I snarl.
“There’s the grumpy beast we all know and love,” he crows, pointing at my face. “Okay, maybe not love. As in,Idon’t love you. But someone might. A certain witch, perhaps?”
I snarl harder, a low growl rumbling through the room.
“Oh, dear. Is there trouble in paradise?”
I want to lie. I want to rage at him for daring to ask. It’s so damned hard to be this vulnerable, but I’ll do anything to win back Skye. So I swallow my pride.
“Yes.” The word tears from my throat, rough and ragged and grating like sandpaper.
Shadow must see something in my expression, because his cocky grin fades and his tone loses its jocular edge. “What can I do to help?”
“The grand gesture we discussed the other night,” I say. “It needs to be even grander.”
He flops onto one end of the couch, limbs splayed in relaxation like a puppet who just had his strings cut. “Tell me everything.”
I perch on the opposite end and pour out my idea.
It has to work. Itwillwork.
Skye will be mine. I can accept no other outcome.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Skye
“No! I don’twantto stay here,” Princess Buttercup yowls in complaint the next evening, one fluffy paw batting at her cat bed as if it’s offended her.
“I have to go and decorate the Town Hall for the Valentine’s Day Dance.” Fudging fudge, simply saying the word “dance” makes my squishy jelly heart hurt. All I can imagine is being in Luke’s arms, his powerful body leading mine as we move together. “Trust me, if I could get out of it, I would.”
A dance and Valentine’s and seeing happy couples everywhere? Normally, these things make me swoon and dream of finding a love of my own. But right now, I’m too raw, and it’s the last thing I need.
But Mrs. Greely would never forgive me, and she’d make sure the entire little old lady gossip network would turnagainst me, too. It would be unbearable and inescapable. That’s the flip side of life in a small town: you see everyone constantly, whether you want to or not. The thought of disappointed looks and slight social snubs makes the people pleaser in me give a full-body cringe.
“Come here.” I pat my lap. I’ve wallowed on my couch all day, burritoed in my comfiest blanket. I wish I was the heroine ofDance of Desire, able to nightclub my way through the book’s third-act breakup. But a couple has to betogetherto break up, and Luke and I don’t count, so I’m moping instead. It hasn’t helped. Normally, I’d readA Princess Brideto feel better, but now…
Snickerdoodle! Will I ever be able to read it again? Or will I be haunted with visions of Luke, one huge hand wrapped over the book’s spine, holding it close exactly like I want him to hold me?
Princess Buttercup leaps up and allows me to scratch her cheeks, my fingers digging into the long silky fur until she starts to purr and her eyes drift closed. “I want you to know I’m still mad.” My cat opens one eye to glare at me. “I’m only purring because this feels good.”
My lips twitch. “Noted.”
After I do a lot more scratching and fussing over her, Princess Buttercup finally settles onto my lap. She lets out a dramatic sigh, her little sides lifting and falling with the sound. “I don’t want to be mad at you, especially when you’re sad. But I don’t want to beherealone.”
“This is our home. You’ve lived here for years, and you never seemed unhappy.”
“That’s because I didn’t know anything else. But after thecastle, this house feels so…”
Empty. Hollow. Libraryless. These are the words that leap to mind. Libraryless isn’t a real word, but it totally should be. Any house that’s not Luke’s castle, no matter how grand, feels utterly libraryless.
“… small. It just feels too small,” she says.
“I know what you mean.” I run my hand down her back. “How about you and I try something new from now on?”
She gazes at me with avid amber eyes. “I’m listening.”
“Now that you’re my familiar, we can talk and you understand human things.”
