Stony-faced, impressed neither by her explanation nor the way she’d managed to mutilate a smile, he growled, “Too late. I’m due in court in ten minutes and won’t be back in time to log it. It had better be on my desk when I come in in the morning. And the Desny case. And the Elliot contentions. Got it?”

“Yes,” Gabby said, gritting her teeth.

As he turned away, she shot a furious look over her shoulder at the fairy on the files. It winked and flashed her a lazy sexy smile.

“And, O’Callaghan . . .”

Gabby’s head swung back around.

“While you’re at it, let’s see what kind of case-precedence you can establish for the Rollins case. On my desk by Monday morning.”

Only when he’d disappeared into his office did Gabby let her shoulders droop and her head fall onto her desk with a soft thud.

“Why do you do this, Irish?” came the velvety purr from behind her. “It’s a glorious day outside. The sun is shining. The world is a vast adventure begging to be had. Yet you sit in this cramped little box and take orders. Why?”

She didn’t even bother raising her head. She was just too tired to be afraid anymore. Fear required energy, and she’d depleted her reserves hours ago. “Because I have to pay the bills. Because not all of us get to be all-powerful. Because this is life.”

“This isn’t life. This is hell.”

Gabby raised her head and opened her mouth to dispute that, then took a good look around. It was Thursday. It would take her the rest of the day to finish up the Brighton arbitration. All of tomorrow to wrap up the Desny and Elliot contentions. And digging up case-precedence for the Rollins trial? Well, she might as well just drag a cot into the office for the weekend. Yes, she thought dismally, life at Little & Staller was hell.

“What are you doing here?” she said wearily. “Did you come to torture me? Bully me into compliance? Just get whatever it is over with, okay? Kill me. Put me out of my misery. Or don’t. I have work to do.” She puffed her bangs from her eyes with a sigh, refusing to look at it.

“Brutality is the refuge of the dull of mind, ka-lyrra. Only a fool conquers when he might instead seduce.”

“Great. A fairy that reads Voltaire,” she muttered. “Go away.”

“A fairy that knew Voltaire,” it corrected mildly. “And don’t you get it, Gabrielle? I’m a permanent part of your life now. We’ll be doing everything together. I’m never going away.”

The other day upon the stair, I saw a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today; how I wish he’d go away!

The nonsensical rhyme looping madly through her brain was one she’d learned from Gram as a small child. She’d never thought that one day she’d be living it. Trapped in it. Forced to coexist with a being no one else could see but her.

But she was. And afraid that already half her coworkers thought she was nuts. Despite her efforts to ignore Adam Black, on too many occasions the fairy had provoked a response from her, and she’d not missed the funny looks other interns had been casting her way.

Midnight. She was in bed fully clothed, blankets snug to her chin, clenched in tight little fists. Afraid to sleep, for fear she’d wake up and find it in bed with her. Or worse, not wake up in time. At least this way she figured it would have to undress her before it could make good on those heated, erotic glances it had been giving her all day, and surely that would jar her into wakefulness before it got too far.

It had dogged her steps the entire afternoon. Watched everything she did. (Well, almost everything. It’d been civil enough to stay out of the rest room when she’d turned around and bared her teeth at it before slamming the door in its face.) It had taunted, provoked, brushed its big, hard body against hers at every opportunity, and in general lounged about looking like the epically horny fairy it was reputed to be, dark and sinfully, shiver-inducingly sexual. She’d stayed at the office long after everyone else went home, until nine o’clock, trying to get a handle on her caseload, so tired and distracted that everything was taking her ten times as long as it should have.

And she might have stayed later had Adam Black not vanished, only to reappear with a sumptuous dinner pilfered from Jean-Robert at Pigall’s, of all places. Of course it had exquisite taste in food. And why not, when it could steal everything it wanted? She’d like to wear the féth fiada herself, long enough for a few hours of madcap penalty-free shoplifting at Saks Fifth Avenue, maybe a mosey up to Tiffany’s.

In silence, the tall, muscular, leather-clad Fae had spread a stolen linen on her desk, arranged her meal of roasted salmon braised with a heavenly-smelling sauce, a decadent cheesy-potato dish, a side of roasted vegetables, crusty bread with honey-butter, and no less than three desserts. It had produced, with a flourish, a single, velvety Stargazer in a tall, shimmering vase and poured wine into a delicate lead-crystal goblet.