Another perk of bringing the queen.
I tuck my coins back into my purse and clutch the cold pint like a lifeline. “You’re very busy this afternoon.”
The barmaid’s shell-pink hair bobbles where it’s twisted atop her head. “Ivee is throwing a party.”
Oh, heavens, no. “Ivee Lynch?”
Another nod confirms my fear.
Bollocks. This day is already bad enough. The last thing I need is a run-in with my nemesis.
Her birthday was earlier in July. What does she have to celebrate besides being awful? Maybe she won another blue ribbon with someone else’s pie.
Still perched on the rail, Kerris shuffles down the bar toward me. “What’s happening?”
“My favorite fae in the world is throwing a party.”
Her eyes widen. “Ivee is here?”
“Unfortunately. Let’s finish these and then go somewhere else.” Anywhere else. At this stage, I’d take a bottle of wine on the roof of the tallest turret over being near that wretched woman.
“Sounds good to . . .”
The crowd parts, and Kerris’s words vanish into the buzzing conversations.
Across the bar, a man with dark brown curls stands next to a yellow-haired woman swathed in pink.
Nolan is here.
Not only is he here, he’s with Ivee. Why is he at Ivee’s party?
He doesn’t even like her.
A tall fae in a bowler cap steps into the gap, blocking my view.
I push to my tippy toes but still cannot see properly, so I squeeze between two men in time to watch my archenemy pull something from her flouncy skirts.
A small velvet box.
I know what that box represents, what it likely holds within, but this doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Especially not when she looks into my former lover’s eyes with a coy smile and I hear his name on her lips followed by a question she has no business asking Nolan Graham. The box is open and there’s something inside, but I cannot bring myself to look for fear of seeing what I know she’s about to give him.
Is this some sort of twisted prank?
He can’t marry Ivee Lynch.
He just . . . he can’t.
Suddenly, I’m back at a pond drenched in moonlight, watching my first love press his mouth tohers. Only Nolan wasn’t some summer fling. He was the person I was meant to marry.
The pint slips from my fingers, crashing to the ground, spraying cider and glass all over my slippers and the floor and?—
I need to get the hell out of here.
I whirl, finding the color drained from Kerris’s face as she clutches her glass to her chest, a look of sheer horror in her eyes. Behind her, the guards’ heads swing from me tothemand back again.
The man I once loved twists toward the piercing sound. His gaze finds mine, and even with all these people stuffed into this pub, I swear I can read my name on his lips. But I can’t be here. Not anymore.
