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“I’ve got something picked out—an old standby.”

“Including the red shoes?”Advertisement

I hadn’t thought about it, but why not? It would make the strike back at Ethan complete if I wore the shoes I’d bought for him with someone else.

At work the next day, I put the ornament in my skirt pocket, got Merlin’s crystal key, and headed down to R&D. Ari caught me in the hallway. “Let me guess, another Santa mission,” she said with a smirk. “You’ve got one lucky secret pal.”

“Just doing my part to spread the holiday spirit.”

“I hear you’re going out with Rod this weekend.”

I wondered how that one had got around. Probably Isabel, who would have heard it from Rod. “Yeah, we’re going to discuss some of these morale projects we’re working on.”

She snorted. “Yeah, right, like that’s high on his agenda. Then again, I keep forgetting you don’t see his illusion, and that love spell won’t work on you. You might be okay. Watch yourself, though.”

If she was our mole, she was good. Everything she said could have had a totally innocent meaning, or she could have been hinting that she knew I’d lost my immunity. “I’ll be okay,” I said with a cheerful smile. Nope, nothing wrong here whatsoever, I tried to project.

She snorted again as she returned to her lab. Oh, I so desperately needed to get some solid evidence on this, preferably evidence that Ari wasn’t the one, even if that took me back to square one. I could hear Owen’s voice coming from a lab near his, so I darted into his lab, hung the ornament on his office doorknob, then hurried away. I lingered in the hallway for a while, but it wasn’t as though Ari was going to go out and sabotage something while I waited. Watching her probably wouldn’t work very well. I’d have to find a way to set a trap and catch her red-handed, but you had to be pretty sneaky to catch a thief, and I’d never been that good at being sneaky. I was getting better, what with all the secret keeping I’d been doing lately, but I was still a novice compared with Ari.

By the time Friday rolled around, I was truly looking forward to going out with Rod. As I dressed for the date, I gave myself a stern lecture about not falling under the influence of whatever spell he threw at me. I had no magical defenses, but I retained at least a little bit of common sense, and if I knew there was magic at work, I stood a better chance than your average girl off the street.

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For the finishing touch of my outfit, I slipped my feet into the red shoes. I couldn’t hold back a smile as I thought that maybe he’d be the one having to resist me. I once more felt like the girl who’d snagged all the guys at the nightclub the previous weekend. The weather forecast threatened freezing rain and possibly snow, but it wasn’t supposed to start until later that night. This was a simple dinner, so I should be home long before it got nasty. My shoes would be safe from the elements.

The door buzzer sounded, and I hurried to the intercom. “Hi, it’s Rod,” the voice crackled over the speaker.

“I’ll be right down,” I said. I grabbed my coat and my purse and headed out.

“I thought we’d stay more or less in the neighborhood,” he said when I stepped out the front door. “With the weather the way it is, I didn’t think we wanted to rely on cabs to get us home.”

“Good thinking,” I said.

He steered me down a nearby street to a modest, snug little restaurant. “This is one of my favorite places. I hope you like it,” he said as he ushered me inside. So far, he was behaving like a perfect gentleman, as though this truly was a business dinner rather than a romantic date. I didn’t even feel the dizzying effects of his attraction spell. Maybe he’d decided against wasting the energy on someone he didn’t think would be affected and was gentleman enough not to use the spell on other women while he was with me.

Once we’d taken off our coats and settled ourselves with menus at a candlelit table, he smiled at me and said, “By the way, I didn’t tell you how nice you look tonight.”

“Thanks. You look nice, too.” I didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell him how much nicer than normal he looked to me. Or would he feel better knowing I saw him this way? His psyche would take Dr. Phil hours to untangle. If I ever managed to get Owen truly talking, I’d have to ask what it was in Rod’s childhood that had made him so insecure.

“Do you want to get an appetizer? Preferably something warm?”

“Sounds good. Order what you want, and I’m sure I’ll like it.” pqdm.com