Page 74 of Enchanted Kisses
“I thought you were moving past that poor self-image of yours, but if a list is what you need, then I’m happy to oblige. First, there are these delicate hands.” His thumbs traced the top of them. “And these tiny things.” He touched my feet. Next, he swept his fingers from my wrists to my shoulders. “As well as this warm, smooth skin.” He continued upward to my cheeks. “How many times can you look at yourself in the mirror and not see your beauty?”
I shifted, my insides tingling so much I trembled.
“But what has affected me the most is the person beneath it all,” he continued and cupped my hands in his. “Like your desire to help and put others first, and your ability to forgive. All your quirks and self-doubt are as unique as your genuine nature. But that’s not to say I don’t have selfish reasons…” He put his fingers under my chin and lifted.
I closed my eyes.
“I love how you make me feel,” he said. “Especially when you touch me. Look at me, Lily. Because I love that most of all.”
How could I be rational when he spoke like this? A tear slid down my cheek. “They’re all lies. Hurtful lies. I don’t know how but they are.” Unable to keep it together, I tore my hands from his and covered my face while I cried.
In one move, he was on the couch and had pulled me onto his lap. Cradling me in his arms, he brushed my hair from my face. “They’re not lies. Do you think I’m not capable of loving you?” His voice was soft. “Or is it that you don’t love me and don’t want me?”
When I didn’t stop crying or lowered my hands, he relented. “If it’s more time you need, I’ll give it to you. But if it’s because you can’t love me, I’ll…what can I do but accept it? I never meant to bring you to this. I only thought… It doesn’t matter. I’ll go.” He shifted beneath me.
No. I sat up and clutched his shirt. My glossy eyes locked on his. “I do love you. That’s why this is so hard.”
He stilled and his eyes intensified to a turquoise as sparkly as the sun-drenched Caribbean seas. “Say it again.”
“I love you.” It felt real leaving my lips. But what did it mean? That I meant it because I couldn’t lie, or that the spell had me convinced?
“Does that mean you’ll be mine?” His whisper sent cotton-candy fumes to my nose.
I wondered if it was part of the spell—all of it: the pulling sensation, the sweet scents, the tiny kisses.
Be strong. I lifted a hand to his cheek. “I’m already yours. You made sure of that when you cast your poem into the fountain.”
Everything faded at once—his skin, his eyes, his smile. “How do you know about that?”
A chill slithered up my neck. I stood, pulled the poem from my pocket, dropped it on his lap, and staggered to the kitchen for some distance.
“So it is true? You wrote it and this is all a lie? A trick? A spell?” Confronting him didn’t make me feel better like I had hoped. It only magnified the ache in my heart.
He stood, his gaze darkening.
I moved behind the kitchen counter.
“You saw Dagan.” He wasn’t asking.
I nodded and backed up farther. I hadn’t anticipated this. What could I do? Where could I run to get away? My dad’s room! Locking the door might buy enough time to sneak out the sliding doors and call Raysa. Would shouting her name summon her, too?
Caiden stepped closer, studying me. “He gave you the poem, told you about the fountain, said I threw it in, and you believed him? I wonder how that story could be true if the poem is here. You think I retrieved it after tossing it in? That I could?”
“I don’t know how it works. I wasn’t even sure…didn’t want to believe you wrote it until—”
“Now,” he cut in and took a few more steps, nearly to the kitchen. “And now you’re afraid of me, without allowing me to explain.”
“How do I know it won’t be another twist of the truth?” Clearly, he had mastered a way to manipulate it. I inched backward to the dining room entrance. Dad’s room was about ten steps behind me.
“You don’t. You either trust me or you trust him.”
My palms moistened, and my heart galloped. “Why am I bound to you? When did you do it?”
His nostrils flared. “He told you that, too?”
I didn’t respond, just kept moving backward.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
