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She was flailing mentally, trying to work out how on earth to respond to any of this, when, improbably, ol’ Eula came to her rescue.

“How is everything, darlin’?” she asked as she approached.

“Amazing,” she replied truthfully, and Ethan nodded his agreement.

“Good to hear,” said Eula with a smile. “You need anything else, you just holler, okay?”

Chloe nodded. “I will. Thank you so much.”

“Thank you,” Ethan added.

I guess now we’re even, Eula, Chloe thought as Eula sauntered away. The break in the conversation with Ethan had given her some time to collect herself.

They resumed eating, at a bit more of a sensible pace this time now that they were both no longer starving – though Ethan still looked a bit like a man who had finally discovered his appetite – and Chloe took the time to ponder the wider weirdness of the situation once more.

She wasn’t about to let Ethan off the hook in terms of telling her what was going on, that was for sure.

Once it felt like they’d both had more or less enough to eat, she steeled herself, then spoke. “Now that we’re not starving anymore, let’s get down to business. What is it you were going to tell me? No excuses.”

Ethan looked at her – really looked at her, gazing deep into her eyes. His eyes, which she once would have described as icy , seemed to have thawed a little, looking now more like deep glacial pools.

She shivered.

“So…” Ethan began, before apparently doing a bit of self-steeling of his own. “If I told you that I can turn into a pegasus, how would you feel about that?”

After all his earlier evasiveness, the blunt statement took her by surprise, and it took several long moments to sink in.

Turn into… a pegasus??

Nope, turned out that she still needed a few more seconds to work this one out. She looked down at her hands, unable to maintain his incredibly intense eye contact while she thought things over.

Half of the problem, she was embarrassed to admit, was that she was scraping around in the back of her brain for just what a pegasus was .

For someone who’d been obsessed with animals since she was a kid, she knew shockingly little about the mythical kind.

She’d always been pragmatic, too busy concerning herself with animals that she could help in the here and now.

It’s a magical horse, right? But not a unicorn. So it must be the one with wings.

Okay. Now that she was reasonably certain what a pegasus was, she could move on to the next step, which was that Ethan was claiming that he could turn into one.

She thought about it, turning it over and over in her head.

On the one hand, she wanted to think that Ethan wouldn’t lie about this to her. He seemed like a genuinely good guy, somewhere deep down under all the ego and the standoffishness. He’d helped her, and Bella, and Curtis. Her instincts said that she could trust him.

On the other hand, she had only just met him, and her rational mind was telling her that she couldn’t go around believing every wild claim that he made. Not without evidence.

She needed to re-evaluate the events of the day in light of his latest revelation.

Had he really been telling the truth about being haunted?

Chloe had been able to more or less believe in the moment that ghosts might exist, but maybe it had been part of a ploy to get her to believe in something even more outrageous.

A first step along a more sinister path.

It was possible, after all, that the whole thing at Margot’s bookstore had been smoke and mirrors, or a hologram, or something .

Hell, maybe there’d been something in those herbs that Margot had been burning, and the whole thing was a hallucination.

A person turning into a pegasus was definitely another step beyond all of that, and she didn’t think she could believe it without hard evidence.

Never mind the fact that pegasuses – pegases – pegasi? – themselves didn’t exist – the laws of physics specifically forbade hot dudes from turning into winged horses, or vice versa! Where would all that mass go?!

She forced herself to look back up at him and meet his eyes. It was almost painful, seeing the hint of earnestness underneath the cultivated indifference.

Either he really believes this is true, or he’s an incredible liar. But I can’t just go along with this without proof.

“Sorry,” she said, trying to be gentle but firm. “That’s a bit too much for me to believe.” At the slight drop in his expression – which she knew for him meant a massive drop in his mood – she added, “At least not without solid evidence.”

At his apparent hesitation, she laughed.

“Come on. I know that you wouldn’t believe something so completely unbelievable without seeing proof – you wouldn’t have made it this far in your career if you believed everything you were told.

So come on, Mr. Corporate Lawyer – sell me your pitch.

You want me to believe that you can violate the laws of the universe, you’re going to have to give me a reason other than your good looks to believe you. ”

Ethan blinked rapidly for a moment – Oh God, thought Chloe, did I really just say that ‘good looks’ part out loud?? – staring at her in what appeared to be surprise, as if it was news to him that he was an A-grade hottie. But he recovered quickly.

Finally, he nodded. “Fair enough. But we’ll have to go somewhere away from the general public. The B it was the voice that had told her to take the opportunity to start her own clinic; and now it was the voice that was telling her that she could trust Ethan.

Maybe not as to whether or not he could actually turn into a pegasus, but she knew that she could trust him to be safe.

“Sounds good,” she said, standing up, her overfull stomach protesting at the movement.

Ethan’s eyes widened slightly, even as he also stood. “You’re sure?”

“Let’s do it,” she said decisively, throwing down a sizeable tip on the table amongst the piles of empty plates. They’d done a remarkable job getting through all that food, all things considered.

Ethan threw down his own tip – a tip large enough to make Chloe’s eyebrows rise, though she supposed that he had had a food-related awakening of sorts that deserved payment in kind. It had to be nice, having the kind of money to just do that kind of thing.

“My car is just down the road, if you’re happy to take it,” Ethan said, a slight tone of questioning in his voice. His meaning was clear: Do you trust me?

Chloe nodded. “Lead the way.”