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“That was a long time ago. And I was very drunk.”

“So you’ve mellowed out with age?” she asks. “I’ll admit, I’ve really only seen you all stern and serious and arrogant.”

“Arrogant?”

She puts a hand to her mouth, laughing behind her fingers. “Yes. I’m sorry. I guess I’m taking the whole ‘you can’t make me angry’ thing to heart.”

“Good. I meant it.” Arthur pulls up, and I open the car door for her. She slides in with a cheery hello to my driver. They chat a bit as he drives the short way from the old estate back to my home up in King’s Point. There was a time when I came here often. A lifetime ago.

When we get home, Nora doesn’t wait for me to open her car door. She walks up the steps to Fairhaven with a hand lifting the long skirt of her dress. The moonlight bounces off the ivory silk, and she does look like an angel.

A smiling angel with slightly smudged lipstick. Smudged because of my kiss.

I open the front door for her, and she walks inside. She drops her clutch on the center table and steps out of her tall heels. “Finally,” she says with a happy sigh. “Do you have any snacks in the kitchen?”

“I have no clue.”

She giggles again. “It’s your kitchen. That’s silly. What… oh! Look!” She hurries to the open doorway between the twin staircases. “Did you see that?”

“No.”

“Your cat! It’s inside again!”

I follow her, rounding the corner into the hallway. She’s half running toward the library wing.

“I don’t have a cat,” I say.

“Yes, you do,” she protests. I catch the hint of two gray back legs and a tail held high before the cat disappears into the half-open door to the library. Nora disappears in after it.

I follow at a slower pace. When I open the door fully, she’s crouching near the large leather sofa and talking softly to a feline I can’t see. “Hi, sweetheart. Don’t be scared. We won’t hurt you.”

“Don’t speak for me,” I say.

She looks at me over her shoulder. “Don’t say that! He’s your cat.”

“I don’t have a cat.”

“Well, the cat has you. Or Fairhaven does, at least. I’ve asked Ernest about him, but he didn’t know either.” She smiles a little. “If he’s a lodger, we’ll have to get him properly moved in.”

“He might belong to someone.”

She makes more soft, beckoning sounds. “Then we check if he has a chip first.”

I walk toward the bar cart in the corner. I pour myself a glass of whiskey, but I don’t offer Nora any. She’s had enough.

There’s a small basket here filled with bags of bite-sized snacks. I grab what looks like a small bag of nuts and a bag of chips, then sit on the couch near where she’s trying to lure out the cat.

“Here,” I tell her and toss the snacks on the table between us. “Eat… and answer some questions for me.”

She sits on the thick oriental carpet and looks my way. “Questions?”

“Yes. I want to know exactly why dating is so hard for you.”

CHAPTER23

WEST

Nora looks away quickly, reaching for the bags of snacks instead of answering me. “We’ve spoken about this,” she says, and tears open a small bag of chips.