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just try fulfill their duty, never taking advantage.”
    “So your father’s best friend was one of the bad ones?”
    “Yes. And at first my father agreed with his friend. But then he met my mother and fell hard for her, and his mind changed about mixed relationships. He knew he’d be ostracized by his clan, so he fled with her.”
    “But he found them.”
    “It took him eighteen years to track them down. When he found out I was their child, that a half demon, half angel existed, he was enraged.”
    “You...were there when it happened?”
    Ethan nodded.
    “And you somehow escaped?”
    No , he had a different punishment in mind for me. “Yes,” Ethan lied. “The last time I saw them was in the basement of the hospital, the police forcing me to identify them, they were almost burned beyond recognition.” Ethan swallowed as the image of his parents’ charred bodies occupied his mind, their melted skin sticking to the white sheet laid over them.
    “The morgue,” Tina said. Then she looked up at him, her eyes widened in understanding. “And that’s why you don’t like hospitals. That’s why you became a firefighter—to protect that development so no one would have to go through what you went through.”
    Ethan didn’t say anything. Though Tina remained silent, he noticed a flurry of thoughts behind her eyes, that she was trying to work something out in her head. She bit her lip.
    “You want to say something,” Ethan prompted.
    “No, I—”
    “You can say it, it’s okay.”
    “I just remembered that I kind of promised my new favorite patient that I’d get you to come to the hospital with me if I could, but I don’t want to pressure you,” she confessed.
    “Your new favorite patient?” he asked, confused.
    “That little boy you saved tonight. Danny. He really looks up to you.” She averted his gaze. “But like I said, if you don’t want to go...”
    Danny . The mention of his name gave him chills. But as he looked at her, he knew in that moment she could ask him to do anything and he’d say yes. He was powerless against it.
    “I’ll go,” he said. “If you promised him, I’ll go.”
    She smiled. “Thank you. I know it’ll mean a lot to him.” Her body relaxed against him once again, her eyelids drooping. Before she drifted off into sleep, she said, “I’ll be there for moral support if that makes you feel any better.”
    He smoothed her hair as he whispered, “It does.”
    * * *
    Ethan found himself so enraptured by watching Tina as she dreamed. She was more beautiful than ever, if that was even possible. She was still in his arms, her legs intertwined with his as her head lay across his chest. He smiled to himself when he felt her take a deep breath in and sigh contentedly in her sleep. He pointed and flexed his toes, happy to feel the sluggish ache that racked all the muscles in his abdomen, the back of his thighs, his buttocks—all from their passionate lovemaking. His brain felt foggy and sluggish, too, like he’d taken a drug that calmed all the senses.
    He continued to watch the rise and fall of her chest as she slept. He tilted his head down slightly and breathed in the scent of her silky chestnut hair. It smelled fruity and tropical, like sand, coconuts, pineapple. It immediately made him think of a sun-drenched island. And that’s exactly how he felt when he was around her, like he was on vacation, like he didn’t have a care in the world.
    But that was just it—he did have cares, big ones. The curse that raged within him never took a holiday. It forced him to lead the life of the perpetual bachelor—rescuing Danny reminded him of that. There was no way he’d be able to commit to a woman—any woman, including one as perfect as this one—without the curse making sure that she suffered. He knew the rules and had learned to live with them. But that was before he met Tina, the self-reliant, incredibly sexy, sweet, wonderful Tina.
    She has to mean nothing to you , he