Page 24 of Best Hex Ever
“Maybe if we’re lucky we’ll spot a ghost in the background when we get them developed. Or Rosemary will see an actual ghost!” Immy said, and Dina knew her friend was being one hundred percent serious.
“Fingers crossed.”
Eric waved Dina hello as he helped her parents carry their bags through the front door. Immy looped her arm through Dina’s and pulled her across the threshold into a side room where the walls were covered in taxidermised deer heads. Their glassy stares followed them across the room as Immy and Dina sat down in a cozy corner.
“Where’s Rosemary?” Dina asked.
“Off on a walk around the house. She wanted to see if all the ghost stories about this place are real.”
“Of course she did.”
“Anyway, I hear you met Scott last night,” Immy said, winking ominously.
“Ah, you heard about my little fall, did you?”
“I did—glad you’re all right by the way, but I want to know all about it. Eric told me you met each other before, on the train? Why didn’t you mention anything?”
“Number one, I didn’t know he was Eric’s best man at the time, and number two, this is your wedding weekend. I didn’t mention it because nothing of interest happened.”
“Nothing of interest, huh? That’s not what I heard. You do remember that I’m the bride, and you have to follow my orders. I demand you give me all the juicy gossip.”
Dina couldn’t argue with that.
“There’s not much to tell really. He came into my café Wednesday morning, the hamsa fell on the floor—”
“Oh dear.”
“Right. And then we met each other again on the train, and yeah, that time it wasn’t so bad, and then he helped me home when I fell over.” Dina shrugged, attempting to keep her cool. And failing—the image of Scott’s happy trail when he’d reached for her bag in the train had scalded itself into her mind.
“Hmm. Remember what you always tell me about the power of three in magic? Seemspretty interestingthat you met Scott three times in two days, don’t you think? Immy smiled, a cunning gleam in her eye—Dina wasn’t sure she liked where this was headed.
“Do you think there could be something there?” Immy asked.
“I don’t know,” Dina said, telling the truth. “But I can’t date, you know that.”
Immy and Rosemary knew about the hex, though sometimes Dina suspected that Immy was tired of hearing her talk about it. She seemed to believe that Dina should just come clean to her mum about it. Immy thought that Dina’s parents would welcome their daughter’s sexuality, but Dina knew it wasn’t that simple. The hex was the one thing she and Immy couldn’t see eye to eye on. Case in point, she clearly didn’t believe in the dangers enough to stop playing matchmaker between Dina and Scott.
“You don’t have to date him—just, you know, have some funthis weekend! You need it. And you know what they say about the best man and the maid of honor…” Immy waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Dina didn’t have time to whack the future bride over the head, because at that moment Immy’s dad, Tony, popped his head round the door to hustle Dina and Immy to the Reading Parlor, where all the wedding guests would be meeting.
“It was Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick,” Dina whispered morbidly to Immy as they walked through the gothic black-and-white-tiled hallway, their steps echoing.
The Reading Parlor was far too large to be called cozy, and yet somehow it managed to be. A fire crackled in the blackened stone hearth and thick forest-green drapes fringed the floor-to-ceiling windows, which let in the gray afternoon light.
Every space on the wall was filled with bookshelves. Dina could have easily spent hours in there, just picking one book up after another, alternating between reading and dozing in one of the grand leather armchairs. She would have been particularly suited to the life of a Regency gentlewoman.
Of course, all thoughts of celibate bookishness fizzled away the moment she locked eyes with Scott, who was seated in one of said armchairs, lounging in a way that should have been criminal. And—goddess help her—he was wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, truly the sexiest thing a man coulddo.
Dina inhaled sharply, desire fluttering through her. Scott smiled, as if he was so happy to see her, and she felt the blush rising in her cheeks.
Maybe it was the setting, or maybe it was her Jane Austen obsession, but this felt distinctly like that moment in the 2005Pride and Prejudicemovie when Darcy and Lizzy danced together for the first time, and everyone else in the room disappeared. Now, it was just her and Scott, the rest of the room falling away.
Dina blinked and looked away. She saw her mum chatting with Immy’s father, while her dad was admiring a row of books that contained old naval charts. Two women were sitting in a corner of the room, Juniper on the sofa between them, snoozing away. They must be Scott’s mums. This was going to be a complicated weekend.
In a flustered haze, she made her way over to Eric’s parents, a rather stern pair, and greeted them politely. Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorn never gave anything away in their expressions other than mild distaste. To Dina, they seemed like physical manifestations of the English stiff upper lip.
“Mum, did you know Dina owns a coffee shop near your office? You could drop by some time,” Eric said as he approached, clapping Dina on the back. She thanked him with her eyes; no one knew better than Eric what kind of people his parents were.
