The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

the ground. She had me working shifts when the store wasn’t even supposed to be open. No one would come in for six hours, and she’d swear I was earning room and board. It was really sweet, but there came a point where I was, like, desperate for a fairy godmother. Speaking of which . . .’ She glanced around the apartment curiously before fixing her questioning amber stare on Jane.
    ‘Malcolm hid money for me,’ Jane explained succinctly, and then remembered the mystery that he had hidden along with it. ‘And this,’ she added, hopping off of the couch and padding over to the closet that contained her purse.
    She fished out the little blue box and tossed it to Dee, who opened it curiously. After a long moment, she tapped at it with a cautious fingernail, then shrugged at Jane. ‘I’ve honestly got nothing.’
    ‘Malcolm never struck me as the collector type,’ Jane mused, ‘and even if he were, I don’t think glass figurines would be his thing. Or unicorns.’
    ‘Plus, he’d probably have more than one,’ Dee pointed out, and Jane nodded seriously.
    ‘One of anything is a pretty crappy collection. But it obviously was important to him, so now I have it and I have no idea what to do with it. I don’t even know when I’ll see him again.’ Jane frowned and twisted a paper napkin around her fingers. ‘I couldn’t even worry about him, really, when I was so worried about everyone here. At least I know you’re okay, but I’m still worried about Harris, and especially Maeve.’ Jane had last seen Maeve Montague, her first friend in New York, looking bruised and broken in a hospital bed. Maeve, who came from a family of witches herself (although the magic was on her father’s side, so she hadn’t inherited any), had been just about to tell Jane the truth about the family she was marrying into when Lynne had magically steered the tiny redhead out in front of a hurtling taxicab. Later that night, Malcolm, suffering from a crisis of conscience, had levelled with Jane about his mother’s power . . . but the near-fatal crash had already made things pretty clear.
    ‘Mae’s doing really well,’ Dee told her comfortingly, setting the open blue box carefully on the coffee table. ‘She had some trouble walking at first, but they got her a physical therapist. And, go figure, he’s this hunky twenty-six-year-old guy with a degree in music composition, or something, who also cooks. He got her “walking” in no time.’ Dee winked saucily, and Jane wrinkled her nose. ‘No, they’re really cute!’ Dee insisted. ‘Harris even likes him, and you know how protective he is.’
    Dee rolled her eyes conspiratorially, and Jane forced hers to follow the same track.
Harris.
His dancing green eyes, his long, lean body, the touch of his hand on her shoulder, her arm, the small of her back . . . She and Maeve’s older brother had never crossed any kind of line together, but her body could still remember every place that his skin had touched hers.
It’s just the magic,
Jane reminded herself: magical blood sparked and enhanced attraction. It had made her an easy target for Malcolm, and then had sent her into a near-swoon every time Harris brushed past her.
Plus I was lonely and scared,
Jane reminded herself,
and he’s handsome and flirtatious.
It had been a volatile situation to begin with, and Jane had done her best to keep her head, eventually even pushing Harris and Dee together. They would make a much more appropriate couple, not to mention a safer one, but Jane found that there was a sour taste in her mouth at the thought that Dee seemed to know so much about what was going on with the Montagues.
    ‘So you’ve been in touch with Harris?’ she asked awkwardly, the fork handle digging into her thigh.
    Dee, busy chewing a chunk of eggplant the size of a golf ball, didn’t seem to notice any strain in Jane’s voice. ‘Well, he was convinced that the tabloid stuff was complete fiction,’ she confirmed breezily.