14

Casimir

Returning home from a meeting with Serra and another potential lead on the painting I'm after, the scent of tomato and garlic and fresh aromatics greets me as I walk through the door. So do the sounds of softly playing music and the metallic clang of pots and pans coming from the kitchen.

Entirely unexpected, those sounds and smells, though not unwelcome as I walk from the foyer and into the kitchen to find Ophelia standing at the stove. She's wearing a pair of tight black exercise pants and a loose hooded sweatshirt, her hair piled on top of her head in a messy knot, exposing her long, graceful neck.

The sight of her there stops me in my tracks.

It leaves me somewhere just to the left of reality, with no idea how I got here.

For a moment, I wonder if I've walked into someone else's home, someone else's life. A life where I don't return each day to an empty house, cold and quiet and echoing with my own hollow footsteps.

Ophelia glances over her shoulder, giving me a challenging look like she's just daring me to kick her out.

I've got no challenge for her.

It's not the first time she's used the kitchen in the few days she's been parked in my driveway, and there is no force on earth that would make me even considering dissuading her from doing so.

It's a beautiful space, renovated with the rest of the house when I moved in a few decades ago, and kept current with gleaming steel appliances and all the latest gadgets.

Not that I would know anything about using them.

The space remains largely for show, apart from when I host parties and hire in a private chef or catering team, but seeing it cluttered with the chaos of Ophelia's cooking settles some unfamiliar emotion into the center of my chest.

Unwilling to examine it, I cross the room and grab a clean spoon out of the drawer, dipping it into the sauce Ophelia's working on faster than she can stop me. Giving it a taste, I hum in approval.

"Good, but it needs—"

"I know you're not about to give me feedback on my Nonna's sauce," she interrupts, shooting me a knife-sharp glare. "And if you are, I won't do anything to stop her when she drags herself out of her grave and spends eternity haunting your ass for the audacity."

"It needs nothing," I say smoothly, bowing my head in acquiescence. "It's perfect. Far be it from me to invoke the wrath of a restless Nonna."

Ophelia's lips twitch, but she gives her head a shake and turns back to her work. Leaving the sauce to simmer covered on the stove, she brushes past me to the wide island at the center of the room where a ball of dough waits for her.

She's making noodles, honest-to-gods noodles, with some attachment to some device that I can honestly say I've never seen before in my life.

"I feel like I should be paying for the privilege of having a seat at the chef's table," I tease as I slide onto a stool on the opposite side of the island, watching her deft hands feed some of the dough into the contraption, then catch the long, perfect strands of pasta that come the other side.

She snorts a laugh, eyes still focused on her work. "Hardly. I'm mostly just winging it and going from memory."

"Well, whatever you're doing, it smells delicious."

The compliment draws a flick of her gaze from the pasta to me, eyes slightly narrowed like she's not sure she can trust it.

"Your Nonna, she taught you to cook?" I ask, and note the slight hesitation before her reply, like she's just realized we're being friendly.

Not formal, not strictly business, but friendly , like two normal people.

Despite her agreeing to stay here, and despite the way she's been making herself at home and warming up to the idea of our partnership on the Bureau case, Ophelia's still not entirely at ease. I don't necessarily blame her, and also don't know why it's so important that she's comfortable here, but the sudden urge to keep her talking, to draw her a little further out of that shell she wears so well, is undeniable.

Maybe it's because I can't forget what it was like to see that shell shattered. To hear her wild abandon and taste her pleasure, to see her flushed and glassy-eyed and so impossibly real it made my chest ache.

Maybe it's because I've lost my damned mind and forgotten what happened when I wanted her honesty seven years ago.

Whatever the case, and for better or worse, the question seems to have done the trick.

Ophelia nods. "Yeah, she did. My mom did, too, and Cleo definitely learned it better than I did, but I've got a few culinary tricks up my sleeve."

Ophelia takes the freshly rolled noodles and drops them into a pot of roiling water. I put my questions aside for a few minutes as I watch her work, stirring the noodles until they're cooked, then transferring them to the saucepan with a couple of ladles of pasta water.

With a few more pinches of herbs, another taste test or two, and one low, satisfied hum that does strange things to the bottom of my stomach, she declares the dish done.

"Do you want some?"

She turns to face me, and must mistake whatever it is she sees on my face to be offense, because she quickly backtracks.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to… if you don't… eat, that's fine. I didn't—"

"I would love some."

She arches a brow, but says nothing as she grabs two plates out of the cupboard.

"I confess, I never fully lost my taste for human food. Or wine. Especially wine."

That twitch of a smile is back as she nods to the wine rack at the side of the room. "Got anything that would pair well with bolognese?"

"I think I might."

While Ophelia dishes up the pasta and finds two wine glasses in the cupboard, I peruse the wine rack, holding myself back from heading downstairs into the cellar to grab one of the bottles reserved for special occasions.

This night certainly feels like an occasion. Something rare and unexpected, still not wholly believable as reality.

But it also feels… delicate. Like if I look at it too closely or hold it too tightly, it might crack and shatter back into the impossibility it came from.

So I grab the best bottle of Chianti that's immediately available and meet Ophelia back at the island where she has our plates and glasses waiting.

If the night felt delicate before, it feels even more unbelievable as I pour us two generous servings and clink my glass against hers. It's that same feeling of unreality, of stepping into some sideways-world just outside the realm of my own as we settle in to eat.

Ophelia perches herself on a barstool and glances over at me. "I had a meeting today. And I got another lead."

"Oh? From who?"

She tells me about the demi-fae journalist she knew from her days in university, about the stories Audra has written and the suspicions she has. It echoes Blair's words about who he thought might be behind this, and when Ophelia gets to the part about surveilling one of the victims who has a too-coincidental connection to Haverstad's campaign manager, my interest is peaked.

"Do you have any idea where we can find the kid?"

Ophelia nods. "Audra texted and let me know she's tracked him to a spot near Northeastern on Thursday nights. Some kind of regular meet-up he goes to. She can't make it to scope him out tomorrow, so…"

She trails off, one corner of her mouth set into a fetching little smirk.

"So it sounds like we're going on a stakeout tomorrow night."

"Bingo."

We spend the rest of our dinner rehashing her conversation with the journalist, running down other leads we've been pursuing to no great avail, discussing next best steps.

It feels natural, this back and forth. Easy to talk with her, so long as we're not discussing the past or any part of the present other than the work we've been tasked with.

We finish eating, and I reach over to pick up her empty plate, only for her to slide it out of my grasp.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

"Cleaning up? I confess I may not be completely informed on etiquette for dining somewhere that's not a restaurant or catered party, but if I recall, it's poor manners to let the person who did the cooking also do the cleaning."

Ophelia snorts, grabs her plate, and stands. For good measure, she grabs mine as well.

"Yeah, after I come inside your house uninvited and destroy your kitchen, I'm really going to let you clean up after me."

She takes the plates and deposits them in the sink, but I'm right on her heels. When she turns to start cleaning up the rest of the mess, she nearly knocks into me. Her breath catches, and when she has to tilt her chin up to meet my gaze, I catch sight of my mark on her throat.

Nearly healed now, a softer pink rather than the vivid red it was the night we went to the Raven. Something about seeing it there, faded like that, kicks up a wave of fierce displeasure in the center of my chest.

She takes a step back, and I clear my throat before speaking.

"You're not uninvited. As a matter of fact, I distinctly remember inviting you here."

"To use your guest bath, not to turn your kitchen into back-of-house at the Olive Garden."

She attempts to dodge again, sneaking a surprisingly quick hand around my side to grab a cutting board. Turning with all the grace of a dancer on the stage, she drops that into the sink as well, but I'm not about to concede.

"Hardly the Olive Garden. If I were handing out Michelin stars, you would have a dozen."

Another huff of laughter, and another quick maneuver as she fakes left, then skirts around me back to the stovetop. "I think the most they give out is three."

"Then they'll have to reevaluate their ranking system." I grab one handle of the pasta pot just as she grabs the other, and our gazes meet in a silent stand-off.

Just like outside the Raven, Ophelia breaks first.

It starts with a tremble in the corner of her lip, a tightening there like she's trying her best not to lose her composure, and it ends with a breathless laugh slipping out despite those best efforts.

"God," she says, shaking her head in apparent surrender. "You're really good at that, you know?"

"Good at what?"

"At being a domineering ass, but also making it seem like you're the most charming ass who ever existed."

I wink. "Centuries of practice. Let me help you with this, at least?"

She relents, and we spend the next few minutes doing the dishes and putting the kitchen back to its prior pristine condition.

I'm almost sorry to see it so spotless.

Right back to the soulless showpiece of a room it usually is, I look away and switch off the light as Ophelia and I walk into the foyer.

"Audra told me Devin usually gets to the spot around nine," she says, heading for the front door. "Leave here at eight tomorrow to head him off?"

She pauses at the threshold, waiting for my agreement.

I should give it and let her go.

Instead, I choose idiocy.

"There are three empty guest rooms upstairs," I say lightly. Too lightly, in a tone that betrays how very un lightly I'm taking the offer, but the words spill out before I can stop them. "You could take your pick, if you'd like a little extra space while you're here."

For a moment, I almost think Ophelia will take me up on the offer. Her gaze darts toward the stairs, and unmistakable interest flashes through those warm brown eyes before she catches herself and shakes her head.

"I… can't. I'm already imposing too much on your hospitality."

"A driveway and an outlet hardly qualify as hospitality."

"And a bathroom. And a kitchen."

She has a point, but I'm not quite ready to let it go. Not when the walls of this beautiful, empty place already feel like they're closing back in, not when she's brought a warmth and a light to the house that hasn't been here since… well, since I bought it decades ago on some ill-conceived urge to settle. To find a place I might call my own after all my centuries of wandering.

Idiocy, all of it.

Idiocy and self-delusion and a hundred other nonsensical things I have no business letting myself slide into.

"I'm good in the van," Ophelia says softly, and then, before giving me time to convince her otherwise, slips out through the front door. "Good night, Cas. I'll see you tomorrow at eight."

The farewell, called back over her shoulder, is one more reason it's better she goes.

I could almost make myself believe there's more behind it, if I were the same foolish creature who stood with her on that rooftop seven years ago. I could hear those soft words and think she's as sorry as I am for the evening to come to its end.

But I would be lying to myself.

Though the evening was pleasant, and though I'm glad we've found this steady ground between us as we work together, that's all it need be.

That's all it is .

A business arrangement. A partnership.

With a sigh at my own foolish, fanciful thoughts, I turn away from the door and start up the stairs, wide awake tonight, and knowing sleep won't be finding me anytime soon.