Page 28 of The Witch is Back

“And it’ll be good for us to spend time...connecting.”

“Bastian,” she managed around the thickness in her throat. “Are you sick?”

“No?”

“Did you take something? Drugs?”

“No.”

She lifted a hand. “How many fingers?”

His lips twitched. “Did you have this much of a mouth when we were younger?” His gaze drifted to the appendage in question.

She felt it tighten in instinctive annoyance. So obvious he would go the route of flirtation. Bastian never could deal when someone didn’t like him. She hated that it affected her.

“You can have the job,” she said at last. Maybe it was actually a good way of keeping him away from Sloane. “I’m not promising we’ll end up friends. But we could use the help.”

“Do you need to run it past Tia before I end up with an STD?”

She grimaced, ran a sticky hand through her hair before she recalled the frosting. Great. “I’ll tell her.” And wouldn’t her friend be delighted? Especially in light of the BS she’d been prophesizing. She’d have to cite Sloane. Tia loved the girl as well, and it wasn’t like Sloane was legally allowed to hang around the bar. Emma was pretty sure Tia would agree that keeping him busy at the bar was the best way to keep Bastian from finding out about her secret. About her sister.

“I’ll start tonight.”

She wanted to remind him that she was the boss, but it would’ve looked petty of her. “You sure you want to do this? It’s real work.” So, maybe she had to work on pettiness.

Faint amusement lightened navy to cobalt. “I like new experiences. So, boss, should we shake on it?”

“We didn’t shake on getting engaged.”

“Which makes it even more important we do something official now. Unless you prefer the old-fashioned seal-with-a-kiss method.”

At the withering stare she shot him, he nodded. “A handshake it is.”

He closed his fingers around hers, palm kissing palm. A wave of unwelcome heat spiraled lazily from where they touched.

His eyes were pure navy again when he spoke with soft determination. “I’ll make you like me yet.”

The only reaction she felt that deserved was a quiet snort.

As predicted, Tia wasn’t very happy about the arrangement. And by “not very happy,” read “extremely pissed.”

“He worms his way in everywhere, doesn’t he?” she’d fumed when she’d been told. “Golden boy just has to snap his fingers.”

Even when Leah had pointed out he was free labor for a month and when Emma had reluctantly pointed out that if he was going to hang around, might as well keep him contained to one place, Tia had muttered darkly about watching out for her clueless best friend.

So that boded well. Maybe Emma would make sure he and Tia never worked overlapping shifts. Still, Bastian was a big boy. Emma was sure he could handle one pissed-off witch. Well, two if you counted her, but she was less the hex bag type, more the “feel my wrath through my frosty silence” type. Generally speaking. Not that Bastian seemed to be that moved by that method. In fact he didn’t seem to notice it at all.

It was just like they were already married.

He’d left to get his things, check on his mother. Emma tried not to let that concern soften her heart.

Instead she concentrated on being relieved she had time alone. She needed to consider an aspect of the marriage that had slipped her mind with the whirl of...well, everything, last night. An aspect that, had Bastian known about it, would probably make him even less keen to marry her.

The Joining clause. A clause that gave her the power to siphon his magic from him after their vows—which would then allow Clarissa to use her leech power to take it from Emma.

Just when you thought things weren’t complicated enough.

She’d considered it as she’d finished the cupcakes and made a start on the sugar cookie dough, which needed to be refrigerated overnight. As bad as the Joining clause was, she was disinclined to tell him about it. It wasn’t like he had any choice in going through with the marriage and honestly, what good would it do anyone for him to know? At least, right now. He was stressed enough about his mother, and this would only divide his attention.

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