By Magic Alone (11 page)

Yep. Latin. “I have no idea what you’re going on about. If this is so important, then lie to her. Tell her we’re going out, make up some stories, and then after a few weeks we can break up.”

“With
my
family?” The line of his shoulders tightened and the cords in his neck rippled. “They’ll know. Every last one of them.”

“Them?” I squeaked. This was getting worse by the second. “What do you mean
them?”

“My grandmother. My sisters. My cousin. Trust me, you don’t want them combining their . . . ah . . .
wills
to turn us into a couple. And they will, Julia, if they think I’m not living up to my promise. If they think we’re meant to be—”

“What can they do?” I wanted to laugh. If I dealt with my manipulative, controlling family, why couldn’t he deal with his?

“You don’t understand,” he said, musing to himself. “You couldn’t. Elizabeth and Grandma are the ones to watch. Alice . . . well, I might be able to convince her to leave it alone. Chloe can’t do a lot, at least not about this, but she’s tight with Grandma.” He shook his head, glanced over at me. “Even if I managed to convince everyone else to turn a blind eye, Grandma won’t. You got us into this mess by going to Magical Matchups. I need your help to clean it up.”

“Oh, come on. You’re a big, strong guy. Are you seriously telling me you’re afraid of your female relatives?” A laugh did bubble out now, which surprised me. But I couldn’t imagine Scot being afraid of anyone, let alone a quartet of women.

“Trust me. You have no idea what’s going on here.”

“Then tell me.” I faked a yawn and fidgeted, ready to be alone. Ready to put this and Scot behind me. I wasn’t going to do this fake-dating thing, regardless of what he said, but curiosity made me ask, “Why is this such a huge deal?”

“You, of all people, wouldn’t believe me if I tried to explain.” He closed his eyes as if trying to find the words that would convince me to agree. Opening them, he said, “The women in my family believe in fated relationships. If they want to, they will invade our lives in . . . well, in ways I can’t really articulate. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and the only way I can see us avoiding their interference is to . . . put on a show. It’s ridiculous, but necessary.”

Honesty glittered in his voice, in his eyes. Even if I didn’t
understand exactly what he meant, I believed he was speaking the truth. I was almost ready to say yes, but curiosity made me ask “And if I say no?”

His gaze found the envelope from Verda on the other side of the coffee table. While nondescript, the envelope boasted a rather large sticker with the Magical Matchups logo in the upper left-hand corner. I had no idea if he’d just noticed it, or if he’d seen the envelope when he first sat down and waited for the perfect moment to throw it in my face, but his eyebrows bunched together at the evidence of my cold-hearted witchery. Swinging his attention back to me, Scot said, “Looking for a mate?”

“Maybe. Is that so hard to believe?”

He ignored my answer. “Really?
You’re
looking to fall in love?”

“Maybe I am,” I snapped. “Maybe I’m lonely. Maybe I’m ready to combine my life with another person’s. Maybe I think Verda can help me do that. Have you ever thought of that, Mr. Know-it-all?”

Scot scratched his jaw in an effort to appear nonchalant, but his entire body angled forward. “This would make an excellent promotional opportunity for Magical Matchups, don’t you think?” He leaned back, bracing his head with his hands, letting his question simmer in the air. “Yep. I can see it now: a full page, full-color ad in the paper with the proof that my grandmother’s dating service is the best in Chicago. Hell, who’s going to argue when the owner of Introductions is a client?”

I gasped. “You wouldn’t!”

“Wouldn’t I?” he demanded. “Are you sure of that?”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I was too busy envisioning closing the doors to Introductions and punching the clock at my father’s firm.

“The way I see this is fairly simple,” he said. “You agree
to handle this my way, you don’t do anything to hurt my grandmother, and I won’t tell her a thing. We’ll keep all of this”—he gestured to the envelope—“our little secret. It won’t be that bad. A few weeks, maybe a month, and it will all be over.” Looking into his eyes, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he meant every blasted word.

“I’m not Snow White,” I muttered, taken back to my conversation with Kara about Disney heroines. “I’m Little Red Riding Hood. And you, Scot Raymond, are most definitely not a prince.” He was the wolf. The big, bad, blustery wolf.

My statement, which should have perplexed him, squeezed out a laugh. “You’re mixing up your fables,” he said. “How about a straight answer?”

“Yeah. Fine. Whatever.” I batted my eyelashes. “We’ll date. I can hardly wait to get started.”

The words of agreement were no sooner out of my mouth than Scot was at the door. “You’re supposed to see my grandmother tomorrow evening. I expect you’ll make that appointment and share with her how excited you are.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “Excited. So very excited.” God. There wasn’t any way Leslie was going to understand. How could she, when I didn’t?

“Good. Don’t give her a reason to doubt you, Julia. This is as much for your well-being as it is for mine and hers.” Pulling the door open, he said, “And I’ll pick you up Saturday around seven. Casual.” And with that, he was gone.

I could barely breathe, let alone process the events of the evening. For a girl who never dated, I suddenly had a booked weekend. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on your point of view—neither guy was all that interested in me.

No longer in the mood for pizza or
Seinfeld,
I spent a few minutes putting everything away. On the path to my bedroom, I saw that Scot had forgotten his jacket. I went to it, touched
the soft leather with one hand, and then, in a moment I would never admit to another living soul, bent over and breathed in deeply.

Scot’s scent was there, swirling within the pungent aroma of the leather. A delicious curl of heat wove in, startling and scaring me. I stepped back and let go of the jacket as if it were on fire. The next several weeks were going to be hell.

I woke Friday morning in a state of groggy, thick-headed awareness. The weight of another person on my bed clued me in before I even opened my eyes. When I did, it was with little surprise to find Leslie’s catlike gaze directly on me. She’d perched herself on the edge of the mattress but sat with her body slanted toward me. She held a Venti-sized cappuccino cup in her right hand, which she took great pleasure in waving in front of my nose.

“Come on, sleepyhead,” she said. “Time to get up and face the day.”

“What time would that be?” I struggled to a half-sitting position despite the strong compulsion to curl into a ball and return to sleep, and reached for the takeout cup. Leslie pulled it away and took an exaggerated sip. “That’s just mean,” I whined.

“This one is mine. Yours is in the kitchen, so get out of bed and meet me there.”

I knew we needed to talk. Heck, I
wanted
to talk. But after the many hours I’d stayed awake the night before, I wasn’t so sure how coherent I’d be. “What kind?” I asked.

“This one is a soy, sugar-free vanilla with an extra shot and no whip.” Seeing my scowl she said, “Yours is full fat, full sugar, real dairy, and I had them load it with extra whipped cream.”

“Nice, but—”

“Caramel. Two extra shots, so it’s high-voltage.” She headed for my door. “Oh, and a doughnut. Cream filled.”

“White or Bavarian?”

“White.” Her lips twitched, and when I swung my legs off the bed, she grinned. “Yep, figured that would do the trick. Hurry up, though. It’s already seven thirty and I’m normally at work by now. So are you, for that matter.”

“Day off,” I murmured.

Leslie’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Really?” At my nod, she said. “Well, we can’t all have days off, so get a move on. Or I take the doughnut and coffee with me.”

I nodded and stumbled to the bathroom. As a paralegal, Leslie had a job that was always crazy and, more often than not, long. Depending on the complexity of the cases she was assigned, and sometimes the publicity level, she could be in the office at five in the morning and not home again until eight or nine at night. Sometimes later. She loved what she did, though, so that made the hours easier to bear. So she said.

I splashed cold water on my face in an effort to jar myself awake. It helped, but a shower would’ve been better. It wasn’t until I ran a brush through my hair that Leslie’s grin fully registered. The expression seemed to reinforce my earlier guess: Leslie believed Scot wanted to talk to me about her. Yeah. That would explain the coffee and doughnut, too. Which meant it was up to me to go out there and give her the bad news.

Ugh. Double ugh. Returning to bed was becoming more appealing by the second. I hadn’t even begun to consider how to cover this particular topic with Leslie, let alone any of the others. Scot was right: this whole situation was a mess. It had the potential of ruining my friendship with Leslie and even harming my relationship with Kara, whom I’d known longer. Their friendship meant the world to me.

Bracing my hands on the sink, I tried to think of the right words to say. Nothing came to me.

Leslie’s voice filtered through the closed door. “Two more minutes and I’m coming in to get you.”

I sighed. “No reason to. I’m on my way out.” But I couldn’t see how this was going to have a happy ending.

When I entered the kitchen, Leslie was pulling the petrified dish of spaghetti from the microwave. Wrinkling her nose, she tossed it in the trash. “Okay, this is disgusting. How long has this been in here?”

“Just since last night. I . . . ah . . . sort of forgot about it.” I gulped. “You know. With Scot showing up here and all.”

Guarded hope swirled into her tawny eyes. “Wait. Don’t say anything until I’m ready. I want to hear everything, but let me heat up your coffee first.”

Because two more minutes of waiting meant two additional minutes of guaranteed friendship, I nodded. I could always tell how good a mood Leslie was in by the care she took with her clothes and makeup. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Leslie always looked good. But some days she looked spectacular. This was one of those days.

She wore her hair in an extravagant twist, with soft tendrils framing her face, drawing attention to her high, aristocratic cheekbones. Her cosmetics were applied lightly but with an expert hand, and she had on what she called her lucky suit. An Armani knockoff, it was still excellent and very well constructed. Pale pink, the soft, crepelike fabric swirled just above her knees, showing off her long legs. The fitted jacket cinched at her waistline, accentuating her curves, all but screaming “I am woman, hear me roar.”

In other words, she looked like a million bucks. She knew it, too.

I stifled a gasp. Oh, no. I’d worried about telling Leslie about Scot because of her regrets. Because of the friend code. But this
was so much worse. That fact she’d worn that suit today said everything I needed to know: she still wanted Scot back.

My two minutes were up. Leslie handed over my coffee and doughnut, plopped into one of the kitchen chairs, and motioned to the one next to her. She has long arms, so I chose the seat across the table and scooted back a little. Just in case.

My friend sighed, a soft and breathy whisper of a sound that made my heart crack. “Here’s what I know: Scot called me yesterday and said he really needed to talk to you. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about, just that you probably wouldn’t want to see him. I didn’t understand that, but told him about your weakness for Vito’s. What’d he want?”

I sipped my coffee before answering—mostly because once we started down this path, there would be no turning back. To give Leslie credit, she didn’t squirm once while waiting. “Yeah, he mentioned that. He . . . wanted to discuss his grandmother.”

I watched Leslie carefully, waiting for her to absorb that information before I moved forward. The expectation in her eyes dimmed but didn’t completely disappear. “His grandmother? Why would he want to talk to you about his grandmother?”

I twisted my fingers, wishing I had a paper clip. “She’s Verda.”

“What?” Incomprehension colored Leslie’s tone as if I’d suddenly started speaking in French. Or Swahili. “That can’t be right.”

“It is.
She
is, I mean. Verda is Scot’s grandmother.”

“My Verda—I mean, Verda from Magical Matchups?” Leslie’s eyebrows rose. “Are you positive?”

“Yeah.” I pushed out a smothered laugh. “Small world, right? Who’d have guessed that in a city this large, my greatest competitor is none other than your ex’s grandmother.”

“Wow. I wasn’t expecting—” Leslie’s hold on her cup tightened enough that the lid popped off on one edge. “Why would Scot want to talk to you about Verda? You two don’t even know each other.”

“Well, you see, that’s not completely true. Not anymore.” I licked my suddenly dry lips. “I visited Magical Matchups the other night, after dinner with my parents, and . . .” The words got stuck in my throat. I swallowed another mouthful of coffee, but it didn’t help.

“You’re nervous,” Leslie said, stating the obvious. “Why? I think it’s awesome that you went to Magical Matchups. That was my—Kara’s—idea in the first place, remember?”

“Yeah. Well . . .” I told myself to just get on with it. “There’s more to it, Les.”

Puzzlement and unease flickered over my friend’s face. “I’m listening. You met Verda . . .?”

“Yes. And we talked. And then Scot walked in.” I babbled out the rest of the story in a rush of blurred-together syllables. Most of the story, anyway. Let’s just say I hit the high points and hoped those would be enough. Through it all, Leslie stayed silent and played with her coffee cup, flipping the lid off and then snapping it back on. I found myself focusing on the sound rather than my own voice. Which actually helped in a strange way. After what felt like forever, I finished by saying, “And . . . um . . . that’s about everything.”

Leslie slid backward in her chair. “So to wrap up, Verda believes you and Scot are destined for each other, Scot doesn’t want to break a promise to her, and you have agreed to date him for a few weeks.” She tapped her long, manicured, pink-painted nails on the table. “Maybe a month. Because if you don’t, he’ll rat you out and tell all of Chicago that you’re a client of Magical Matchups. Is that everything?”