memory of the last time we had an argument at that window was still fresh. Rogan was a Prime Telekinetic and he didn’t like fighting with me from the street. He’d stacked half of the contents of his motor pool against the wall of our warehouse, so he could get to the window and talk to me face-to-face. “Seriously, this won’t help.”
The crate landed back on the pavement. Rogan drove out of the parking lot. “Poor count.”
I glanced at him. “What do you mean?”
“Alessandro is a count. Conte di Sagredo. They date back to the twelfth century.”
“Don’t tell Catalina,” I said.
My sister was self-conscious enough around regular people. Carrying on a conversation with someone who came from an old noble family would cause a complete shutdown. She would obsess over every word trying to make sure she didn’t say something embarrassing or draw attention to herself.
It was enough that Alessandro was handsome, a Prime, and a verified teen heartthrob. Throwing a title in there would only make things worse.
The long road veered gently between rugged hills rising from the green cushion of ashe junipers and live oaks. We were climbing our way northwest, into Texas Hill Country. The ground looked dry, with big limestone boulders thrusting through the thin layer of topsoil. After the humidity of Houston, looking out of the car window made me thirsty.
“Why here?” I asked.
“She says the hills remind her of home,” he said.
“Where is home?”
“Spain. Basque country, near Navarre, in the mountains. I’ve been there. It’s not a perfect match, but it’s dry and rugged in places, like here.”
The road turned, and as Rogan smoothly took the curve, I saw the house. It crowned the hill, a beautiful Mediterranean mansion, its adobe walls interrupted by tall gleaming windows. We kept turning and the house kept going and going . . .
“What if she doesn’t like me?”
“She will like you. I love you and that’s all that really matters. But my mother will like you.”
The road brought us to the apex of the hill, to a stone wall topped by a red clay roof. A sturdy metal gate guarded the entrance. It swung open at our approach and the Range Rover smoothly rolled down the long driveway, past the landscaped lawn to another arched entrance. We passed through it to the courtyard with a beautiful fountain in its center. Rogan brought the car to a stop.
“That’s a giant house,” I said.
“Mountain Rose. Twenty-two thousand square feet. Ten bedrooms. Twelve bathrooms. Two swimming pools. Tennis court, gardens, the works.” Rogan grimaced. “I once asked my mother why she needed a house that large, and she said, ‘For the grandchildren.’”
“You don’t have any siblings, do you?”
“No.” He moved his hand, indicating the length of the house. “One bedroom for her, one for us—that leaves eight bedrooms’ worth of grandchildren, all on our shoulders.”
“Great.” It wasn’t my shoulders I was worried about, but if I told him that, it would take him another ten minutes to get all of the funny innuendo out of his system.
We sat for a long moment. I didn’t want to get out.
“Chicken?” he asked.
People lied every day, sometimes a dozen times a day, often for the best of reasons, but every time they bent the truth, my magic warned me. So I had long ago made it a point to lie as little as possible, and to Rogan not at all. He couldn’t lie to me, and we had to come to this relationship as equals. “Yes.”
“It will be fine.” He reached over and kissed me. It was a quick kiss, meant to reassure, but about half a second into it, Rogan changed his mind. His hand caught my hair. He tasted like sandalwood, mint, and Connor. I sank into it and kissed him back. There was nothing like kissing Rogan. All my worries vanished and it was me and him, his taste, his smell, his touch . . .
We broke the kiss. His blue eyes turned darker. He looked like he was going to go in for seconds.
We couldn’t just stay in the car making out. Arrosa Rogan was a Prime. She lived in a mansion with Prime-level security, which meant our kissing was likely splashed in horrifyingly HD detail on the internal security screens.
I opened my door. He grinned at me and we got out of the car.
The inside of the house was as impressive as the outside. The walls, covered with delicate swirls of beige and cream plaster, swept up to