“Rhys doesn’t hate anyone,” Bowen replied automatically, but then a thought occurred to him, one that made his stomach drop and his hands go a bit sweaty on his pint glass. “Are you . . . did the two of you . . . ?”
Of the three Penhallow brothers, Rhys was the youngest and—much as Bowen and their oldest brother, Wells, hated to admit it—the only actual charmer in the family. Bowen definitely couldn’t blame Rhys for being interested in a woman as gorgeous as Tamsyn, but after the Katie Evans War back in ’07 (and also ’09 and then again in 2013, which put an end to it until hostilities unexpectedly resumed in 2016), the brothers had all agreed never to date the others’ exes.
Not that this was a date, of course. It was a business meeting, which was why it was absolutely fucking ridiculous for him to feel this disappointed at the idea that she might have dated Rhys.
Even worse, though, was how thrilled—how bloody elated—he felt at the look of horror that crossed her face at the very idea of her and Rhys.
“Oh my god, no,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “No, no, no, he was very much attached when I met him.”
Sighing, Tamsyn took another sip of her drink, and Bowen got the impression that she was steeling herself.
“I might,” she said, tilting her head to one side, “have been trying to acquire a certain . . . item, using . . . less than aboveboard means, let’s say.”
And now he remembered why her name had sounded so familiar.
Rhiannon’s tits.
“Tamsyn Bligh,” he said, nodding. “Pretended to work for the College of Witchery in Graves Glen, gave Rhys and Vivienne a Eurydice Candle to—”
“To capture a ghost so that I could sell a possessed candle to a very lucrative client, yup!” she finished up brightly, like if she said it nicely enough, it wouldn’t sound that bad. “But then the ghost was way more dark energy than I was prepared for, your brother and his girlfriend had to save my ass, and I left Georgia a reformed woman. And now I am the very professional, very not-shady Acquirer you see before you now!”
Holding both hands out to the side, Tamsyn wiggled her fingers with an implied Ta-da!
“Huh” was all Bowen found he could say. And then: “She’s his wife now. Vivienne. Not his girlfriend.”
“Congrats to them. I’ll send a gravy boat. Now”—Tamsyn placed both hands flat on the table, patting out a quick rhythm—“It’s Christmas Eve in London, and you’ve brought me out in the freezing rain for what, exactly? I assume a job?”
Bowen took another sip of his Stella, trying to get his thoughts in order. From the moment she’d walked in, he’d been playing catch-up, and if he wasn’t careful, he was going to say this all wrong.
“I want you for me.”
Fuck fuck fucking fuck, mate.
“I want you to work for me,” he clarified as Tamsyn’s eyebrows vanished beneath her heavy bangs, her lips slightly parted. “As an Acquirer, obviously, that’s . . . that’s the job I’d be hiring you for. The job that you do already. Only you’d do it for me, as in there are certain things I need—magical things, nothing weird. Well, weird because they’re magic, but nothing dangerous, and you could . . . acquire them. How you do now, but . . . different? Not different in the means you’d use, that is, but—”
“You’d like to offer me an exclusive contract to acquire magical artifacts for you and only you,” she interrupted, and Bowen closed his eyes briefly, blowing out a deep breath.
“Yes. That.”
She studied him in silence for a few beats, long enough for Bowen to wonder how many Rudolph’s Rosés he’d have to drink before the memory of these last few minutes was permanently swept away. Five? Half a dozen? Maybe he’d try ten just to be safe.
“Why?” she asked, and when he didn’t answer right away, she gave another careless shrug. “I just mean I’ve been acquiring for you for over a year now on an as-needed basis. What’s changed?”
What had changed was that Bowen had the sense he was running out of time. Ten years now he’d been trying to find a spell that would save Declan, and he was no closer than he was the day he started. He couldn’t waste time running down every piece of every spell that might work, and no other Acquirer he’d ever worked with had been as good at the gig as Tamsyn was.
But no one knew what it was Bowen had been up to for the last decade, and he wasn’t ready to start sharing now.
“Does it matter so long as my checks clear?” he asked, and Tamsyn rocked back in her chair, grinning.
“Now you’re speaking my language, Bo. Can I call you Bo?”
“Please don’t,” he said, to which she chuckled, folding her arms over her chest.
“Fine. Bowen. How much?” she asked, and Bowen sat up straight, relief coursing through him.
This part, he’d been ready for.
He said a number.
She said a different, bigger number.
He said a number smaller than that, but bigger than the first offer, and after a few more back and forths, they settled on a price that made them both happy, even if Bowen’s savings account would undoubtedly be wincing.
It would be worth it, though.
The sleet had let up some, and both their glasses were empty as Tamsyn reached for her coat. Bowen stood up, too, grabbing his beat-up leather jacket from the back of his chair. The pub wasn’t nearly as crowded now, so there was no need, really, for him to put his hand lightly on her lower back as they maneuvered their way to the door, but Bowen found he was doing it anyway. She was close enough to him that if he lowered his head just the smallest bit, he could smell her hair.
Luckily, even a man who’d spent most of the last decade alone on a Welsh mountainside was more civilized than that.
Barely.
As they reached the vestibule, Tamsyn suddenly turned, looking up at him. Once again, Bowen got the sense that she was trying to figure him out, her brain whirring behind those big brown eyes.
“So that’s that?” she said, fluffing her hair out from under the collar of her coat and hitting him with another wave of that perfume that somehow smelled like Christmas. Warm, spicy. Like clove and orange. “No paperwork? No contracts? We just shake hands like gentlemen, and boom, I work for you?”
“Long and short of it, yeah,” Bowen said, sliding his hand out of his pocket and offering it to her.
But Tamsyn didn’t take it. She just stood there in her fuzzy coat as rain pattered on the glass panes in the door, and the plinking synthesizers of “Last Christmas” started up over the speakers.
