Page 10 of Signed in Incubus

Mmm.Soogood.

“How did you get all this into my house?” I asked. “I thought you couldn’t phase with material items. These look and taste very real…unless you can make your soul stuff taste like bacon and eggs.” I made a face. “Okay, that’s a fucked-up thought.”

He chuckled, the sexy sound tickling my belly.

Argh! Why did he have to do everything sexily?

“That’s not how I want to beinyou.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

That had me rolling my eyes. So corny! Just my luck to get the incubus class clown.

“But to answer your question, I drove over and dropped by the convenience store this morning. Only phased through to unlock the door and let myself in. Did you know grocery stores don’t open till 10 AM? Crazy. Back in my day, the markets opened at dawn.”

“Back in your day? How old are you?”

He waved the question away. “That’s of no consequence.” He gestured to the moving boxes. “I can help you unpack after breakfast if you like.”

“There’s no point,” I said gloomily. “I won’t be staying here. You heard them. This was supposed to be a wedding gift. Mom might try to bribe my ex to come back and marry me so it looks good on the family. But I won’t do it. I’m not a pushover.”

“Good! You can’t marry him anyway.I’msupposed to be your perfect man, remember?” His grin was contagious.

“I’ll be sure to tell him that. But yeah, when I refuse to smooth things over, they’re going to sell the place. Or rent it out.”

“Then where are you going to go?”

“No idea.” I wasn’t going to move back under their roof; I knew that much. When Griselda asked me yesterday if I was staying, I hadn’t been sure. But after their little visit, I’d made up my mind. “Well, Prax, thank you for breakfast, but since I can’t be one hundred and ten percent sure you’re not just here to keeptabs on me, I’m sorry, but any chance of you getting laid just went down to zero. I’m only telling you so you don’t waste your time. You can leave now.”

Ugh! That really hurt to say. I was really looking forward to some physical stress relief. But with my new resolve to make it on my own, I had a few things I needed to take care of.

“I can’t leave.”

“Sure you can. You left yesterday; you can leave now.”

“No. I’m not going to leave you after some ass left you on your wedding day and ended up being photographed in Vegas with a bunch of women, completely hammered.”

“Thanks for telling me. I was avoiding the tabloids and gossip sites for a reason.”

“Sorry. I thought you already knew. So what’s the plan for today?”

“Nothing. I was going to”— my eyes landed on the spell book I dug out yesterday— “stay home and read a book.” That should be suitably boring and scare him off.

“Nice. I’ll join you.”

“What?” No! I needed him to leave so I could check the sales from my online shop! My parents didn’t know I had a side hustle selling magic tutorials online. Peddling magic wasn’t a respectable job in their world.

Dad had wanted me to work for him after I graduated, maybe even get into politics myself one day. But I had no interest in that at all. I’d insisted on getting a different job. Enter his friend’s investment company.

I’d been working at the Boston office but was supposed to start at the new Darlington branch this Monday and work for a week before heading off on my honeymoon. Meanwhile, Travis had been transferred to Darlington three months ago for work and had been living in a condo downtown.

I’d always known my job could be pulled out from under me at any time so they could make me do what they wanted. Like the house and everything else in my life. Well, except for the car. The BMW was the only thing actually in my name, but I didn’t trust them not to bug it.

It wasn’t the first time my parents had threatened to make me move home so they could control me. It had happened in college too. Some idiot had been walking around with a camera, asking students on campus about political issues. I declined to comment since Dad was a senator. But some idiot right after me had run her mouth.

I stepped away before she started talking, but not fast enough. The editing made it look like we were together. They put the footage on the internet. The video didn’t go viral or anything, but somehow, my parents caught wind of it.

And I’d gotten punished for it. That was right after the whole your-friends-are-a-gang-and-we’re-putting-a-hold-on-your-cards incident, too.

I’d opened a separate bank account and got a secret stream of revenue going. Technically, I’d been secretly selling spell tutorials and magically enhanced goodies longer than I’d been working at my official job. And I did not plan on outing myself to Prax now.

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