I shook my head and turned away, unable to hear this. “I’m leaving now. I really don’t want to see you again. Nothing personal. Well, yeah, actually it is.

This is a, uh, friendship ring right?” “Yeah, don’t worry. If I propose, you’ll know it. For one thing, I’ll be hyperventilating.” A sly smile—surprisingly sexy—turned up his lips. “And it’ll be a ruby.” “Rubies? No diamonds? Too expensive for the old writer’s salary, huh?” He made a disparaging grunt at that. “No, I just think diamonds are common, that’s all. If I get married, it’ll be because something uncommon is occurring. Besides, you wear a lot of red, right? I know how important it is for your accessories to match.

You got some cheap foreign labor to protect Lissa?

...hot pink with a star done in rainbow rhinestones on the front. It was god-awful. I bought it.

Dimitri seemed like the kind of guy you could throw into the wilderness and he would survive off anything.

Sleep with Seth Mortensen? Good grief. It was the most preposterous thing I'd ever heard. It was appalling. If I absorbed his life force, there was no telling how long it'd be until his next book came out.

How do you know it was the blighted pile? Did you recognize Maiwenn’s gift?” “No, but there was a marble bust of Dorian in there, which I figured must have been his kingdom’s ‘humble’ gift.