Delilah Quotes

I was, but then I realized that I was holding on to something that didn't exist anymore. That the person I missed didn't exist anymore. People change. The things we like and dislike change. And we can wish they couldn't all day long but that never works.

In your entire life, you can probably count your true friends on one hand. Maybe even on one finger. Those are the friends you need to cherish, and I wouldn't trade one of them for a hundred of the other kind. I'd rather be completely alone than with a bunch of people who aren't real. People who are just passing time.

I am Delilah Bard, she thought, as the ropes cut into her skin. I am a thief and a pirate and a traveler. I have set foot in three different worlds, and lived. I have shed the blood of royals and held magic in my hands.

Caring was a thing with claws. It sank them in, and didn’t let go. Caring hurt more than a knife to the leg, more than a few broken ribs, more than anything that bled or broke and healed again. Caring didn’t break you clean. It was a bone that didn’t set, a cut that wouldn’t close.

There were a hundred shades between a truth and lie, and she knew them all.

We all long for what could have been.

Are we all on the same page, Delilah? The same page? I don't even think we're even in the same library, but no need to bring that up.

Delilah Bard,” she said. “We’ve met before. And you looked worse.” Rhy laughed silently. “I apologize for anything I might have done. I was not myself.” “I apologize for shooting you in the leg,” said Lila. “I was myself entirely.” Rhy broke into his perfect smile. “I like this one,” he said to Kell. “Can I borrow her?” “You can try,” said Lila, raising a brow. “But you’ll be a prince without his fingers.

I understand how easy it would be to lose yourself in the heart of another. It‘s frightening. Exhilarating. An ocean with no lifeguard.

Doesn't matter how many people are in the crowd anymore, Delilah. Ten or ten thousand, I'm still only singing for one.

Don't get yourself killed." "I'll do my best," said Kell, and then he was going. "And come back," added Rhy. Kell paused. "Don't worry," he said. "I will. Once I've seen it." "Seen what?" asked Rhy. Kell smiled. "Everything.

His body was sin, his cock was sin, and I was a sinner." ~ Delilah

Are you ready ?" she asked, spinning the chamber. Kell gazed through the gate at the waiting castle. "No." At that, she offered him the sharpest edge of a grin. "Good," she said. "The ones who think they're ready always end up dead.

I wonder how much we don‘t see. How much of our lives we witness and accept as truth when the rest of the iceberg—the heaviest, bulkiest part—is buried and invisible.

I hope you feel better about yourself. I hope you feel alive. I hope that good things happen to you, and I hope that when the inevitable bad things happen you can handle them and learn a lesson and move on. I hope you know you're not alone and I hope you spend plenty of time with your family and/or friends and I hope you write more and get a seven-figure book deal. I hope next year no more celebrities die and I hope you get an iPhone if you want one. Or maybe a pony. I hope someone writes a song for you on Valentines Day that's a bit like Hey There Delilah, and I hope they have a good singing voice, or at least one better than mine. I hope that you accept yourself the way you are, and figure out that losing 20 pounds isn't going to magically make you love yourself. I hope you read a lot. I hope you don't have to almost die to figure out how valuable life is. I hope you find the perfect nail polish/digital camera/home/life partner. I hope you stop being jealous of others. I hope you feel good, about yourself and the people around you and the world. I hope you eat heaps of salt and vinegar chips because they're the best kind. I hope you accomplish all your hopes & dreams & aspirations and are blissfully happy & get married to Edward Cullen/George Clooney/Megan Fox/Angelina Jolie (delete whichever are inappropriate) & ride a pretty white horse into the sunset & I hope it's all sweet and wonderful because you deserve it because you did well this year in the face of sparkly vampires/great evil/low self-esteem.

Sometimes I wonder if my whole life will pass by this way: me waiting in the shadows, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for someone else to make it happen. Something new or different or crazy and amazing. I‘ve been there for so long, letting everyone else figure it out for me, floating along without much direction or conscious thought. Reacting.

If anyone could make the strange seem ordinary, the impossible look easy, it was Delilah Bard

I would burn down the world for you," he whispered fiercely. "Your world or my own. I would rip down the entire city with my bare hands without a second thought. I don't need to taste anything else, I don't need a comparison.

you can‘t promise yourself that you‘re not going to fall in love with someone. I‘m not exactly a relationship expert, but I don‘t think it works that way

Jesus. Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. Delilah, Jezebel, Salome, Judith, Eve. Trouble, every last one. Add Minerva Highwood to the list.

I'd rather be completely alone than with a bunch of people aren't real.

I‘m not in love with him. I‘m in love with the way he erases things.

You can't be real," Delilah murmurs. "Says who?" I ask. "Did you really think that a story exists only when you're reading it?

Oh, so you're untouchable, huh, Delilah? You and your fucked-up relationship with your mother and everyone else in your life? Great. Does getting pissed at me make it better? does it fix ANYTHING?" "You! Can't! Fix! Me!

It‘s complicated. I think when bad things happen—whether someone dies or people argue or split up—you get to a point where it‘s just too hard to go back. There‘s so much lost. So many versions of the truth. So many versions of how things might‘ve turned out differently. We all long for what could have been. For some people, it‘s just easier to move forward and try to forget.

I told him that I would love him with everything I had in me until the very end of everything, and I meant it.

I take a deep breath, count to ten, and bury it, way down deep

Dammit, woman! You're scent, your stupid bloody delicious scent lingering in every crevice of my body and my wardrobe, driving me nearly mad. Do you know what it's like to want something so badly, to have it so close, and still feel that it's out of your reach? Out of control?

Once upon a time there was a wicked witch and her name was Lilith Eve Hagar Jezebel Delilah Pandora Jahi Tamar and there was a wicked witch and she was also called goddess and her name was Kali Fatima Artemis Hera Isis Mary Ishtar and there was a wicked witch and she was also called queen and her name was Bathsheba Vashti Cleopatra Helen Salome Elizabeth Clytemnestra Medea and there was a wicked witch and she was also called witch and her name was Joan Circe Morgan le Fay Tiamat Maria Leonza Medusa and they had this in common: that they were feared, hated, desired, and worshiped.

We have the ability to pass our memories on. We just have to tell them to someone.

Time to beat back the bunny hordes," he said gallantly,knowing that any blood-hungry animals in the area would be waiting outside for me. He threw open the door, shouting, "Bunnies, prepare to meet your doom!

Are you as famous in your world as Kell is here?” Lila thought of the wanted posters lining her London. “Not for the same reasons.

Here I am, wasting away inside a book I wish I could escape, and all she wants to do is stay in the story. If I could talk to this girl Delilah, I’d ask her why on earth she would ever trade a single second of the world she’s in for the one in which I’m stuck

I remember the feeling even now; an inescapable stickines of each other like magnets on the fridge. It's funny how someone can be such an integral part of your life, like you laugh at the same jokes and eat your ice cream cones the same way and share your toys and dreams and everything but your heartbeats, and then one day - nothing. You share nothing. It's like none of it ever happened.

the person I missed didn't exist anymore. People change. The things we like and dislike change. And we can wish they wouldn't all day long, but that never works.

Delilah Bard never read many books. The few she did had pirates and thieves, and always ended with freedom and the promise of more stories. Characters sailed away. They lived on. Lila always imagined people that way, a series of intersections and adventures. It was easy when you moved through life--through worlds--the way she did. Easy when you didn't care, when people came onto the page and walked away again, back to their own stories, and you could imagine whatever you wanted for them, if you cared enough to write it in your head.

The only thing that's ours to accept is the fact that we don't always get to know the answers.

There have been five great kisses since 1642 B.C. when Saul and Delilah Korn's inadvertent discovery swept across Western civilization. (Before then couples hooked thumbs.) And the precise rating of kisses is a terribly difficult thing, often leading to great controversy, because although everyone agrees with the formula of affection times purity times intensity times duration, no one has ever been completely satisfied with how much weight each element should receive. But on any system, there are five that everyone agrees deserve full marks. Well, this one left them all behind.

surrounding us is an ocean of mess and misunderstanding, full of pirates and sharks just waiting to see who slips in first

You're my sun, Delilah. Please don't take that away.

Delilah Bard—always a thief, recently a magician, and one day, hopefully, a pirate—was running as fast as she could.

Ladies if A Man is More Invested and Concerned About Your Assets....He Is A Liability

Ambition—what is the good of pride of place when you cannot appear there? What is the good of the love of woman when her name must needs be Delilah?

When I’m told girls Shouldn’t. Shouldn’t. Shouldn’t. When I’m told To wait. To stop. To obey. When I’m told not to be like Delilah. Lot’s Wife. Eve. When the only girl I’m supposed to be was an impregnated virgin

Magic ran between them like a current, a cord, and he wondered who she would have been if she’d stayed in Grey London. If she’d never picked his pocket, never held the contents ransom for adventure. Maybe she would never have discovered magic. Or maybe she would have simply changed her world instead of his.

You’re my Delilah, Edie, and I’m your Samson. You want to ruin me, destroy me, strip me of my power, and betray me. I should stay away from you, but I want you too fucking much. And when it’s all over, when all that’s left of us is sweaty flesh and shattered minds and torn hearts, you will remember me as the man who made you cry, and I’ll remember you as the girl I had to break to stay afloat.

Why, Criminy Stain," I said. "You're a romantic." "Oh, no," he said with a grin. "I'm fiendish and unscrupulous, a vicious killer and a thief and a bloodthirsty monster. And maybe a little romantic. But don't tell anyone, or my reputation's shot.

It got him killed, but at least he felt something.

May I ask you something?" I say. "Why do you read books, when you could be outside, living a million different adventures every day?" "Because you can always count on a book to stay the same. EVerything else changes when you least expect it," she replies, bitter. "Families split apart, and nothing's forever. In books, you always know what's coming next. There are no surprises.

How can I fault her for trying to bury a truth that when exposed to air and sunlight could only hurt the ones she loves?

Sweetheart, you couldn't conjure me if you tried.

I wonder how many loose buttons there are in this world, just rolling around in a jar without a mate or a blouse to go on. No purpose. Just siting there unnoticed. Forgotten.

Dammit Bard, you're going to set the cat on fire.

She used to only play "Help Yourself," but now she only plays "Delilah." Is that normal? "It's not unusual.

I've always been able to see you," I say. "It's a rather lovely view.

You keep distracting me,” I tell her. “All I’m doing is sitting here talking to you!” “Exactly,” I say, and I smile at her.j

What's a book boyfriend and how do I find them so I can kick their asses?

It was as though my heart made room for two truths that night—one real, the other safe and familiar and desirable.

I pull out my e-reader and get back to my fictional boyfriend. Lord knows he won't cheat on me.

Easy things aren't worth much. Your hand in mine is worth a great deal, Leticia." he said, helping to my feet. "That's what I'll be fighting for tomorrow.

Don't you ever see the bright side of things?" Patrick asks as I mope against the bottom of the ladder. "Easy to see the bright side when you're getting paid by the hour." "Delilah, I will gladly give you my fill wage plus a month's supply of your iced choco-nut whatever lattes if you trade places and clothes with my right now." "You're not wearing a shirt." "That's the deal, Hannaford," he says.

What you’re seeing is pain. And you’re the only one who sees it,” he said more softly. “You’re the only one who can cut me, and you wound me deep.

We arrived in Vermont expecting to fix up the old lake house. But in the end, it was the house that fixed us.

I don’t know,” I said, exasperated. “What else do you have in your wacked-out world? Heat sensors? Mine fields? Dirigibles? Booby traps? Machine guns? Shrink rays? What?” “Aside from dirigibles, which are rather expensive and rare outside of trade routes, most of what you just said made no sense whatsoever,” he said, as delighted as a child hearing a foreign language for the first time. “But it all sounds very dangerous. And fun. Especially the part about the boobies.

. . . how easily some things can be broken for good and for bad, and how some things, no matter how shattered, can still go back together. Like Moo, my family may never be as strong as it once was. There are chips and cracks and scars, But some of them can be repaired, piece by piece, rebuilt into something even more cherished and loved and unique.

It occurred to Delilah that this was probably the longest she'd ever really looked at her stepsister. She'd spent years perfecting the art of avoidance, of protection, of never letting Astrid see how much Delilah was hurting. If eyes were the window into the soul, Delilah's had long been shuttered.

How much do you love me?" She drew in a breath and let it out. "Too much." "Too much is just enough for this man." "And do you love me?" she whispered. "I have always loved you. Always. You know that.

Kell looked down at Delilah Bard, a cutthroat and a thief, a valiant partner and a strange, terrifying girl. He would see her again. He knew he would. Magic bent the world. Pulled it into shape. There were fixed points. Most of the time those points were places. But sometimes, rarely, they were people. For someone who never stood still, Lila still felt like a pin in Kell’s world. One he was sure to snag on.

He sighed. "Look, love, I know I seem like a tactical genius, but really, I'm just a magician who occasionally kills a bunny or drives a train.

No one ever says on their deathbed they wish they’d loved fewer people.

That's a lot of feels,” Iris said. “And you know how I hate those,” Astrid said, replying without humor

This is what I want,” Delilah said. “My whole life, this is what I’ve wanted. A best friend. Someone who gets me, who accepts me. Someone who fights like hell to get me to see that they love me. Someone who lets me love them back. Someone who’s so goddamn beautiful, she makes my toes curl. Someone who calls me on my bullshit. Someone who makes me laugh. Someone who makes me look at her like this and looks at me the same way. Someone who . . . who’s my home.

You know, when a person is murdered, you can miss that person and put all of your anger into hating the killer, even if you don‘t know who the killer is. You also have the choice of forgiveness. But when someone takes her own life, she is the killer.

It's not my fault I have vampire swagger.

I need you, not it. And I’m done being used. If you’re going to take from me, you’re going to start giving back, and I’ll start with your heart.

Honestly," he said with a grin, "how would that have worked? Oh, hello dream lover. Would you drink some of my blud so I won't murder you in front of all these nice people?"

Stephanie was…intense. That's the best word to describe her, Del. The best one.

And Delilah had gotten through life by putting herself first, only concentrating herself with what she knew was true, because she’d learned a long time ago that she couldn’t control anyone but herself. She couldn’t change anyone’s mind, couldn’t make someone love her who had no interest in doing so, and couldn’t keep someone from leaving her if that’s what they wanted to do.

You're here," he said simply. "Do I know you?" I asked, which came out more haughtily than I had intended. "You will," he answered, kicking off the tree and walking toward me. "After all, you're wearing my locket. And I've been waiting for you.

Let me guess. You think we’re going to live happily ever after, like some stupid fairy tale?” “Why not?” His stare dared me to laugh or, worse, to argue. “Because the whole thing is ridiculous,” I said. I despised the bitterness in my own voice. I sounded so damaged. Good. If he thought I was his soul mate for some mysterious reason he wouldn’t let on, let him see the worst of me. “It’s not ridiculous to me. Perhaps that’s the difference between predators and prey, love. I’ll never stop hunting. But I expect that one day, you’ll stop running.” “Because I want to die?” “Because you want to live.

She makes her people work on Sundays?" Rachel whispers, pulling some of my grandmother's old food from he fridge and sniffing it. "Nah-weekends are optional. They only have to work them if they want to keep their jobs.

What if your heart stopped when you saw that person, and only after that did you realize that they truly were everything you ever wanted?

Don't you ever talk about yourself like that to me again. You hurt me when you hurt yourself Spencer. Think about that the next time you go to say something so stupid.

For a long time I shined my light for someone other than me. But not anymore. Now I shine bright for me. You can create light even when everyone's left you behind because that's what you do. It's what I do.

He was watching me, and he chuckled. "Do you know how a man tames a wolf?" he asked me. "No," I said. "You get some clothing that you've been wearing for a while, and you toss it in with her. In the cage or the cavern where she sleeps. That first one, she rips up, shreds it to nothing. The second one, she just mouths it a bit, gets a taste. Inhales, like you're doing there. The third but of clothing, she starts dragging it around, loving on it, sleeping with it. And then you've got her under your spell. She's got the scent of you, wants to keep it around. She'll follow you everywhere." "Are you calling me a wolf?" I asked. "Are you calling me a man?" he said.

He was an animal. He was terrifying. And he was beautiful. I realized that I was biting my lip, that my hand was wound into the ruffled fabric at my chest. Something in me was drawn to the carnage. Like so many women before me, I was a slave to the caveman brain, that deep old part of my DNA that whispered that ferocity would keep me safe and fed and alive and that I should most definitely find the fiercest creature around and hump it.

I watched him playing with the long blades of grass, weaving them into patterns as he hummed an unfamiliar song, a waltz. "What are you doing?" I asked him. "I'm letting you get used to the idea of me," he said idly. "I'm pretending to be harmless. Is it working?" "Until you smile," (...)

But the thing with a best friend is that you’re never talking about nothing. Even when you’re talking about nothing, it’s something. The times when you think you’re talking about nothing, you’re actually talking about how you have someone with whom you can talk about nothing, and it’s fine.

I'm a nurse," I said, feeling huffy. "I help sick people." "So you can stop the diseases?" he asked. "Not really. I mostly help the people who are already dying, trying to make their last days comfortable." "You help people die," he mused. "That sounds quite sinister, and that's coming from someone who drinks blood.

What if you could take everything you were looking for in a person and whisper it into someone’s ear, and they brought that person to you? And then, when you saw them for the first time, even if you didn’t know they were the one for you, you suddenly knew it anyway?” His finger traced my eyebrows, my cheekbones, as he thought a moment. “What if your heart stopped when you saw that person, and only after that did you realize that they truly were everything you ever wanted?

I'm still dropping dishes thinking in slow motion about the GPS woman in Mom's car. I imagine her beckoning me from outside the kitchen window illuminated like some robot-angel calling me forth to the Lexus where she will ferry me off to that planet of monotonous peace that special otherworldly place where all the residents are relaxed and confident and completely numb. Your life will. Get better in. Six. Point four. Million. Miles.

Patrick leans in for a hug through the open doorway, and in his arms I'm reminded of the other dream I had last night, which... oh... which I immediately stamp out of my mind, hoping that no one else noticed the temperature in the room shoot up about five hundred degrees. Could my subconscious be any more inappropriate?

I’d thought for so long that I would become a schizophrenic, and if I was a schizophrenic, that’s all I would ever be. But a person doesn’t become their diagnosis. Your mom isn’t breast cancer, you don’t become cancer. You live with cancer. So often, we think of a person living with mental illness as their mental illness, and that’s unfair. A person is never their diagnosis, not even my mom. Delilah showed me that. She lives—and has lived—a full life. She has a husband. They travel. She’s a photographer, an artist. She tells the funniest knock-knock jokes I’ve ever heard. She takes her meds every day, but still has hallucinations from time to time. She is not schizophrenic. She lives with schizophrenia.

Okay, I’ll give you that Wuthering Heights is the least romantic book in the history of Victorian romances, but Jane Eyre?” “Is that the one where the douchebag hid his wife away in the attic and then lied about it to the girl he wanted to bang who was, like, half his age?” Claire winced. “Well, when you put it like that.

[Jules] slides into a seat beside me with her hot lunch tray, sighing. “Four hours, thirty-six minutes, and twelve seconds till we’re out of purgatory for the weekend.” “Maybe later,” I murmur, still distracted by the day’s previous events. “So, let me show you how a conversation works. I say something, and then you say something back that actually relates to what I was talking about, as if you were even the least bit interested.” “Huh?” I say.

So...Now that we got that over with, let's get back to love at first sight, Evan said. Not infatuation at first sight...Love. With a capital L, he clarified. Love? Heeb asked, playfully pretending not to know the concept. Yeah. The real thing. The conviction that if you had this one woman, all other women would become irrelevant. You'd never again be unhappy And you'd give up anything to have her and keep her. You've experienced that? Only once. And I haven't stopped thinking about it ever since. Tell me more. Sometimes I think that I still chase women just to forget about her. Because I know I can never have her. But I can't seem to forget about her, no matter what girl I'm chasing...No one can possibly compare.... Who is she? Delilah, Evan said wistfully. Delilah?, asked Heeb, intrigued Delilah Nakova, Evan replied, with a hint of awe and reverence in his voice.

I needed to take control of the dream. I held out a hand with fingers splayed and focused my will. “Zzzzzzzsssst! Pshew! Zzzzist!” I said. But nothing happened. “What in Sang are you doing, love?” he asked. My arm dropped to my side. “I was trying to shoot lightning bolts out of my fingertips,” I said. Then, quietly, “It usually works.” “Told you it wasn’t a dream. Do you want to try flying, too?” Sheepishly, I gave a little hop, but my feet came back down to the ground. “No,” I said, feeling sullen and embarrassed and on the verge of outright panic.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the way you are," I said shyly. "I just don't want to mess up, and you're much better at this sort of thing than I am." "Don't worry. You'll enjoy playing along. You'll have to be haughty, and I'll have to act beaten down, when we're in public." "That sounds kind of fun." I said. "Just don't forget that it's a ruse, love," he said. "Because once we're outside the walls again, you'll be entirely in my power. And I'd hate to have to spank you.

This was not going the way I wanted it to. I felt a desperate need to escape before I said something that would screw up my plans. Ren was the dark side, the forbidden fruit, my personal Delilah-the ultimate temptation. The question was…could I resist? I gave his knee a friendly pat and played my trump card…”I’m leaving.” “You’re what?” “I’m going home to Oregon. Mr. Kadam thinks it will be safer for me anyway, with Lokesh out there looking to kill us and all. Besides, you need time to figure out…stuff.” “If you’re leaving, then I’m going with you!” I smiled at him wryly. “That kind of defeats the purpose of me leaving. Don’t you think?” He slicked back his hair, let out a deep breath, then took my hand and looked intently into my eyes. “Kells, when are you going to accept the fact that we belong together?” I felt sick, like I was kicking a faithful puppy who only wanted to be loved. I looked out at the pool. After a moment, he sat back scowling and said menacingly, “I won’t let you leave.” Inside, I desperately wanted to take his hand and beg him to forgive me, to love me, but I steeled myself, dropped my hands in my lap, then implored, “Ren, please. You have to let me go. I need…I’m afraid…look, I just can’t be here, near you, when you change your mind.” “It’s not going to happen.” “it might. There’s a good chance.” He growled angrily. “There’s no chance!” “Well, my heart can’t take that risk, and I don’t want to put you in what can only be an awkward position. I’m sorry, Ren. I really am. I do want to be your friend, but I understand if you don’t want that. Of course, I’ll return when you need me, if you need me, to help you find the other three gifts. I wouldn’t abandon you or Kishan in that way. I just can’t stay here with you feeling obligated to pity-date me because you need me. But I’d never abandon your cause. I’ll always be there for you both, no matter what.” He spat out, “Pity-date! You? Kelsey, you can’t be serious!” “I am. Very, very serious. I’ll ask Mr. Kadam to make arrangements to send me back in the next few days.” He didn’t say another word. He just sat back in his chair. I could tell he was fuming mad, but I felt that, after a week or two, when he started getting back out in the world, he would come to appreciate my gesture. I looked away from him. “I’m very tired now. I’d like to go to bed.” I got up and headed to my room. Before I closed the sliding door, I asked, “Can I make one last request?” He sat there tight-lipped, his arms folded over his chest, with a tense, angry face. I sighed. Even infuriated he was beautiful. He said nothing so I went on, “It would be a lot easier on me if I didn’t see you, I mean as a man. I’ll try to avoid most of the house. It is yours after all, so I’ll stay in my room. If you see Mr. Kadam, please tell him I’d like to speak with him.” He didn’t respond. “Well, good-bye, Ren. Take care of yourself.” I tore my eyes away from him, shut the door, and drew the curtains. Take care of yourself? That was a lame goodbye. Tears welled in my eyes and blurred my vision. I was proud that I’d gotten through it without showing emotion. But, now, I felt like a steamroller had come along and flattened me.

What do you know about me, Isabeau?" He leaned forward, and I forced myself to stay still instead of shying away. He was so close that I could smell the subtle notes of his cologne: musk and wood with a hint of leather. What did he want me to say? That everyone said he was an ogre? Or that they all wanted to sleep with him anyway? "I..." "Go on. You won't hurt my feelings." He was still smiling, slight dimples visible in both cheeks. The sight was destracting, to say the least. "I know that you're the youngest CEO and partner in the company's history, and I know that you earned the spot by working your way up after graduate school instead of using your inheritance as a crutch." "Everyone knows that. What do you know about me? The real stuff. None of this press release bullshit." I looked down at my hands, anything not to have to look up at his face so close to me. "Um. People say... they say that you're scary. And that your assistants don't last long." He laughed, a deep, warm sound that seemed to fill up the office. I glanced up to see him smirking at me. I relaxed my grip on the desk a little. Maybe I wasn't being fired after all. "What else do they say?" Oh, God. He can't possibly want me to tell him everything. Does he? The look on his face confirmed that he did. It was clear by the way he looked at me that I wasn't leaving this office until I gave him exactly what he wanted. "They say. Um... They say that you're very, uh, good looking... and impossible to please." "Oh they do, do they?" He sat back, and tented his fingers beneath his chin. "Well, do you agree with them? Do you think I'm scary, handsome and woefully unsatisfied?" My mouth dropped open, and I quickly closed it with a snap. "Yes. I mean, no! I mean, I don't know..." He stood, then, and leaned in close, towering over me. "You were right the first time." Anxiety coursed through me, but I have to admit, being this close to him, smelling his scent and feeling the heat radiating off his body, it made me wonder what it would be like to be in his arms. To be his. To be owned by him... His face was almost touching mine when he whispered to me. "I am unsatisfied, Isabeau. I want you to be my new assistant. Will you do that for me? Will you be at my beck and call?" My breath left me as his words sunk in. When I finally regained it, I felt like I was trembling from head to toe. His beck and call. "Wh-what about your old assistant?" Mr. Drake leaned back again and took my chin in his hand, forcing my eyes to his. "What about her? I want you." His touch on my skin was electric. Are we still talking about business? "Yes, Mr. Drake." His thumb stroked my cheek for the briefest of moments, and then he released me, breathless, and wondering what I'd just agreed to.