Page 23 of The Witch is Back

“No, but speaking of...” Leah looked at Emma over the rim of her glass. Expectation widened her eyes like a child about to be told a bedtime story.

Emma stared at the pink froth on her drink. When she breathed out, small ripples skated the surface. They got bigger and bigger. Just like Bastian asking her to marry him. The consequences would change her life in so many ways...

Well, she’d made the decision and now she had to live with it. She’d had experience with that.

She squared her shoulders, lifted her glass. “I’m getting married.” She gulped half of the drink down as Leah spluttered.

“Oh, yeah.” Tia clinked her glass with Leah’s. “Right there with you, pal.”

“What... How... When...?” Leah stopped, exhaled. Took a drink. Wiggled her shoulders as the magic hit her bloodstream. “That was needed. Now, spill.”

Emma swirled her drink, choosing to focus on it rather than her friends. “I had no choice.”

Tia’s glass hit the counter. “He forced you? Give me ten seconds to hunt up a hex bag and I’m going nuclear on his ass.”

“Tia.”

“Don’t worry; it won’t be traced back to us. I’ve gotten better at hiding the energy signature.”

Emma wasn’t touching that with a ten-foot wand. “Tia. His mom is dying.”

“What?”

Emma explained, setting out the facts like toys at a tea party. When she’d finished, Leah stared at her a minute before gulping down the rest of her cosmo.

Tia slid her a grimace. “You’ll feel that tomorrow.”

“That’s tomorrow’s problem.” Leah’s head bobbled as if it couldn’t decide whether to shake or nod. “Wow. Emma. Wow.”

“I know.”

“And you can’t get a quickie divorce once the clause has been met?”

“No such thing,” Tia answered, eyes glued to Emma’s face. “So you’re getting married, but it’s completely platonic.”

Emma viciously suppressed the memory clearing its throat. “Yes. I told him that I’d still live here, work here. He can do whatever. Far away from me.”

“And how’s that going to work when he sleeps with someone else after the vows?”

Emma shrugged, indifferent. At least, it was a cousin to indifference. In the ballpark. She could see it from where she stood.

“Right.” Tia pursed her lips. “I know that face.”

“What face?” Leah caught the last drops of cosmo on her tongue.

“What Ms. Emmaline has not told you was that she was infatuated with Bastian Truenote since...well, forever.”

“That was years ago,” Emma insisted, annoyed. “Before he abandoned me.”

“Try telling that to your face because I can already see it.”

That annoyance circled Emma’s blood, along with the potent cocktail. “See what?”

Tia jabbed a finger. “The gooey, he’s-so-dreamy shit. You like him being back.”

She gaped for a couple of seconds. “No!”

“You do. He’s going to come back in, make you fall for him and then sleep his way through society, and I’ll have to watch him break your heart all over again.”

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