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“Heard he was pretty,” she said when I gave her nothing.

I grinned. It felt sharp on my face. “Gorgeous.”

“And of everyone there, he’s the one you wanted? The most dangerous one? The one most likely to insult our would-be business partners?”

“Why would they care?”

“How would I know how mages think? Just, if theywereto find out?—”

“They won’t.”

She arched her brows again. “Was he Japanese?”

Truth told, I didn’t know. His accent had been flawlessly American, plain and smooth. He was clearly Asian, but I hadn’t thought to ask for specificity.

Hadn’t even considered?—

It was insane to think he had anything to do with Igarashi. Right?

I sighed, waving her off. “No mage is going to admit to?—”

“Something that’d throw a wrench in our plans?”

I hissed through my teeth. “He wasn’t like that. He was?—”

“Sweet as freshly whipped cream?”

It took everything I had in me not to growl at her. “He came looking for something. I give it to him. That’s it.”

Jillian rolled her eyes. “Moon knows you’re full ofsomething.”

“Seriously. No one recognized him. You don’t need to worry about this. It was one night.”

“And you’resurethere are no ulterior motives?”

“We’ve kept word of this deal quiet. All involved parties signed the NDA. We’d know if they broke it.” I shrugged. The spells that bound our word would break. The ink on the agreements would glow, and they’d need to be redrawn.

Yes, all that required magic, but we weren’t naïve enough to trust Igarashi to work that magic. A neutral firm had written and consecrated the NDA and would oversee our final agreement, once we settled on terms.

“Well, we know the families. If any of them try to get involved?—”

She had a point. Maybe mages didn’t mix with shifters, thought we were beneath them, but they sure did like the convenience of having grimoires and potion supplies shipped directly to their door.

One-day shipping, baby.

Because we were so much more convenient than hunting down spells and ingredients themselves, we knew more about the big American mage families than they could stand to think about.

“It’s not going to be an issue.”

“We could do a background check,” Jillian said, “just to be sure.”

Absolutely not. My wolf bristled at the very idea of handing Dakota over for that kind of inspection, but the last thing I needed was to admit to Jillian that my instincts were that off. “He didn’t tell me his last name.”

“Wise of him.”

She didn’t mean it the way I heard it—Iknewshe didn’t mean it—but my jaw ached painfully. “Indeed. Wouldn’t want word of his exploits getting out. How scandalous—taking awerewolfhome.”

Jillian rolled her eyes. “No mage walks into Howl without knowing what they’re getting into. And don’t pretend you were all that interested in swapping surnames last night, hm?”