Lucian.

Ellie was clinging to him as though he were a protective charm.

The reporters were his doing, too.

Looking at that little girl holding on to his leg, safe at last, I almost cried.

When I was alive, every meeting between us had been a battle.

Now that I was dead, he kept appearing at the moments when I was most helpless.

Whatever his motives, I was grateful.

Lucian looked down at Ellie.

“How long are you planning to stay there?”

She shrank a little, but didn’t let go.

Comforting people had never been his strength.

He took her by the collar, supported her around the waist with his other hand, and lifted her onto a nearby ping-pong table.

Then he turned to leave.

Ellie jumped down, ran after him, and fastened herself around his leg again.

“I know you!”

His patience ran out.

The look he gave her could have terrified a room full of powerful men.

“Let go. Don’t make me say it twice.”

Ellie was clearly frightened.

But she lifted her little face and held on.

“You’re the Prince Charming Stella’s going to marry!”

I nearly choked.

What?

Lucian’s expression slipped.

Strangely, he didn’t get angry.

He folded his arms and stared down at her. After several seconds, he asked, “How do you know?”

Why was he taking this seriously?

Ellie’s eyes curved with her smile.

“I saw you on television! You and Stella were standing together, and they said you were a… a…” She scratched her head. “I don’t know that word yet.”

Suddenly, Lucian had all the patience in the world.

“A perfect match.”

I stared at him.

The man had lost his mind.

“Yes! A perfect match!”

Ellie took a folded sheet of drawing paper from her little bag.

“This is your wedding present.”

To my astonishment, the shameless man actually accepted it.

A smiling princess in a wedding dress and crown stood in a sunlit field of flowers. A short distance behind her, a prince sat on a white horse, quietly watching over her.

“I hope you and Stella live happily ever after,” Ellie said earnestly.

I had no words left.

Lucian folded the drawing and put it in his pocket.

He gave Ellie a somewhat reluctant pat on the head. Then he noticed the finger marks around her throat.

His eyes darkened.

“Does it hurt?”

For him, that question was practically unprecedented.

Ellie nodded.

He said nothing else.

He left quietly through a side gate.

Several black cars waited in a row outside. Miles stood beside the Maybach in the middle and opened its door as Lucian approached.

Once inside, Lucian pulled off his tie, dragging open the top two buttons of his shirt.

I finally saw the angry red patches along the side of his neck and down to his collarbone.

Miles looked worried.

“Should we go to the hospital? The makeup artist said those realistic burn prosthetics are very irritating against bare skin. You’re supposed to use the special remover. You just ripped them off. I couldn’t stop you.”

I looked at Lucian.

Tired of being lectured, he frowned and kicked the back of Miles’s seat.

His arrival hadn’t been a coincidence.

He had seen Pearl lead Ellie away and hurried after them.

He must have torn off the disguise because he didn’t want to frighten her.

I studied his familiar, beautiful face.

Everyone called him Fairhaven’s Devil. Bloodthirsty. Cruel. Ruthless.

Yet only after dying was I beginning to understand him.

Perhaps he wasn’t quite as terrible as I had thought.

He glanced up from his phone and looked out the window.

His gaze sharpened.

A silver-white Mercedes was ahead of us in the next lane.

I recognized it immediately.

Pearl’s car.

Lucian tilted his head, checked the license plate, and smiled.

A hunter spotting prey.

“Miles. See that Mercedes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hit it.”

What?

I withdrew my previous, wildly premature assessment.

Lucian was still Lucian.

Insane and vicious.

His people obeyed without question.

The traffic lights ahead were about to turn red. Every other car slowed.

Ours accelerated.

The Maybach slammed into the back of Pearl’s Mercedes.

Its rear crumpled inward.

Pearl had been sitting in the back, inspecting her injured face in a mirror. The impact flung her forward and sideways. Her head struck the window before the seat belt yanked her back.

Being a ghost did have its uses.

I stuck my head through the Mercedes to enjoy the view.

“My tooth!” she screamed.

Ignoring the swelling lump on her forehead, she frantically searched for the front tooth she had knocked out.

I burst out laughing.

“Which blind bastard hit us? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

First the reporters had chased her down for humiliating photographs. Now someone had knocked out her tooth.

Her face twisted with fury. She reached for the door.

Then she froze.

The rear window of the black Maybach lowered, revealing Lucian’s beautiful face.

“Miss Whitmore. What a surprise.” He looked perfectly innocent. “Are you all right?”

Miles pressed his lips together so tightly I thought keeping the laughter in might injure him.

Pearl ducked back inside before Lucian could get a proper look at her.

Covering the gap in her teeth, she gave a demure little shake of her head.

“Good. I’ll be on my way, then. My assistant will contact you about the damage.”

He smiled, raised the window, and left.

In the mirror, I could still see that idiot giving him a dainty wave.

Miles finally broke.

“That was quite a sacrifice, sir. You even had to charm her.”

Lucian shot him a look.

“Shut up.”

My laughter slowly faded.

“Thank you,” I told him.

That collision had been for Ellie.