Page 24

I blinked at her. There was something...different about her this morning. Like heat waves rising from summer pavement, but in colors I couldn't quite name. I shook my head, both in response and to clear my vision.

"I'm good, thanks." I gestured at the mess before me. "Just trying to make sense of all this."

She moved into the room with a predatory grace, each step a deliberate sway of hips that seemed designed to draw attention to every curve. Then again, considering she's a succubus, I probably shouldn't be surprised.

"First days are always overwhelming,” she simpered. “Especially here." Her smile held secrets I'm not sure I want to know.

"Can I ask you something?" I shuffled through another stack of male profiles. "These forms are quite...lacking. I mean, 'enjoys moonlit walks' could mean anything from romantic strolls to actual howling at the moon, considering our clientele."

Thea perched on the edge of my desk, and that strange shimmer around her intensified. My head throbbed slightly.

"We've always done things very...traditionally here," she said diplomatically.

"Traditionally inefficient," I muttered, then caught myself. New job, Hazel. Play nice. "Sorry, I just?—"

The floor creaked outside my door and Lust appeared, looking slightly green around the edges. Again. This was his third "casual" check-in this morning, and it wasn’t even ten.

"Progress?" he asked curtly.

I straightened in my chair. "Actually, I had some thoughts about?—"

"Sir!" Thea interrupted smoothly. "That call you were waiting for is on line one."

“And you didn’t think to tell me that before coming in here for a girls' chat?”

She shrugged. “It’s Jake. The man can learn some patience.”

He grunted, threw one more inscrutable look my way, then stalked off. The moment he was gone, I swear his footstepsquickened, like he couldn't get away fast enough. Yet he'll be back in twenty minutes, I'm sure of it.

"He's not usually this..." Thea waved her hand vaguely.

"Hovering? Grumpy? Green?"

She laughed, and for a moment, the air around her sparkled. “Green? I don’t know if I’ve ever heard someone call him that before.”

I pressed my fingers to my temples. Maybe the last few days had knocked a few screws loose.

"Look," I said, desperate to focus on something concrete rather than whatever visual weirdness was happening. "These five women are amazing candidates." I tapped their files. "But matching them with anyone from these male files would be like trying to pair wine with dinner when all you know is 'food exists.' I don’t have enough information about the men or the women."

"What are you suggesting?"

I leaned back, an idea taking shape. "What if we did a mixer? Something casual where people could actually interact? See who has chemistry?" The word made me wince internally, remembering my own disastrous romance, but I pushed forward. "We could host it somewhere neutral."

Thea's eyes lit up quite literally with an inner glow that made me blink hard.

"That...could actually work. We haven't tried anything like that before."

"Really? But it seems so obvious—" I stopped as Lust materialized in my doorway again, looking even more sickly than before.

"A mixer?" he asked, his voice strained. "You've been here one day, and you're already trying to reinvent how we do things?"

I squared my shoulders. "With respect, sir, your current system isn't exactly efficient. These forms tell me nothing about actual compatibility. And your marketing strategy..."

I gestured at the lopsided ratio of files.

"When was the last time you actively recruited female clients? Or updated your security protocols for your digital files? I’m assuming the risk of hacking is why you’re functioning like a terrible FBI agent from the 60s. Because if you're worried about supernatural exposure, your paper filing system is one coffee spill away from disaster."

The silence that followed was deafening. Thea's shimmer intensified so much it was like looking at a heat mirage. Lust stared at me, his face unreadable except for a muscle ticking in his jaw.