“Pleasure at simply being there had him swinging fast across the road, shooting up the snaking lane carved into the rock, then, in shock, slamming on the brakes to avoid crashing into a high iron gate.He scowled at it for a moment before the intercom beside his car buzzed on. "Templeton House.May i help you?""What the hell is this? Who put this damn thing up?""I-Mr. Joshua?"Recognizing the voice, he struggled to bank down on his irritation. "Annie, open this ridiculous gate,will you? And unless we're under attack, leave the damn thing open.”

“I had this feeling that he and I , in this moment, were a car crash, and instead of putting on the brakes, I was hitting the accelerator.”

“Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work. Therefore, whenever I see a fly settling, in the decisive moment, on the nose of such a person of affairs; or if he is spattered with mud from a carriage which drives past him in still greater haste; or the drawbridge opens up before him; or a tile falls down and knocks him dead, then I laugh heartily.”

“He reaches down and tugs his pant leg up. The gold cuff wrapped around his ankle is decorated with Smurf stickers. "One of the other collectors did this after I crashed last night. Can you believe that mess? I can't get the damn things off.”

“Either the gates of hell had opened, or Tom had lost his mind; for there could be nothing like this entity outside the precincts of the damned, except in the fevered fantasies of a raving paranoid psychopath”

“Amid the screams of his leaving, I leaned down and whispered, “You just can’t help it, can you?”His expression innocent, he asked, “Help what?”Smiling, I kissed his cheek. “Being ridiculously attractive.”