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"It smells amazing and I'm starving. I brought something." She holds up the gin, then looks me over. "Has he fed you today, or are we starting on the wine?"

"Both. There's a bottle of red open."

"God, I love this house." She pours herself a glass the size of a vase and climbs onto a stool to watch me work. As I go about the kitchen, I tell her about the surgery I turned down to stand here in an apron, and she tells me I've lost my mind, which I have.

Then the bell goes again, and Laszlo answers it. "Rafe," I hear him say.

Daphne glances toward the corridor and frowns, spotting the tall, handsome Rafe looking toward the kitchen. After that incident in the club she told me to keep that awful man away from her, and I didn't press.

Oh dear. My husband has a death wish tonight, for Rafe.

Rafe fills the whole doorway with his long coat and large frame. He's wearing the face of a man who didn't want to be at a dinner party. Laszlo waits, because when Rafe turns up it's usually to tell him something, but Rafe just says, "Constantine sent me. Said you were short at the table." A pause. "Tomek's parking the car."

"It’s just an informal family dinner, but my brother insisted you be here since he couldn’t come, and you would only accept if Tomek also came," Laszlo says.

Rafe grunts in response.

He steps inside and finds me at the stove. "Manon." He nods to me, his voice low and careful. From Rafe, that's respect; he won't waste words proving it. Then his eyes travel to Daphne on her stool, and stay there a beat too long. The change in his body language is remarkable as he seems to freeze up. The air in the kitchen grows heavy, tension crackling in the space between them, and it’s like he can't take his eyes off her. She doesn't so much as glance at him.

"Wine's open, Rafe," I say. "Sit wherever you want."

"I'll stand,” he mutters, then says hello to Daphne and gets nothing back.

Daphne turns to me like the doorway is empty. "So I never finished telling you about the liver. Manon. The liver. You would not believe the size of it."

"Daphne—"

"Cirrhosis you could see from space. I nearly took a photo." She's louder now, cheerfully building a whole mountain out of a diseased liver. Rafe watches her talk so animatedly, and honestly it's the most patient I've ever seen a man be about being ignored.

Laszlo comes in and takes pity on him. He crosses to the counter, pours a glass of wine, and puts it in Rafe's hand whether he wants it or not.

"Drink that. You'll need it. Something stronger later." He nods at Daphne, then at me, without a shred of shame. "When they get going about the dead, there's no stopping them. My wife married the trade and made a friend in it. You'll be lucky to say ten words all night."

"I don't need ten words," Rafe says, his gaze still fixed on Daphne.

"No," Laszlo says pleasantly. "I don't imagine you do."

Daphne lifts her chin and gets louder about her work misadventures. Then Tomek saves everyone by falling through the door.

"Sorry, that gate's a nightmare." Although flushed, he seems delighted to be here, holding a bunch of flowers with the gas-station sticker still on the wrapper. He pushes them at me with both hands. "For you. For the house. Thank you for having us, this is really nice … is that lamb? It smells unbelievable." He spots tall the goodies on the counter and beams like Christmas came early. "Are we allowed to drink? On a job? This isn't a job, is it? It's a dinner."

"It's a dinner, Tomek." Laszlo sighs.

"Great." He drops into a stool and picks up an olive. "So, what else are we having?" Rafe is still being ignored, but I’m not sure Tomek is reading the room.

Laszlo catches my eye and I have to turn back to the pan so nobody sees me laughing.

I get the lamb onto the dining table with all the beautiful vegetables around it. I also add a big salad bowl, fresh garlic bread, seasonings and butter. The whole spread does look amazing. Laszlo has already set the table. For a while, it's just about passing dishes around. Tomek keeps asking me if he can get more and I urge him to eat as much as he wants. I cooked for an army because I have no idea how to calculate portions.

Daphne is shoveling food in like she hasn't eaten in a week, which, knowing her, she probably hasn't. Work has a way of making her forget mealtimes. I don't say a word when she tops up her wine for the fourth time. She's flushed, loud, and laughing at everything.

Laszlo's next to me with his arm along the back of my chair, and I spend half the meal watching Daphne and Rafe instead of eating, because it's pure entertainment.

Laszlo leans in. "Here's the thing about Rafe: he’s clueless about women. Barely notices them. On Constantine's birthday, a stripper sat in his lap. He moved her off him like she was an inconvenience and went back to his beer."

I shake my head at that, and it’s so hard not to burst out laughing. Daphne’s spent the whole evening angled away from Rafe like he's contagious. Then the wine gets into her and her chair creeps sideways, one small scrape at a time, until she's telling one of her stories with lots of hand gestures and drops one of her hands on his forearm. She's probably feeling him up because as weird as he is, he’s quite a snack—and Daphne’s not blind.

Rafe goes rigid, and his eyes drop to her hand like he can't quite believe it's there.