Page 80 of The Last Days of Lilah Goodluck

“Not yet,” he says, stretching his neck. Then he stops and stares at me. “You’re still worried about something. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I’m really glad we got this time together. It means a lot to me.”

His gaze narrows and he scowls. “You’re thinking about that damn death prediction again.”

“It’s hard not to. Seeing the lotto money appear in my account yesterday makes it more real somehow. But how many people win the lotto each year? Hundreds?”

“Thousands.”

“Thousands.” I cover the worry lines on my forehead with the palm of my hand. Like it helps. “Right.”

“Please hear me when I say that fucking prediction isn’t real. You’re not dying on me anytime soon. It’s rude and unnecessary and I won’t allow it,” he declares. “I think it’s time I had a talk with this Great Witch Willa face-to-face. Get this sorted out once and for all.”

“You want to meet Good Witch Willow?”

“Yes. As soon as possible.” His cell buzzes again. With a groan, Alistair stretches to reach for his cell, and the sheet slides down. And down some more. He really is incredibly distracting. I don’t mean to objectify the man, but oh well. With a frown at the screen he says, “What the fuck?”

“What the fuck, what?”

“Just a minute.”

I wait while he focuses on sliding his finger across the screen. He has such elegant hands. Both strong and dexterous. As he showed me time and again last night. There’s every chance my thoughts regarding this man are going to be purely physical and in the gutter for the next few days to come.

“My apologies, but I’m going to have to retract that last bit,” he finally announces. “It seems it is in fact too late for you to change your mind about us. There’s a horde of paparazzi and news vans at the gate. I’m sorry, Lilah. But news of our fake nuptials has been leaked.”

My eyes all but fall out of my head. “The world thinks we’re engaged?”

“Yes.”

“The whole wide world?”

He just nods.

“Shit,” I say. “Why? How?”

“That’s what I plan on finding out.” His cell buzzes and his gaze jumps to the screen. His lips thin as he puts the call on speaker. “Mother, what did you do?”

“How hurtful. I didn’t do anything, darling,” she says. “Unless you’re talking about the small fire at your grandfather’s hunting lodge that time. Someone really should have told me that serving flammable cocktails at my sweet sixteen was a bad idea. But it’s not like they weren’t able to rebuild. Still. You wouldn’t believe how Daddy carried on about it. Of course, Mummy didn’t care, but—”

“Mother, I’m not talking about that.”

“No? Oh, no. Of course not. You’re talking about today’s big news—your engagement! So exciting, my sweet boy. I see the news is everywhere!”

“Did you have anything to do with that?”

“No.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Lady Helena’s sigh is epic. “I suppose Ididtell the princess in the first place. But how was I to know she’d tell them and they’d decide to leak it to the press? Though of course I knew she’d report back to them. Any idiot would know that. But telling reporters...how déclassé. My point is, I’m a mostly innocent party in all of this!”

“It definitely wasn’t you that told the media?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

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