Addicted to Witch (3 page)

“Clothing of the gods,” Helena murmured in awe. She had the perfect pair of McQueen heels to go with that. “No I can’t. I don’t fancy it.”

Her sister’s eyes narrowed. “Three letters for you. G.M.C.”

Oh, that was out of order. “I wasn’t self-medicating!”

Helena had been caught out by the most hideously bitchy practice manager ordering a set of sleeping tablets that hadn’t been prescribed for any other patients. Short of explaining that she had a near prophetic manner of diagnosing her patients because of the “m” word, she’d been left with little else but to confirm that the tablets had been for herself. In a strange way, she was only proving her late aunt right. Helena was indeed a witch. But her powers were for the “greater good.” Chlamydia could be detected with a handshake. Cancer by the pitch of tone. Bronchitis separated from a simple cough. No one knew and that was how it would stay.

The toll on her sleep came from her experiences as a child. No medication had any effect on her. Lucky for her, Ophelia was ridiculously connected through little else but an admiration of her sheer hard work. Helena received a slap on the wrist for ordering the pills, but her practice manager was keeping a beady eye on her.

“Good thing we proved it for you. Now. This is your dress,” Ophelia pulled up the website. It was beautiful, but horrifically upstaging.

“How is that a team building outfit? It’s more Saturday night meat market.”

“How dare you refer to McQueen as a meat market?” Ophelia grinned then chose another email, “This is what the estate looks like.”

“I’m getting a separate room, right?” Helena risked a glance upward. Dammit, Ophelia would know what that meant.

“Why do you need a separate room?” Ophelia asked with an abnormal delicacy.

“I mean I wouldn’t want to disturb you in your team building and I know how you are about personal space…”

Her sister shook her head. “You’re not sleeping again. Are you?” Helena twisted her mouth, searching for the lie that wasn’t going to come. “Fuck’s sake, Hells. You need to talk to Dad. Whatever drug cocktail you are on, it’s not working!”

“It’ll go away,” Helena assured her. “It stopped for years. It’ll stop again.”

Ophelia’s mouth twisted. “What does Josh think?”

Whoa, not talking about him. “It doesn’t really concern him.”

“He’s the selfish cunt who is supposed to be your boyfriend,” her sister replied. “Dump him already.”

“He dumped me. And you shouldn’t be dictating my sex life,” Helena warned. Ophelia was too goddamn bossy sometimes—just because she was the oldest. It brought out the “fuck you” in Helena.

“I’m just—”

“Don’t. Care.”

Ophelia’s eyes widened. “Fine! You were too good for him anyway. What happened?”

Helena stared into her water. Josh is the perfect example as to why I should stay away from men. “I was interrupting his night time sleep schedule. He said he spoke to you about it.”

Ophelia half spat her wine back into her glass. “Did you give that cunt my mobile number?”

“No.” Helena sighed. “Don’t be silly. I wouldn’t do that to you. I actually like you. I knew he was lying, so I don’t know why I let him wind me up.”

Possibly to disprove his theory that she was devoid of human sentiment. Poor Josh, she did pity him. He wanted her to feel something for him that she wasn’t entirely sure she was capable of. She considered whether a text message apologising would help.

Ophelia went in for the kill. “Then coming to Kent will be the best thing. You’ll get out of London—relax, go to the spa for a bit, walk. Eat some Michelin star food.” Helena wavered as their food arrived. Her sister lost her temper. “Look, are you coming or not?”

“This is the last favour I do for you.”

Ophelia cut into her steak with the barest lift of her eyebrow. “Oh-kay then.”

Chapter Four

The eight p.m. train to Ashford hadn’t taken long at all and Helena felt an immediate sense of relaxation that came with the quiet. Ophelia had grunted in the direction of her colleagues before demanding room service. Helena’s room was connected by a single door, for which she was both relieved and disappointed. A separate bedroom at least gave her some distance, but the door meant Ophelia would hear her if she had disturbed sleep. Guaranteed Ophelia and her Vulcan-like hearing would notice.

Once she’d eaten copious amounts of food, Ophelia announced it was past her bedtime and was asleep within minutes, leaving Helena twiddling her thumbs. A glance at her watch told her to do something more useful than attempting to bore herself into exhaustion. Taking a walk seemed like a good idea. She’d be perfectly safe doing so as she was hardly walking through Hackney. Making her way from the estate, she ended up on what was supposed to be the main road, but instead looked like a country path.

It was pitch black outside and gloomy grey clouds looked heavy with rain. She took a brief look around before she rubbed her palms together and separated them; smoothing her hands before the sky until the clouds evaporated. The sudden silvery glow of the moonlight gave an eerie feeling to the area. She half expected to see fairies dancing from leaf to leaf, fireflies circling the air, elves hunting for herbs and concoctions.

Kent got such a bad rap for being boring, but to Helena, it was simply beautiful. No sleep though. It was also her first weekend Josh-less. The sweetness of silence, unmarred by his command for her to not disturb him... She asked herself if she really was going to text him or was it a blatant lie? It needed to be done, at least for her own peace of mind. Tomorrow. Definitely, she’d text him tomorrow. He’d need a little space from her first.

She tugged on the heel of her ballet flats, securing them on her feet and started to walk briskly. Soon enough the hotel was far behind. With a deep breath of fresh air, she bent down to feel the blades of grass between her fingertips, the roughness of bark on the trees, the sap dripping from the leaves, the physical touch feeding into her whole body, sharpening her sight and intensifying her sense of smell.

Helena glanced up and her heart nearly exploded in fear. There was an animal in the distance. Holy God on earth, it was huge! It trotted toward her. Nothing could have forced her to move, she was utterly rooted to the ground. Fear held her still as the animal—a lion of what could only be genetically mutated proportions—came to stand before her.

Like a friendly tomcat, he butted his head into her tummy, nearly knocking her over. She giggled abruptly. He blinked, all huge violet eyes in straw-coloured fur. Intrigue made her crouch to look at him, and in response, he touched his cold wet nose to her own. Laughing she trailed her fingers through his mane, a silvery blond that slipped through her digits like water.

How bizarre
, she thought, noting the leopard-like markings over his nose. They could be mistaken for freckles. The lion suddenly flopped to his side and stretched out, his paws extending as he yawned. She sat beside him, the length of his body a furnace at her back and began petting him, his purring sending tremors through her arm.

“Where did you come from?” she asked softly. Helena wasn’t a small woman by any man’s standards but this beast simply dwarfed her. Why was he so tame? The lion turned his head to look at her and put a paw over his eyes as if slapping his forehead which made her laugh again.

“Okay, I get it. Don’t ask silly questions. Can I take you home with me?”

He rolled his body against her and closed his eyes again, laying his head on his paws. She’d never felt so warm. There was no way this could be happening, she had to be dreaming. Or else how could she possibly be sitting at the side of the road in Kent with a lion snoring behind her? Was he snoring? That had to explain the earthquake tremors beneath her bottom. He smelled like warm sand and salt.

“I’ve got nowhere to go and it’s not like I’ll be sleeping properly. I can stay where I am.”

The lion gave a grunt of assent before resting back on his paws. “Nice to know you agree with me.” He was so very warm…

***

“Miss?”

Helena snorted awake. The ground was cold and wet and evidently lion-less. An elderly man leaned over her. His dog frantically sniffed around her and he struggled to keep his pet under control.

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She scrambled to her feet, shivering. “Yes, I’m fine. You don’t know what time it is, do you?”

“Just going quarter past eight.”

Her jeans and top had wet grass and fallen leaves stuck to them and God only knew what her face looked like. “Thank you. Sorry I disturbed you.”

His frown deepened. “Our GP runs a Saturday service until one in the afternoon. Maybe you should pop in.”

“I’m just here for the weekend,” she excused. Telling him she was a GP herself would only make things worse. “Thank you for waking me.”

She turned and hurried back to the estate, zipping past some guests who were already awake and alert for a divine smelling breakfast and ran straight to her room. Ophelia perched on her bed, her iPad on her knees, an imperious look on her face. “Where were you?”

“I went for an early morning walk,” Helena lied.

Ophelia’s eyebrow raised. “In what you wore last night?”

“I didn’t want to waste the clothes I’ve brought with me for just a walk.”

“Did you roll down a hill as well?”

“Fee, leave it out. I’m not a child. Go away, let me have a shower and I’ll meet you downstairs for breakfast, all right?”

Fee closed the cover on her iPad. “Obviously that walk didn’t do anything to improve your mood. If you come downstairs, you better behave. I’ve only got you to talk to, so it’s best we don’t piss each other off.”

Helena clutched her head. She was going backwards again. Why was she dreaming about lions and going sleep walking? Fucking, sodding Kent.

Chapter Five

Ophelia was putting the fear of God into everyone. The fact that she was a dark-haired, pale skinned white girl with Sarpong as her surname inevitably confused people. When she introduced Helena as her sister, after looking at all six feet of Helena and taking in her nut-brown skin, the automatic response was, “Oh, your adopted sister?”

“I said sister,” Ophelia would blast. “What the fuck does adopted have to do with it?”

Helena gleaned from her own late breakfast that no one else had brought backup except Ophelia. And while the firm’s employees had to endure things such as “trust building exercises,” Helena took full advantage of the gym and the spa. And the restaurant. Then back to the gym. The interest in Helena came from the assumption that Helena was Ophelia’s chocolate, lesbian lover. Ophelia was more than happy to put them straight, trust building exercises or not.

What everyone was looking forward to was the night’s entertainment. The ballroom had been decked out with balloons, streamers, a vodka luge and lots of positive reinforcement statements on the tables. Helena had endured a strained dinner with Ophelia, picking out everything she disliked about her colleagues.

Avoiding any horrified looks, Helena went on the hunt for a drink. She didn’t care that it’d be a false sleep but she wanted to just get through the night, no questions asked. No lions. No waking up on the side of the road like a tramp.

Ophelia saw the lined up glasses of champagne next to her sister’s plate and moved four away. “What’s the matter with you? You don’t drink! Not since you saw that lecture on what it does to your liver.”

“It’s socially acceptable,” Helena replied without apology.

Ophelia’s eyebrows rose delicately. “Are you back chatting again?”

“Cameron!” Helena beamed at the dark haired man with eyes the colour of a summer night sky. “Why doesn’t my sister like you?”

“Because judges prefer my opinion to hers.” He sent Ophelia a grin so smooth children could have slid along it into a pool of water. “Hard to bill a client for thousands when you haven’t won.”

“I would win, you pompous prick, if you stopped talking about how you all tugged each other’s dicks at Eton,” Ophelia snapped.

Not waiting to see the outcome of that little display, Helena took her glass of champagne to the makeshift bar. I really would like to sleep. Just for once. She told herself off for such pathetic self-pity and waited for the night’s entertainment.

The singer finally got to the stage. Every woman in the room suddenly perked up. That was a man and two halves. He had a waterfall of silvery blond hair that drifted to his shoulders, making him look all at once hippyish and vulnerable. Matched with a broad body built for rugby, he could have been intimidating but then he spoke, and said in the most understated, sexy voice, “This is what employment was meant for. Getting hammered with people you don’t really like.”

He then started to sing Take That’s
Greatest Day
without a trace of irony or mickey taking. Just him and a piano. Helena watched in awe as he wove a spell of love and hope, and faith in the human race. The guy was incredible.
They better up his pay
, she thought, looking around the room as employees looked at one another as if for the first time, clinked glasses and sang along. The words sparkled over her chest, and her mouth curved into an unrepentant grin. Men didn’t hit those notes without castration.

The urge to have a look at his legs to see if his clothing was doing it for him was strong. But the sting of tears was stronger, at how he effortlessly carried the song, the music, the emotion in the fingertips that skated over the piano keys. A different Helena would have given into a sobbing fit. Hell, a drunk Helena would have, but a few of the women of the firm wrapped their arms around Helena’s neck and started rugby crowding her into singing along.

The singer saw them and smiled softly from behind the microphone. His eyes burned into hers, and he sent her the slightest wink. Okay, she thought, her heart racing in her throat. Officially the sexiest man alive. David Gandy included.

He finished and the room burst into applause. “We feeling the love? Good, let’s keep it going.”