Chapter Three

 

“Most amusing,” I said at last.

Maman said nothing. She watched me, her expression guarded.

“It’s not true.”

“Cosmo.”

“It’s not true.” I wiped impatiently at my eyes, stared—glared—at the bees humming around the sunlit scarlet roses climbing up the pergola. I shook my head.

“I…naturally assumed…”

“Naturally. Why would he love me for myself?”

She clicked her tongue in disapproval.

I expelled a long sigh, wiped my eyes again, faced her. I could see the unwilling sympathy in her gaze, which did not help matters. I made myself ask. “Am I bewitched as well?”

Her eyes widened, then narrowed. She stretched her hand to me. I took it. Her clasp was strong and warm. Her gaze held mine steadily.

Nearly a full minute passed before her face twisted. She gave a little shake of her head. “No. Your feelings are genuine.” Her lip curled. “Unfortunately.”

I freed my hand. Pressed my fingers to my temples. Funny to remember that half an hour ago I had imagined the day could not get worse.

“What will you do?” she asked.

It was difficult to get the words out. “I don’t know.”

“Do you know who—”

“Yes,” I said curtly. “Oh yes.”

And Goddess help her. That betrayal was nearly as painful as the realization that all my hopes and dreams of a life with John were based on illusion. Trickery. Witchcraft.

How could she have done such a thing? Why?

“Ah,” Maman said softly, and I believe she guessed correctly.

It was a great deal to take in—the implications of what I’d just learned—and for several long moments I sat unmoving, trying simply to absorb…the end of everything.

“Vraiment,” my mother said suddenly, briskly. “What does it matter when all is said and done? He’s happy enough as he is. You love him. For reasons known only to yourself. At least for now. And there is your role in this ridiculous murder inquiry to consider. Therefore, you need do nothing.”

I stared. “You mean, go ahead with the wedding?”

She lifted her shoulder. French for whatevah!

“Marry him when he’s—when he’s not in his right mind?”

“Mon chou, he’s a mortal. They have no right minds.”

I ignored that.

“You could try marriage and see if after a month of it, you persist in feeling the same way. You may find yourself grateful to have a way out.”

“It’s not right…it’s not the way to treat someone you love.”

She rolled her eyes. She is no romantic, ma mère.

I said, “You don’t even want me to marry him. Now you’re saying I should go ahead and do it anyway, even knowing he doesn’t truly love me.”

“You don’t know that he doesn’t love you. It’s possible that by now his feelings are somewhat genuine.”

My spirits rose, then sank again as I remembered John’s initial and instinctive reaction at our first meeting. Something about me had raised his hackles—like a dog meeting a cat.

“Either way, he won’t thank you for breaking his heart.”

“No. I’ll have to— The spell has to be removed.”

Maman’s green gaze was curious. “You would do that? Knowing the risk?”

I hesitated. It was tempting to do as she suggested. Pretend I didn’t know the truth. Pretend the love John and I felt for each other was real—my love was real. The most real thing I had ever known. It might be years before the spell wore off, and by then he might come to love me. It was sometimes the case. More often, the non-bewitched partner fell out of love even before the spell faded.

“I don’t think I have a choice.”

She made a sound of amused disgust. “I always said it was a mistake to let you watch so much television. Your head is full of such frivolous notions. So. If you’re not going to marry him—which is the wisest decision and my vote—do give Great-aunt Coralie warning so that the wedding breakfast can be cancelled.”

My throat closed. I nodded.

“And there is tonight’s rehearsal dinner. That too must be cancelled.”

I nodded again.

My mother sighed. “Love is not everything, my darling boy. When you’re my age, you’ll come to understand that making decisions based on love is like building your castle on the sand.” She rose. “Now you must excuse me. I have to contact la Société. The news regarding Reitherman’s death is most troubling.”

* * * * *

When I arrived, Andi was behind the counter at the Mad Batter, the cupcake shop she owns and operates. She wore her white baker’s uniform, and her short red hair was starting to curl with perspiration, not surprising given the line of customers.

I think she saw the truth in my expression before I even stepped through the doorway.

“How could you?” I demanded. “How could you do that to me?”

Andy flung her right hand out, saying, “All time stop. Let nothing drop!” Every mortal in the building froze. I passed people checking their phones, people stepping into midair, people holding cups inches from their lips, people scrunching their faces in delighted mid-bite.

“It was an accident!” she cried.

“An accident? How do you accidentally cast a love spell on someone, Andi? Were you aiming for Sergeant Bergamasco and mistakenly hit John?”

She turned red. “I mean, I didn’t mean—didn’t intend— He was such an arrogant prick, Cos. You liked him, and he was a jerk to you. He didn’t have to be. He went out of his way.”

“He has a right not to like me back!”

“I know! But he didn’t have to be such a douche about it.”

I hate that word, and she knows I hate that word.

“He’s not, and what the hell business was it of yours if he was—er, wasn’t?”

“It was supposed to be funny.”

“Funny!”

“Not even funny so much as—”

“No, it isn’t remotely funny!”

“I never meant for you to be hurt by it. I never thought you’d see each other again. It was a spur-of-the-moment spell to pay him back for his rudeness.”

“It wasn’t spur-of-the-moment. You didn’t spell-cast him on the spot. You had to work up a proper enchantment. Enchantment equals premeditation.”

I’m not sure she even heard me. “And of course I had no idea he was the police commissioner.”

“It wouldn’t matter if he was the local dog catcher. You can’t go around casting spells on mortals because they happen to annoy us.”

“No, I mean as police commissioner he had the resources to try to find you. I hadn’t considered that. I never thought he would become a problem.”

I was confused for a moment, and then I realized what she had admitted.

“Wait. Do you mean John contacted you? He approached you before he saw me at the Black and White Ball?”

She nodded reluctantly. “He came here about a week after the auction. He’d managed to track me down through the auction house. I didn’t buy anything, so it didn’t occur to me I needed an obscuration spell.”

“John was here looking for me?” Even now, knowing what I did—and with everything that had happened—my heart gave a happy bounce like a baby about to take that first lurching step. “What did you tell him?”

“That you were a friend of a friend. That I didn’t know you that well.”

Strangely, John had never admitted this to me. I knew he had tried to find me. Knew why he had failed. The beauty of the obscuration spell is that even with a set of directions and your phone number, the uninvited can’t find you. It’s wonderful for keeping sales people and spammers at bay. Of course, that’s also its downside, because sometimes the uninvited are the very people you’d most like to hear from. John had never told me he had tried to find me through Andi, and that Andi had lied about knowing me. Why?

“I can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me.”

“I’m so sorry, Cos. Truly sorry. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d be angry about my spelling him. And…other things.”

“Even if I could understand all the rest of it, I don’t get how you could let it continue. After the Black and White Ball, when I told you I’d met him again, why didn’t you tell me then? And why, why, didn’t you remove the spell from him? It’s been two weeks.”

“You were so happy. I hated to spoil it for you. I didn’t think you’d actually fall in love with him.”

“I almost married him!”

She covered her face. “I know.”

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

She lowered her hands. “I’m not sure.”

“You…”

“I’m not sure,” she repeated. “I was hoping it would work itself out.”

“Work itself out?”

“He’s so…not your type.”

“Clearly he is my type.”

“I mean, you’re so different. He’s so old. So…mortal. How could you possibly be compatible? He has no sense of humor. He’s rude, arrogant, overbearing—”

“I love him,” I said curtly, to cut her off.

“I know you think you do, but you hardly know each other. Even if it’s true, love doesn’t last forever. I can’t imagine you being able to stomach more than a few months of actually living with him.”

“I want you to remove the spell from him,” I said.

Her gaze grew doubtful. “If I remove the spell, he may not—”

“Now.”

I glanced around the shop with its statue-like customers and crew.

“As soon as possible,” I amended. “As soon as you can get away.”

“Are you sure, Cos? There’s no reversing it. Once love is dead, it can’t be rekindled.”

“I know that.”

It’s one of the three most important things to remember when casting love spells. That, and true love cannot be created where it cannot survive—nor prevented where it does.

Andy continued to quibble. “Maybe it would be wiser to, you know, give yourselves time. Maybe he’ll come to love you on his own. Or maybe you’ll come to see that you don’t love him.”

“I do love him. Too much to marry him under false pretenses. I want the spell removed. Will you promise to do it, or do I have to go to someone else?”

“No. Yes. No, you don’t have to ask anyone else. Yes, I’ll do it. Of course I’ll do it.” Tears filled her wide, hazel eyes. “I’m so sorry. You know I never meant harm to you.”

I did know that, but it was too soon to ask for forgiveness. I was shaken by her deception and sick with the fear that I was about to lose John forever.

I turned and started my way back through the forest of living mannequins.

Andy called, “Maybe it won’t make any difference.”

I didn’t bother to reply. I reached for the door handle.

“Cos?”

I turned.

“Are we— What do I tell people? What about tonight? What about tomorrow night? And what about… Am I— I need to know if I’m still baking a wedding cake.”

She didn’t mean to be unkind, and she wasn’t obtuse. She did need to know. Tonight was the rehearsal dinner. Tomorrow night was supposed to be my bachelor party. First came the traditional enterrement de vie de garçon—well, in fairness, that part of the long evening wasn’t all that different from John’s celebration the night before, though friends of both sexes attended.

Then at dawn on Sunday came the Transformation of the Stag, which was a sober and solemn occasion bearing zero resemblance to any mortal stag-party ceremony.

So yes, just as Great-aunt Coralie needed to know whether to order champagne for forty people, Andi needed to know whether to cancel reservations at trendy Misdirections.

That didn’t mean the question didn’t hurt or that I didn’t struggle to answer.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Her face twisted with commiseration. She opened her mouth to apologize yet again but stopped. She knew. She knew the moment the love spell was lifted, my hold on John would end.

A wave of uncertainty washed through me. Was I being too hasty? Perhaps Andi was right. Why not wait? Give John’s artificially induced feelings a chance to take root and grow into something real. Why risk everything? What was the hurry?

Strangely, the face that came to me in that moment of doubt was not John’s. It was Sergeant Pete Bergamasco’s. His expression of glowering incredulity when he listened to John telling me the only thing that mattered in his murder investigation was that I was fine.

I loved who John was with me, but it was painfully clear that whoever that man was, it was not the John everyone else knew and loved.

I made myself say with a firmness I did not feel, “Let me know when it’s done.”

On the sidewalk outside her shop I felt for my phone and made the call with shaking fingers.

When John’s voice mail came on, I’m not sure if I was disappointed or grateful. The person I now turned to in times of trouble was the trouble. I wasn’t sure I could hold it together if I actually had to talk to him.

John’s recorded voice tersely instructed me to leave my message.

“Hey,” I said, and my voice wobbled. I steadied it as best I could. “I just wanted to say…I love you. I always will. Meeting you…” I suddenly ran out of air and had to squeeze out the rest of it. “Changed my life. Whatever happens, I’m never going to regret that. I just…thought you should know.”

I clicked off, dropped the phone in my pocket, and spoke the words. When the door appeared, I had to blink a couple of times before I could see it.