Giselle lifted her whole head to look at him, her entire face lit up. “Thank you, Asher,” she said, and her mouth twitched in a small grin.
“I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world,” David gushed with an almost pleading voice. If he was trying to win a smile from the banshee too, it worked. She even blushed. Then she cleared her throat.
“Hailey,” she barked. “I need to speak to you about physical love in the ladies’ room.”
David spit his drink across the table.
Giselle grabbed Hailey by the arm, shot a begging glance at Asher, who nodded his permission, and she pulled Hailey into the antler-less moose room.
Oh, thank goodness. Hailey’s head was swimming; her heart was in a twist. She didn’t know which way was up, and she needed some time away from Asher to pull herself together. And Giselle wanted to talk about physical love…? With her…?
“Giselle, I’m not Dr. Ruth,” said Hailey as soon as the door closed.
“Don’t be stupid. I wouldn’t ask you for advice on love.” She scowled, looking over her shoulder. “I dragged you in here, because…” She looked over her shoulder again and whispered, “Asher is losing his mind.”
“What?”
“He loves you.”
“That makes him crazy?”
“Yes!” she hissed, pulling Hailey into a corner. “Envoys don’t love. They don’t romance, and they certainly don’t kiss and caress and cuddle like he was doing on the dance floor.” Her expression was grave. “You’re in trouble. He’s manipulating your thoughts through that littlegifthe gave you, and if he senses that you’re rejecting him, he’ll rip you apart.”
That explained a lot. The Earth swayed under Hailey’s feet, and she swallowed hard, her mind a pendulum.
Maybe it was wrong, but she liked crazy Asher and his un-Envoy-like romantic tendencies. And she hadn’t planned on rejecting him.Well, not anymore.
“It doesn’t matter if youplanon rejecting him.”
That was so annoying—Giselle and her banshee-mind-reading thing.
“It’s what hethinksis happening,” she continued speaking so quietly, Hailey had to strain to hear her. “And as he spirals further into insanity, he’ll go totally Cobon batshit crazy.”
Cobon.Could she never escape him?
“You need to be careful,” she whispered. “And stay the hell away from Pádraig. Asher’s jealous of the affection you show him. Plus he’s an asshole.”
Two giggling girls burst into the bathroom.
“We’d better get back,” said Giselle.
“Asher had to go,” David informed the girls when they returned, and Hailey blew a sigh of relief.
She instinctively glanced around the room in search of him, catching instead an eyeful of something that turned her stomach.
There in the middle of the dance floor was Fin. With Adelaide. And Hailey stared in disbelief as he stood under the mooseltoe and laid a long, drawn-out kiss on his tall, busty, blonde bombshell date who seemed elated to be stuck to the most handsome man on campus—okay, second-most handsome man. But then, Asher wasn’t really a man.
And Hailey really had no right to be jealous, not after her dance with Asher…
But Fin was kissing her again!
Hailey’s stomach tightened, even though she “belonged” to Asher. How could Fin kiss that girl after all those things he’d said to her? She wondered if she was even human.
“Giselle, what is that girl?” She pointed to Adelaide. “A succubus?” she guessed. She had to be some kind of demon.
“No. She’s just a skank,” Giselle said. “Told you his love wouldn’t last. Put him out of your head, Hailey,” she advised with sad eyes.
It was good to have a friend. But Hailey didn’t want Fin out of her head, which was beginning to pound. She shouldn’t feel wounded by his behavior. Really—how could she condemn him after the heated moments she’d just shared with Asher?
