Chapter 3

For a second, I just looked at him. Then I remembered to shut my mouth. At first, I wanted to demand how the hell he could possibly know my name, and then that thought got twisted up in bemusement at the fact that he still looked exactly the same.

My tongue tripped over itself, and all that came out was a strangled, "Wha — who — "

Again that smile. "Call me Luke."

If someone asked you to "call" them something, then you could be pretty damn sure it wasn't their real name. I clutched my Victoria's Secret shopping bag against my chest like a shield and tried to gather whatever shreds of my dignity might be left. Not knowing what else to say, I asked, "I've seen you before, haven't I?"

"Perhaps."

Perhaps? my brain echoed. Who says "perhaps" these days? "I know I saw you," I said firmly. "About seven years ago, on the campus at UCLA. Or maybe we should go a little farther back than that...say, to my eighth-grade graduation?"

"You are observant, aren't you, Christa?" He glanced around us, at the people hurrying in and out of the various shops and restaurants. "Not a very private place for a conversation, is it?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Why would we need to have a private conversation?"

"You'll see." He stuck his hands in his coat pockets, still smiling that enigmatic smile, and then suddenly we were someplace else.

The whole world seemed to tilt around me, and I let out a little shriek. Not very dignified, true, but you try standing in the middle of a shopping center one second and then being whisked away to — well, I didn't know exactly where I was, but it certainly wasn't The Grove.

My first impression was of a vast panorama that glittered in the darkness, and then I realized I stood in the living room of a house that must have been built up somewhere in the Hollywood Hills or someplace like that. Los Angeles lay spread out beneath me, a moving carpet of light. After I caught my breath and looked around a little more, I realized the place looked oddly familiar.

What the hell? "Is this the Charlie's Angels house?" I demanded. I'd been kind of obsessed with those movies back in high school. Kicking ass while wearing a progression of crazy disguises always looked like a lot of fun.

"The what?" he asked.

"In the first Charlie's Angels movie, the computer genius who turns out to be the bad guy had one of those houses up on stilts in the hills. This one looks just like it."

The stranger appeared nonplussed. "Aren't you even going to ask how we got here?"

Well, my brain had sort of skipped over that part, probably because if I'd stopped to think about it, my head would have exploded. But the rationalizing had already kicked in. Maybe he'd injected something in my arm when we bumped into each other, and he'd dragged me up here while I was in a drugged state. Or maybe I only thought I was here, while in reality I'd actually fallen down and was now lying on the ground, still at The Grove, with a concussion and possibly worse.

I shot him a wary look. "Are you going to tell me if I ask?"

He gave me the last answer I expected. "Of course."

That response took me off-guard, so I had to digest his reply for a few seconds before saying, "Okay, then...how did we get here?"

"I brought us here."

"You...brought...us here."

He shrugged. "It's a little thing I do."

"You...do?"

Up until that moment, I'd thought he had dark eyes,

since his hair and brows were such a deep brown, but as his eyes glinted at me, I suddenly realized they were a very dark blue. A corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "It's because I'm the Devil."

Again, I could only stand there and stare at him, feeling as if somehow I had been made the butt of a colossal joke. Finally, I managed to say, "The what?"

He moved across the living room, which was decorated with museum-quality '60s-vintage modern furniture, and paused at the bar that separated the kitchen and dining room. "Cosmo?"

"Yes," I said automatically. Right then, the only thing in the universe I thought I had a firm grasp on was the undeniable fact that I needed a stiff drink.

As if by magic, a cocktail shaker appeared on the bar before him; he busied himself with pouring a measure of Grey Goose vodka into it, followed by the necessary cranberry juice and Cointreau. He transferred the resulting concoction into a martini glass, then came back around the bar and handed the drink to me.

I looked at it with some suspicion, but need won out over caution. I took a sip, then another. It was good.

"So you're the Devil," I said, in what I hoped was an off- hand, conversational tone. He didn't look particularly crazy, but that didn't mean much. The evening news was full of people saying, But he seemed like such a normal person....

"Yes," he said.

"And so you're visiting L.A.?" I asked, thinking, Just don't make any sudden movements, and you'll be fine.

"You don't believe me."

"I didn't say that," I said hastily. Nutcases hated having their psychoses thrown back at them.

"This isn't evidence enough?" He gestured toward the oddly familiar room in which we stood.

I hesitated. While I wanted to point out that he could have drugged me and brought me here, or that he could be another element in some elaborate hallucination, I didn't want to upset him, either. Just because I couldn't see any sharp, pointy objects in the vicinity didn't mean he couldn't get his hands on something if necessary.

Realizing I still held the Victoria's Secret bag, I wadded it up and shoved it inside my purse. There were just so many blows to my dignity I could take in one evening, and every time his eyes went to the shopping bag, I wondered if he was imagining what sorts of unmentionables I had hidden inside.

"All right," I said at last. "If you're really the Devil, why go for something so — so — "

"So what?" he asked softly, blue eyes intent on my face.

"So typical," I replied, even as I fought the flush that wanted to rise in my cheeks. "I mean, wow, you're the Devil, and now you've got the ultimate L.A. bachelor pad from the movies or whatever. Do you really think this sort of thing impresses women?"

Dead silence. I swallowed, and wondered where the front door was and whether I could get to it quickly enough before he decided my rudeness deserved a quick evisceration.

Then he threw back his head and laughed. It wasn't crazy, hysterical laughter — he sounded more like someone who'd heard a friend tell a particularly funny bar joke. "I begin to see what He meant," he murmured.

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing." For the first time, I noticed he held a martini of his own. I hadn't seen him mix it, but maybe he had a second cocktail shaker hidden somewhere on the bar. Or maybe he really is the Devil, I thought, and he just conjured it out of thin air...because he can.

"Let's try this again, shall we?" he asked. Lifting his glass, he took a swallow of his own drink. Then he winked at me.

And the scene changed again. Somehow, I managed to retain enough presence of mind to maintain a death grip on my martini glass. I blinked, and we were no longer standing in that overly retro-cool living room. Instead, my surroundings reminded me of a Tuscan villa — dark wood floors with faded but still costly Oriental rugs, antiques in simple woods that matched the floors. At one end of the chamber in which we stood, a fire burned softly in an enormous fireplace with a surround of glazed red tiles.

"Let me guess," I said. "Italy?"

"Hancock Park."

Hancock Park was an extremely upscale part of Los

Angeles approximately five miles east of where I lived in the Fairfax District. A hell of a lot closer than Tuscany, that was for sure, but still, there was no way we could have gotten there in the blink of an eye, especially with rush hour crawling toward seven o'clock on the streets outside.

"I think I need to sit down." I spotted a couch a few yards away and stumbled over to it, feeling as if someone had smacked me upside the head a few times with a baseball bat.

"Good idea." He followed me but remained standing while I sank down onto the sofa. I felt the warmth of down- filled cushions support my outraged muscles.

Not knowing what else to do, I sipped at my drink again. Devil or not, he made a hell of a Cosmo.

"Better?" he asked.

"Nice house," I said cautiously. "Is it yours?"

"It is now."

I hated it when people made me feel stupid. Frowning a

little, I asked, "What does that mean?"

"I mean that it was on the market, but with after-holiday

sales sluggish as they are, the realtor had despaired and dropped the price. Lo and behold! She'll come into the office tomorrow and find the offers all signed and countersigned, and the owners paid with a cashier's check for the full asking price."

"You can do that?"

He smiled at me. If it had been anyone else, that sort of smile would have made my knees melt. As it was....

"I can do anything I want," he replied.

"Anything?" I asked. It came out more as a squeak. So much for the whole dignity thing.

"Well, almost." The smile faded slightly. "I do have a few rules I have to follow."

I wondered who would set rules the Devil had to follow, came to the immediate conclusion that it had to be someone Very Important, and gulped. In what I hoped were airy tones, I commented, "But obviously they don't prevent you from making real estate deals."

"No, not that."

Feeling a little braver —after all, he might be the Devil, but he certainly hadn't done anything threatening so far —I asked, "So why are you here? And what does any of this have to do with me?"

For a moment, he didn't say anything. He turned away from me slightly and appeared to watch the movement of the fire in the hearth. At last, he said, "I needed to ask you something."

That sounded ominous. Maybe he was under his soul- collection quota for the month. With nervous fingers, I tucked a strand of hair back behind one ear. "Um — what did you need to ask me?"

The blue eyes met mine. If he was just a regular guy I'd met on the street, I would have killed to hear the question he asked next.

"Would you have dinner with me?"

Again, I found myself momentarily struck dumb. Possibly I wasn't acquitting myself too well — I, who had always prided myself on being good with words if nothing else — but then again, how many people could handle a dinner invitation from the Devil without feeling just a little overwhelmed?

Eventually, however, my vocal chords decided to function again. "Why?"

He definitely had a smile that made you think maybe Hell had gotten a bad rap all those years. "It's your birthday," he replied.

"Well, when you put it that way," I said. Then I thought, Oh, the hell with it...literally. "Dinner sounds great."

The smile deepened. "I thought you might say that."

It was too late to back out now. I just smiled back at him and hoped I hadn't done something really, really stupid.