Page 94 of A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting a Witch

Augustine laughed dismissively. “Am I?”

Theo frowned, but she pressed on before he could answer.

“It’s just I’ve never really been the beautiful one.”

“What do you mean?”

She worried at her lip. “My mother was beautiful. She really was. And my older sister, Celestine? She has this effortless elegance and is just so graceful. And then my baby sister, Maddy, walks into a room and people just love her. Within five minutes, sometimes less. And then Clem . . .” Augustine shook her head faintly. “God. Clem’s so beautiful, and she doesn’t even know it. The real beauty of our family.” A reluctant smile tugged briefly at her mouth before it faded just as quickly. “But me? I was never beautiful, or elegant, or lovable. I’m just . . . useful.”

The words slipped out before she could stop them.

“I’m the one who stayed behind,” she explained. “The one who fixed things. Who still fixes things. I’m the one who worries and organizes and looks after everyone else.” She shrugged faintly, trying and failing to make it sound unimportant. “But then, someone had to. Someone still has to.”

Theo was staring at her now.

“And don’t get me wrong,” she rushed on. “I love them. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. But after a while . . .” She exhaled quietly. “You get used to being the person who makes everyone else the priority. You stop expecting to be chosen yourself.”

Theo’s expression changed then, something sadder but fiercer crossing his eyes. “Augustine.”

She looked away. “If you saw Clem, honestly, you’d probably never even notice me—”

Theo kissed her. It wasn’t a gentle interruption or even patient disagreement. No. He kissed her with absolute conviction, one arm tightening around her waist while his hand cradled the back of her head.

When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against hers, his breath uneven. “You think I care that your sisters are beautiful?” His voice carried a note of genuine disregard, and his thumb brushed beneath her eye. “Celestine could be more graceful than Anna Pavlova, and I’d still want you. Maddy could be more lovable than Dolly Parton, and I’d still want you. Clem could be Helen of bloody Troy, and Augustine, I’d still want you.”

Augustine stared at him, her heart beating so fast she wondered if he could hear it. If he could feel it.

“You,” he repeated softly. “I’d want you. The woman who carries everyone. Who gives pieces of herself away so easily she doesn’t even notice she’s doing it. I want you, and I’ll always want you,” he said, unwavering now, “and not because you’re standing next to your sisters and somehow winning a competition you invented in your own head.”

A tiny, involuntary huff of laughter escaped her.

“I want you because it’s you.” His hand brushed her hair back. “I told you I remembered loving someone, but actually, I remembered loving you. Whatever they took from me — whatever was taken from us — they couldn’t take that.” Theo smiled, a look of wonder in his eyes. “And somehow, impossibly, I get to fall for you all over again.”

Augustine went still, bewildered, because this was the exact thing she didn’t know how to do: believe someone when they chose her without needing something in return. And as she looked into his eyes and saw her own feelings reflected back to her, Augustine realized something.

That the love between her and this man was real.

But also, so was the ending waiting for them.

Chapter Thirty-Four

They stumbled to their old bedroom, knocking things over, pulling clothing from each other’s bodies and throwing the garments to the floor. The whole of Augustine’s body ached, but it was an ache of want, an ache that could only be soothed by Theo’s hands on her skin. Theo was kissing her with an intensity she’d forgotten, one she knew she’d missed, and she kissed him back just as passionately, just as needily. Her mind told her to slow things down, to take her time with him, but her body refused to listen, and Theo didn’t seem to care about the speed with which they were moving.

The opposite, in fact.

She was down to just her underwear when he pushed her to the bed. He lifted himself on his forearms, leaning down to nuzzle at her naked chest, and when he caught and rolled a nipple between his teeth Augustine let out a gasp, her hands entangling into his hair and holding him to her. He switched to her other breast, and she let out a low and breathy moan of approval, still clinging to him, still holding him close, still wanting this as much as she’d ever wanted him before. Pleasure was shooting through her, gathering between her legs, and when Theo shifted slightly, moving back up to kiss her mouth once more, she couldn’t help rocking against the hard line of his thigh. He sat up, kneeling in front of her, holding her hands as she rubbed her aching core against him, his eyes blown wide with desire, clearly mesmerized by the sight in front of him.

Augustine knew they’d done this before. Of course they had.

She’d almost been there, in fact, the first time she’d brought him home, the memory brushing just out of reach, like something half-seen in a dream. They’d done this countless times, and it should have felt familiar, practiced. Something her body could fall into without thinking.

It didn’t though. It couldn’t, because she couldn’t remember any of it. So, this felt like the first time, and yet . . . it wasn’t.

This time was different.

There were no memories to guide them, no past to shape the moment or weigh it down. No versions of themselves lingering at the edges, no ghosts of who they had been, trying to lead or hold them back. There was just him, and her, and a mattress beneath them, keeping them both firmly in the present. It was as if the universe itself was insisting that this, right here, was real.

That this, right now, was the answer.