Page 121 of The Witch is Back

Yeah, and because he had no choice but to marry her, she thought, uneasy. She stared into his eyes. “You seem calm.”

“I do, don’t I. Must be because I know you can do it.” He kissed her nose, then levered himself up. “I need to move before we’re late.”

“Why would we—Oh.” She huffed a laugh and sat up, raising her knees and hugging them as she watched him check his reflection in the mirror.

Hallie came jumping in with her three-legged version of a skip, straight to him. She purred as he scooped her up.

“She’s settled well,” Emma commented. She slid off the bed and knocked her feet together. A pair of black heels with a thin ankle strap appeared on them. She thought they’d suit the black-and-white fifties-style dress she’d decided on. And they complemented Bastian’s dark suit well. They almost looked like a couple.

Of friends. A couple of friends. She pressed a soothing hand to her belly and ordered the butterflies to chill.

“Hasn’t she?” Bastian scratched Hallie under the chin, softening as she leaned into him. “Better than I expected. She’ll make a good site cat.”

“Site cat?”

“Yeah, on digs and stuff. I don’t think anything fazes her. Unlike Chester, the big baby.”

His teasing went over her head. On digs. Her heart squeezed. Well, she’d expected it, hadn’t she?

Willing herself not to react, Emma kept it light. “Don’t even start. My poor baby.”

On his laugh, she crossed to her jewelry box on the dressing table. She stared blindly at the contents. It was good, she told herself fiercely, banishing the pressure behind her eyes. A good reminder. The masculine ring, a simple platinum band, mocked her as she took a breath.

Now. It had to be now. She picked it up. “Good thing Chester isn’t your familiar. He’d be a terrible site dog.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Bastian came over, pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder. “He’s in love with everyone. After a couple of days, I think he’d be just fine.” He worked his way to her throat, then spied the ring. “What’ve you got there?”

Panic was an ice ball in her belly, hard and hurting. She forced herself not to shake as she turned and held it out. “It’s for you.”

He took it from her. “A ring.” He turned it in the light, confusion chased by a jolt of something else. His gaze shifted, pinned. “You got me a ring?”

“Yes.” She straightened her shoulders, fighting the very real urge to run. To pretend. Emmaline might have cowered but Emma would do this. “I need to tell you something.”

Everything about him stiffened in degrees until his face was like granite. He closed his hand around the ring.

She didn’t want to look at him, so forced herself to. “I wasn’t sure how to tell you this, not when my family has already done so much to you.”

A hunted expression claimed his face. Wary. Expectant. “Yeah?”

“There’s a clause in the contract that—that means when we say I do, I could call on your magic.” He made an odd sort of choking noise and she hurried on before he could speak. “The minute I found out, I told Kole. That ring—he called on a warlock to create it. It’ll block the curse. As long as you never take it off, nobody can call on your magic. So...yeah. That’s...that’s the deal with the ring. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you before. I’m really sorry for it all. I was just...scared of what you’d think.”

She waited, her shoulders tight, her stomach drawn in as though she’d pulled a pin on a magic grenade and was braced for the fallout. He didn’t speak for twenty full heartbeats. She knew because she counted them.

And then he smiled. It pierced her heart how bold and beautiful it was, how it affected everything in his face. His eyes danced bright blue.

“Okay,” she managed, speaking around the heart that was still lodged in her throat. “Not the reaction I was expecting.”

“Thank you.” He swept in and pressed a long hard kiss to her mouth. She sank into it, arms lifting to his shoulders, pure freeing relief drowning out the guilt for once. Telling him had been the right thing to do.

After a drawn-out moment, he broke off and nudged a piece of her hair out of her eyes. “Thank you for telling me everything.” She must have spasmed or something because he studied her face. “That is everything?”

Her throat dried out in the waiting silence. His question howled through her mind, rattling the doors to the secrets she still held.

She couldn’t tell him about Sloane. She just couldn’t. He was leaving and not telling him, shielding him in one sense from the secret, was for the best. For him, for her, for Sloane. For everyone.

She gave him one short, firm nod.

He cupped her cheek. “Right.” He let out a breath. “Before we go, I want to do something for you. For us.”

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