Page 71 of Claiming Demons
She nodded slowly. “From what I’ve learned about my parents, there are certain parts of them which are a little like me and others that I might want to emulate, but mostly, as much as we share aspects, I’m not like them in a lot of ways. They’re both a little on the serious side and that’s not me at all. I can be serious when I need to be, but I much prefer keeping things light. So… yeah… In a lot of ways, I’m back to square one, figuring myself out.”
“What about your women’s shelter idea?” I asked her. Several times since the conclave, she’d mentioned how she was pondering the idea of helping women get out of bad relationships and hopefully into good ones. “Isn’t that something you want to pursue?”
She nodded. “It is, but I have a lot to learn about business first.”
“Or you could let me handle the business end of things, at least at first, and you could just do the part you want to do.”
“You’d do that?” Though even as she asked it, she laughed. “Of course you would. You’re always telling me you’d do anything for me.”
“Precisely. If you want to make this work, thenwe’llmake it work… together.”
She smiled. “Yeah. Together.” Then her eyes opened wide. “Oh!”
“What?” I asked.
“Together!” she repeated. “What if Ramsey helped us with anylawyerythings, and Fen could work in the kitchen or… or help the women retrain as chefs or construction workers or something. I… I think we could all make it work, don’t you?”
I smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I think we could.”
She leaned over to kiss me quickly. “Thanks! You’re brilliant!”
“I’m pretty sure it was your idea.”
“You inspired me.”
“Sure.” I kissed her back, a little longer, a little deeper, my hand caressing her thigh below the hem of her short skirt. I felt her arousal rise, billowing like smoke over embers within her and when I pulled back, I asked. “Did you want lunch or…?”
Heat flashed across her silver eyes and her desire slammed into me like a steamy tidal wave, making me instantly hard and ready.
“I’ll take ‘or,’” she whispered, tossing the pen and notebook on the table and pulling me down onto her on the couch.
I didn’t envy Fen and Ramsey, who’d be working away only to be hit by what I’d just felt… then hit with the even heavier wave of bliss I was about to induce in Ana. That thought gave me all manner of joy as I pleasured my true love beyond reason, knowing those two would feel every aching moment of it.
FEN
“I know justthe place to build it!” I said with a grin.
I was as excited as Ana, about her new project. She’d mentioned it before, but now she was really going for it and I was happy to help.
“There’s a project I was working on a little while ago. Some tech start-up bought four adjoining buildings in the east village to put in some trendy office space, but the bottom fell out of their business and we only got as far as demoing the inside. I bought the space from them for pennies on the dollar and it’s been empty ever since. There’s tons of space and you could make it whatever you wanted it to be since it’s gutted at the moment. It’ll take a lot of work to make it livable, but I’m on board, whatever you need Ana!”
Everyone was here, gathered around Grey’s massive dining table, which had a few extra extensions in it at the moment. There were twelve of us: we three guys, Ana, her three daughters, Uncle Donny, and her parents, along with Eva’s boyfriend Trent and his sister.
Ana had been telling us her idea about a place for women to go to liberate themselves from bad relationships, even if they had kids. Then Ana would help set them up for their new lives. It was perfectly Ana: a little war and law, a little peace and healing… and a whole lot of love.
“Oh, Fen, yes! That would be wonderful!” The joyous expression on Ana’s face was everything to me. It would have been enough to warm my heart, but I already felt her intense gratitude and joy and excitement, which elevated my own emotions to a higher plane of existence.
“I’d love to help out once I’m done law school,” Reia said with a wide grin. She turned to Ramsey. “If you’d be willing to have me on as an associate?”
Ramsey winked at her. “Hell yeah, kid! I know you’ll be an amazing lawyer.” He turned to Ana. “And yeah, I’m in. I’ll help with anything you need, whether it’s prosecuting dickhead husbands or softening them up a little to make sure they stay away from the women. Oh, and I know another lawyer who would love to help. She’s a daemon named Aletheia, whose aspect is truth. With her in court, no man would be able to lie.”
“Oh… wow, yes, if she’s interested. I’d love to have her.” Ana blinked. “I don’t know how I’m going to pay for all of this. I mean, I know you’re all willing to front some money to get things going, but it’s not a business that’s going to make much money.”
“Those are called charities,” Grey said. “You can get endowments and grants from all sorts of sources to help. Or… you could just ask the new head of Zagreus Bio-Medical to be your benefactor.”
Everyone looked at Caia.
She was all business. “I’d be happy to help… after I’ve checked the books and analyzed our market readiness and profit margins. There are…” she trailed off seeing people’s faces go a bit blank. “Ah… there are lots of details you don’t care about that I’ll need to look into, but yeah, I’m in.”