He sighs, loosening his death grip on his desk. “You wanted to know why I hate Cooper. I, um, never talk about this. But. Back in high school, I liked a girl. A lot. And I, um, thought she liked me too. She wrote me letters. Stuffed them in my locker. They were, um…” A hint of red tints his cheeks.
“Racy?” I offer.
“Sort of. But mostly they were very…sweet. She said she cared about me. I was, um, kind of nerdy back then. More nerdy,” he says, intercepting my amused glance. “Braces. Bad skin. Worse hair. Kind of your plug-and-play coding geek. But she said she didn’t mind any of that. She said I was nicer than the other guys at school, and smarter, and she knew I was shy but if Iasked her out, she would definitely go.” His fingers beat a tattoo on the surface of his desk. “So I…did.”
I have a sinking feeling I know where this is heading. “Donovan,” I say, “you don’t have to tell me.”
He barrels on, as if I haven’t spoken. “She was popular, you know? When I went up to her after school, she was surrounded by a ton of people, including Cooper, who was your basic asshole jock. But I asked her, anyway. And she…she started laughing.”
A wave of sympathy for him washes over me. “Oh, Donovan.”
“She’d made a bet, you see. With Cooper. He bet I’d fall for it. She bet I wouldn’t. If she won—well, who knows. But if he did, well, she had to go out with him.” His jaw tightens. “I spent the rest of my senior year watching the girl I had a huge crush on date my brother, while both of them made fun of me every chance they got. Good times.”
“What a colossal dickweed.” Understatement of the year. “But I don’t understand. What does this have to do with me kissing you?”
Donovan’s gaze finds mine. “I like you, Rune. Maybe too much.”
Now I’ve definitely fallen into an alternate universe. “You…like me? But you think I’m messy. And impulsive. And chaotic.”
“You are all those things,” he says impatiently. “But you’re also beautiful. And talented. And smart. There’s just something about you. I can’t explain.” He waves a hand, dismissing this. “But I don’t get what the hell you see in me. I know I’m not exactly—fun. And that photo, with Cooper on top of you…the way he touched you after the car wreck…” His Adam’s apple moves as he swallows. “It’s stupid, I know. But I can’t help wondering?—”
The light dawns. “You think I’m pretending to hate Officer Asshat? You think Imade a betwith him over making out with you?”
Donovan doesn’t answer me, but the half-hopeful, half-resigned look on his face says it all.
Sweet purple ponies on rollerblades. Donovan Frost, Ice Man incarnate, is…shy. And anxious. Who could blame him, after what Cooper put him through?
“Let me clarify a few things.” I raise a single finger. “I know you think I’m a compulsive liar, but I swear on Valentine’s life that I find Officer Asshat too kind a term for your despicable ringworm of a sibling. I have not now, nor at any other time, engaged in a bet with him.”
Finger number two. “I understand very well what it’s like to be bullied for being different, and I would never, ever treat someone else that way.”
Finger number three. “As for what I see in you, I have no idea what you were like in high school, but now? You’re hot as fire. You kiss like you should teach it for a living. And personally?” I gaze up at him through my lashes. “I happen to find smart, shy guys very, very sexy.”
Donovan’s jaw drops, and he shuts it with a snap. “Well, then,” he says hoarsely, and reaches for me.
The energy around us feels charged as his hands close on my waist, pulling me against him. His mouth seals over mine, and his warmth seeps through me, setting my body ablaze. I breathe in his vanilla-and-cedar scent, craving more of it. More ofhim.
He lifts me onto his desk, heedless of the papers that scatter to the floor. When I wrap my legs around his hips, he makes the low growl that is fast becoming my favorite sound in the world. “I was wrong,” he gasps. “You’re not a chocolate bar with cayenne, Rune. You’re a goddamn addiction.”
And then, with truly diabolical timing, my fourth premonition in forty-eight hours hits.
Chapter
Seventeen
I walkthrough the door into the red-tinged light and find myself not in the familiar white room, but outside, in a beautiful garden. It’s a perfect fall day, rich with the scent of honeysuckle. I’m at the head of a grassy aisle strewn with rose petals, flanked on either side by folding chairs filled with people. For some reason, everyone’s eyes are fixed on me.
Classical music drifts through the air, the plaintive call of a violin and the deeper, answering call of a cello. The sun streams down, dappling the garden, catching the sparkles in my dress: ivory lace with a champagne underlay, the train sweeping behind me like a wave as I walk. I’m barefoot, the grass soft beneath my feet.
At the end of my path is an arched arbor, the roof made of twisting limbs twined with white-flowered vines. Beneath it stands a man with his back to me, wearing a charcoal suit, impeccably pressed. His shoulders are broad, his hair dark as a crow’s wing and gleaming in the golden light. I have the undeniable sense that he’s waiting for me, and at the thought, happiness floods me. I feel insanely, incomparably lucky that this man will soon be mine.
This is my wedding day.
The musicians strike up a more soulful tune, and the man beneath the arbor turns. His piercing blue eyes meet mine, and his face lights with joy.
Holy hell. My groom is Donovan.
Shock reverberates through me as his lips form my name. But before I can take another step, a warm, viscous liquid washes over my feet. I glance down in horror to find red waves lapping at the hem of my dress. The rusty scent of blood fills the air, drowning out the perfume of the flowers, as the tide rises, buoying the chairs, flowing relentlessly down the aisle toward Donovan.
