Page 15 of The Accidental Witch

She’d do well to remember that when she got to waxing poetic about how cute he was.

But another sidelong glance at him in the dark car told her that wasn’t a lie.

He was pretty damn cute.

Chapter

Five

As they pushed open the door to her apartment, Robbie didn’t breathe a sigh of relief the way she’d once done in her Manhattan apartment. That sounded snobby because, of course, it had been a high-rise with a view of all of Manhattan, but that wasn’t what she missed most. She missed her haven—her nest. She’d turned that high-rise into a vintage farmhouse delight.

She’d done her best to make this feel like home, but it was a shithole. There was no denying that, and no matter how much lipstick she put on this pig, it didn’t change the fact that only so much could be done.

She’d grabbed some cute knickknacks from the Dollar General with her paltry paycheck, but a candle holder and some baskets were never going to make this place feel cozy. No throw pillow or warm blanket would give her the comfort she craved in a home.

But she had her dignity, her integrity intact. No high-rise apartment could give her that.

Nina whistled as they entered her small living room with a worn plaid couch she’d gotten at Goodwill for fifty bucks, thestuffing spilling out of one of the cushions she’d so carefully duct-taped in a fun pink, and a TV tray she used as an end table.

“Man, what a shithole, huh? I thought you were rich?”

Robbie let her shoulders sag in defeat as she trudged through the living room into her bedroom, where her three musketeers were circling each other on the faded quilt on her bed, meowing like their lives were in imminent danger.

She gave them each a scratch on the head and booped their noses before looking for her hairbrush. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, Robbie cringed.

Pieces of her almost waist-length hair, now more than ever, needed a trim. They hung in a straggly, singed ball of a mess against the side of her head, sticking up in sporadic places, making it look as though she’d just been run through a car wash.

And she’d just dyed it a cute strawberry-blonde, too. But no amount of Garnier Nutrisse was going to help this. Her eyes minus any makeup looked haunted, her pale skin eerily translucent, her clothes rumpled.

Marty was right. She needed a brush. Giving her hair a quick run-through, she cursed the thickness of it as she gathered it into a high pony. Smoothing back the sides until there was only a small, patchy bald spot.

Nina poked her head into her bedroom, her eyes giving it the once over. “So tell me again why you live in this shithole?”

Wanda knocked Nina on the shoulder. “Please. For once, say nothing. It’s always so much more pleasant when your lips are zipped.”

The vampire made a face. “I’m just sayin’, if she’s rich, why’s she fucking living in this cave of salty tears and desperation?”

Robbie headed out to her little kitchen with the uneven countertops and crooked cabinet doors to get some cat food. “Because I left it all behind for my freedom and this paradise.” She spread her arms wide. “Isn’t freedom beautiful?”

Grabbing the cat food bag from a cabinet, she began filling bowls. Her three torties heard the sound of their food and came running, scampering into the kitchen, dutifully lining up.

“Not ready to talk about it yet?” Marty asked as she knelt down and stroked Porthos’s back. She purred as she scratched her ears, humming her pleasure.

Robbie shrugged. She’d distanced herself from the mess of her family, and while it should hurt to have been rejected much more than it did, when she left, she realized they’d rejected her from the start. Essentially, she’d become numb to being excluded.

“There’s nothing to talk about, really. My mother, who holds all the purse strings in my family, is a deplorable human being. When Itoldher she was a dreadful human being, she fired me from my cushy job as head of PR and left me with nothing. End story.”

“Holy shit!” Nina crowed as she held up her phone, obviously having finally Googled her. “Your fucking Agatha Tisdale’s kid? Your mother owns a chain of luxury hotels, right? Looks like she’s in some deep shit for skimming money from charity donations.”

Swallowing hard, Robbie nodded. They were going to find out anyway. She might as well be honest. “Yes. That’s me, and yes, she’s in the middle of an investigation with the IRS, among other government agencies. It’s a long story, but the short of it is, my mother was funneling donations made for a charity she owned, meant for a children’s hospital, and using those donations elsewhere. It’s sort of long and complicated, but suffice it to say, she stole from sick children. Some terminally ill. Children who I…”

She shook her head to ward off the nightmare.

“That was all I needed to know. Now I live here, in paradise,” she said with sarcasm.

But damned if she wouldn’t do it all over again.

Nina cocked her head as she scooped up Aramis and gave him a snuggle, to which her cat responded by tucking his head under the vampire’s chin and melting into her. “So you ditched millions of dollars for this shit?”

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