“Now!”

“A moment, Cora,” he stated firmly, I glared and he continued. “I will leave you to rest, you need some time away from me. I’ll give it to you.”

Really? How was he going to do that? Where was he going to go?

Oh Lordy, he’d probably walk in front of a car or…

“But, I’ll leave you with this,” he interrupted my thoughts. “If you have a twin in my world then it is safe to assume that there is a man in this world who looks like me. And if he was in your life, if you fell in love with him the instant you saw him, if you were convinced by a prophesy written in the sky that he carried half your soul, just like every prophesy that came true generation after generation for as long as anyone could remember… and then he crushed your heart… then I was brought into this world and I was charming, amusing, seducing you with every turn of my head, every look, every smile, every move I made, telling you fantastical stories about how I came from another world, what would you think? What would you do?”

“I didn’t seduce you!” I cried.

“Cora, love,” he whispered, “you’re seducing me right now.”

That shut me up and it made my heart clench.

“Think about that,” he said quietly then he let me go and stepped toward the door.

I watched him go and I knew I couldn’t watch him go.

Damn it all to hell!

I turned and called out to him (really, I had no choice), “Where are you going?”

He stopped in the doorway and looked at me. “Out.”

“Out where?”

“Wherever my feet take me.”

Shit!

I turned fully to him and crossed my arms on my chest. “Tor, you can’t go out in my world without me. Things are different here. Vastly different. You might get… hurt, or something.”

His mouth curved up. “Worried?”

“No!” I snapped. “I just figure you’re destined to go home soon and I don’t want to deprive Bellebryn of their ruler.”

“Right,” he murmured and started to turn. “I’ll be back.”

“Tor!” I cried, taking a step to him, he stopped and looked at me.

“Take one more step away from the bed, Cora, and I’ll have to be inventive in finding ways to keep you in it and make you rest.”

I took a step back and glared at him.

“Don’t worry about me, love. I’ll be fine. Rest, I’ll be back soon.”

Then he went to the dresser, opened a drawer, grabbed a pair of socks then nabbed a pair of boots from the floor before he disappeared.

I stared after him. Then I walked back to my bed and collapsed on it.

Then I stared at the ceiling and muttered, “Shit.”

Chapter Eighteen

Thank God You’re Home

I was pacing my living room and freaking out.

Tor had to get home and he had to get home soon.

There were two reasons for that.

One, night had fallen which meant he’d been gone all day, it had been raining or drizzling all day and, I had to admit (damn and blast!) that I was worried about him.

Two, I had a strong feeling the Cora of his world was in some deep shit.

Earlier, after he’d left, I’d laid down and when the aspirin didn’t work, I picked my way through my (filthy, Tor was right, there were used takeout cartons, dirty dishes and other debris everywhere) apartment to the kitchen hoping to make coffee. However, I found no coffee and not much else except sour milk in a carton I was pretty sure I’d left behind.

I shook the milk out in the sink and threw the carton away, got some ice water, took some ibuprofen and tried the resting thing again. Then I couldn’t rest because my house was so filthy.

So I started cleaning, throwing in some laundry, removing the sheets, picking up sodden towels, putting away my clothes and makeup and the other Cora’s expensive clothes and makeup, not to mention, tidying the glossy department store bags that still held receipts and seeing just how much money Cora had spent which nearly gave me a heart attack.

Where had she got so much money?

I found my purse and there was twenty dollars in it which, if I remembered correctly, was how much I’d left in it. I went to my computer and logged into my bank account. All my money was still there. I checked my on-line credit card statements, all the balances were nil, like I kept them, paying them off monthly.

What on earth?

I went back to cleaning and when I bent to put away the scattered DVD cases in the cabinet under my TV, wondering why on earth she pulled out what appeared to be every DVD I owned – she must have really liked movies… I thought – I found it.

Money. Stacks and stacks of it. And we weren’t talking five or ten dollar notes, here. We weren’t even talking twenties. They were all fifties and hundreds.

Holy crap!

I stared at it then sat back on my tush, slammed the doors shut and stared at the cabinet some more.

Then I went back to cleaning but now I was cleaning because I was nervous, agitated and trying not to panic and I was hoping I could concentrate on cleaning and not obsessing about all the ways Cora could get that kind of cash, every way I came up with spelling trouble for her and now… me.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

How did she get so much money?

And whose clothes were those men’s clothes in my closet and, I might add, drawers? There were jeans, t-shirts, suits, dress shirts, shoes, boots, underwear, the whole enchilada. Not many but enough to spell trouble.

Something was wrong and I didn’t want to be home alone without Tor whenever that something walked into my apartment.

I only hoped that whoever he was, he went with her when she went back like Tor came with me.

I finished tidying, scouring, wiping and vacuuming and when I finished, I took a shower, lotioned with my lotion, blow-dried my hair and put on a pair of jeans and a University of Puget Sound sweatshirt.

The clothes of Tor’s world rocked but I had to admit, it felt nice to be in a pair of jeans.

Then I sat down by the phone.

Priorities.

My parents.

“Sweetie!” my Mom cried when she heard my voice and I was relieved I wasn’t disowned. I was also close to tears just hearing her voice. I loved my Mom. “My God, where have you been? The last three times I talked to you, you said you were in a rush and you had to go, you’d call me back. Why haven’t you been calling me back?”

“Uh…”

“And who was that sexy-voiced man who answered the phone, at eleven thirty at night, I might add?”