Page 110 of By the Fae

“You plotted to make him fall in love with you,” Seth continued. “Tricked him. You wanted him to be fired. That way, you could take all the credit for the game.”

Oh, that cunt would pay for this.

Holly wiped her free hand on her dungarees, transferred the mic over, and wiped the other hand. “That’s absurd. I never wanted to get him fired, I only ever—”

“I have a question!” I half-yelled, almost tripping over my feet in my haste to reach her.

The entire audience issued a low gasp.

“That’s him,” someone said. “The nymph.”

Someone handed me a microphone.

Chapter 37.

Goldie

“Uh, hi, Holly,” I said into the microphone. She sob-laughed. Didn’t take her eyes off me for a second. Seth, beside me, completely forgotten about. “It’s more of an observation than a question. Is that okay?”

She nodded. Clutching the mic to her face as though it were an oxygen mask.

“I never envisioned doing this in front of a hundred people, but—”

“There are three-hundred-and-twenty attendees,” a small older human man near the aisle pointed out to me.

“Right, thanks,” I said, faintly aware of the laughter that echoed around the hall. Seth glared at me.

Holly’s eyes locked onto mine, her breath heavy on the microphone. I walked up to the stage. She climbed down the few steps to meet me at the bottom.

It had been two weeks since I last saw her. Held her. Felt her breath against my collarbone. Heard my name on her lips. Gods, I loved it when she said my name. I loved the way she formed the word. The importance she gave to those two syllables. The way her mouth and tongue worked over it. Like a benediction.

Her eyelashes were already waterlogged, dragging against the inside of her lenses. Her cheeks were reddened. Her lips were parted, enough to reveal only the tiniest flash of teeth. I needed those lips against mine. I loved those lips.

I loved her.

“Holly?”

“Goldie?” she said, voice high and breathy, turning my insides to warm, syrupy liquid.

“I don’t want to take up too much of these people’s time—”

“We don’t mind!” came a yell, followed by more laughter.

“I just wanted to let you know I’ve found a way for us to be . . . us. To be together as long as you’ll have me.”

She reached out a palm and flattened it against my chest, as though she was making sure I really was there. Not a mirage from a desperate desert hallucination. “You came back,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

I cradled her chin, tilting her face towards me.

“I have just one thing I need to say,” I said into the microphone. My words bounced around the hall.

“Yes?” she huffed, closing her fist into the fabric of my shirt.

“I told you so!”

“Huh?”

“I was right about humans. All along. They are all obsessed with love,” I said. Her brow creased, but a smile ghosted her lips. I brushed my thumb against them. “But that’s okay. Because now, so am I. You did that to me. You took my stubborn fae mind, and you showed me a better way. And now I’m obsessed too. I’m obsessed withyou. I love you, Holly Briar, you fucking genius. I think I loved you even when I hated you. Except, I’ve never really hated you. I hated myself for not seeing the truth. The truth that you are worth it. Everything. There’s a way for us to be together. For as long as you’ll have me. Fifty years, or five hundred. You choose.”

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