she stood for a moment, in spite of the hour and the snow covering her in a damp mantilla, to look at the New York building where Damien Ruthven lived. Ruthven Tower was not the tallest skyscraper in the area—not by a long shot—but it had certainly captured the neo-Gothic feel of several of its larger brothers, which was to say that it was very gray and vertical and loaded with fanciful man-reptiles that leered down at passing pedestrians with their forked tongues and hooked ears. It also had what looked like an unrailed stair circling the middle floors in a dizzying spiral that would have tempted the choreographer, Busby Berkeley—had he been able to get insurance for such a dance number, which seemed unlikely.
    Somehow, that seemed fitting. The current owner of this building was a literary showman who spent a lot of time sneering down at the authors whose books he reviewed, any number of whom had probably passed beneath him on these very streets.
    There were three stories at the base of the building and thirteen stories above, though Brice knew from a quick bit of online research that the top three stories were actually all one open area where Damien Ruthven lived. Not that the real estate stopped there. His great-uncle had also cleverly manipulated the zoning law so that he and his heirs owned the airspace above the building and the airspace above the two buildings on either side. The next block might grow upward, but there would be no nearby skyscrapers obstructing the view.
    She wasn’t sure if she thought this foresight was admirable or grasping. Maybe it was both.
    Jostled by a harassed Christmas shopper with her