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his energy from that."

" Fleur , I love you as much as I've ever managed to love anybody, but this whole thing is absurd. You're never going to be happy until you've fucked this guy, so just get it over with. It'll take away the whole forbidden attraction and allow both of you to get on with your lives. "

"'Get on with our lives?' What's that supposed to mean?" I asked sharply.

"I mean half the reason you guys are so infatuated with each other is because you can't have each other. It's not love, but it is a normal human reaction, a catalyst for physical attraction." He paused and considered. "Your maniacal obsession with his books might also be a factor."

"That's not true. None of that's true at all. Well, I mean, those books are good enough to be the basis of a religion, but that's not the same thing. That's not why I..."

Love him? Hell. I still didn't know if I did or not. I wasn't even sure what love was after all this time.

Bastien shook his head, not believing me but not wanting to argue either. "Fine. Keep going with this. I still think you should fuck him, though. Even if it doesn't make you both realize you're better off apart, it'll at least remove one source of tension between you and maybe let you attempt some sort of normal dysfunctional relationship."

I stared bleakly into space. "I can't. Not even one night. It'd take years off his life. I couldn't live with myself."

"Bah. Only a handful of years at most. What's that? Besides, men have done stupider things for sex - with women they don't even really like. If he really does love you, he might think it's a fair trade."

I shuddered. I didn't think it was fair at all, but he was right about the silly things men would do for sex. I'd seen and initiated plenty of them.

We finally gave up both sides of the argument when we pulled into his driveway. The clock was ticking, and we had to start this operation. Bastien had watched Dana and Bill drive off earlier, and their teenage son had gone down the street to stay at a friend's house. Shifting to be invisible to mortal eyes, Bastien and I crept out the back of his house and scaled the fence into Dana's yard. It sort of made me feel like I was in a spy movie; I half wished we could crawl under some motion-detecting lasers.

"They have a security system," I whispered to Bastien as I watched him pick the back door's lock. More useful skills gleaned from long centuries. "Being invisible isn't going to deactivate it. "

"No problem. I've done some invisible reconnaissance. I know the code."

Sure enough, he punched it into the console once we were in the house, and the readout's red light turned green.

We started in the Dailey office, as that seemed like the most logical place to stash paperwork. Dana had a meticulous sense of organization that creeped me out, and we had to make sure we left everything the way we found it.

Unfortunately, most of the stuff was completely useless. Memos. Efficient - and honest - budget reports. Invoices. Press releases. She had a lot of pictures too, which were at least more fun to look at than the papers. Most of them showed family or CPFV events. A number of the shots had Jody in them, which saddened me. I recalled the other woman's sly wit and passion for art. Why would someone with any sort of intelligence want to get involved in all this?

"I didn't realize how active Jody was in this group," I remarked to Bastien. "She wasn't so bad. Dana's corrupted her."

"Dana's a persuasive woman. Hey, did you know Jody's last name is Daniels? And her husband's name is Jack?"

We giggled over that and continued searching a while longer before finally abandoning the office. We then ransacked - neatly, of course - any other cupboards or drawers we could find on the main floor. Nothing.

"Maybe there are secret panels behind paintings," suggested Bastien.

"Or maybe the pool-boy thing was a fraud, Dana's honest with her business dealings, and there's really nothing else to get on her except that she's a prejudiced bitch."

He rolled his eyes. "One place left. The true sanctuary. The bedroom."

I grimaced. Going into someone's bedroom freaked me out. The ultimate violation of privacy. But Bastien charged on, still confident this wild goose chase would yield results.

Fortunately,