Chick with a Charm (19 page)

“Please go back to your place tonight, Griffin. We each need some time alone.”

“I don’t.” He was ashamed at how needy he sounded, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

“You may not think so now, but you do. We both do. I’ll see you tomorrow night.” She turned away and walked back to the bar.

He was so upset he thought he might puke. Somehow he got control of himself. As he walked out of the Bubbling Cauldron, he wondered how he was going to survive until tomorrow night. He would be counting the minutes. Hell, he’d be counting the seconds until he could be with her again.

 

Lily had a very bad night. Worse yet, she figured Griffin was having a really bad night, too. And that was all her doing. Once again, she was the black sheep of the family.

She’d thought having her parents catch her having sex with Griffin wouldn’t matter too much. And it wouldn’t, if she would agree to tell him she was a witch. They’d accepted Anica and Jasper’s relationship because Jasper knew everything there was to know about his future wife. Anica wasn’t trying to pretend to be somebody she wasn’t.

Lily, however, had used magic on Griffin without telling him anything. He thought the attraction between them was simple lust. Her parents thought that, too, which was why they couldn’t understand Lily’s reluctance to fill him in on her magical abilities.

They’d spent the evening with Griffin and liked him. That made them even more determined that Lily should come clean, because they didn’t like seeing someone they respected being duped. Unfortunately, they had no concept of how thoroughly Griffin had been duped.

As Lily tossed and turned in her bed, Daisy padded over and laid her head on the mattress, as if wanting to give Lily comfort.

“Thanks, but I don’t even deserve a good dog like you,” Lily said.

Daisy whined and wagged her tail.

“Seriously, I don’t.” She stroked the dog’s silky head. “This is way worse than what Anica did, because when she turned Jasper into a cat, she did it impulsively, without thinking. I
planned
this, Daisy. I had plenty of time to reconsider, but I charged ahead, the way I tend to do.”

Daisy licked her hand.

“I should reverse this spell. That’s really what I should do. But you know what? I don’t have the guts. If I reverse it, Griffin will take off, and I don’t want him to do that.”

Daisy put both paws on the bed so she could lean over and lick Lily’s face.

Lily buried her face in the dog’s ruff. “Oh, Daisy, I don’t know what to do. If you truly are a magic dog, I could use some help.”

Griffin didn’t sleep much, and when he did, he dreamed constantly of Lily. He woke up with an erection, of course. After a cold shower he thought about calling her, but he knew she wouldn’t be awake yet. Thinking of her in bed made him want to go over there. He had a key, so he could let himself in and . . . no. She’d made it plain she didn’t want him there right now.

He wondered if Daisy would get her morning romp in the dog park. When she’d gone home without Griffin the night before, had she taken Daisy down to Harvey’s Hangout? The thought of her talking to Brad Harvey made his blood boil, so he decided to stop thinking about it.

Dragging himself to the office, he debated his next step, and decided to send her flowers. He’d just placed an order for three dozen red roses when Kevin walked in carrying two mugs of coffee.

He set one in front of Griffin. “It’s hot and it’s strong. I didn’t dilute it with any cream, even though you like it that way. From the way you looked in the elevator, I decided you needed straight caffeine, so drink up.”

“You were in the elevator with me?”

“Yeah, along with about four other people from the office. You didn’t say anything to any of us.”

“Sorry. I didn’t sleep well.”

Kevin took one of the two chairs positioned in front of Griffin’s desk. “That’s obvious from the red eyes and dark circles. Did you spend the whole night going at it with Lily? If so, I hope you had fun, because I doubt you’ll have much fun here today.”

Griffin picked up his coffee and tried to act nonchalant. “What’s up?”

“When I was getting your coffee in the break room, I ran into Biddle. He’s on the warpath, so I wanted to warn you before he calls you in. And he will.”

“About what?” Griffin was trying to focus on what Kevin was saying, but mostly he wondered if the florist would get the order right and if the roses would be partly opened buds, as he’d requested.

“Apparently one of your clients, Jack Schooner, called him this morning to complain that you missed an appointment yesterday. Schooner’s the one—”

“Yeah, I know. The one Biddle turned over to me as a special favor.” Griffin winced. “I’d agreed to meet him at the end of the day.”

“You didn’t say anything about that when we left for the Bubbling Cauldron.”

“That’s because I forgot about it.” Griffin looked down at his desk, and there, tucked in his blotter, was a note written by his secretary, Marcie, before she’d left at five.
Jack Schooner, 5:30.
She’d done her job. He hadn’t done his.

Worse yet, he didn’t much care about Jack Schooner. He was more worried about Lily’s state of mind today, and if the flowers would help, and whether she would let him stay over tonight.

“No, you didn’t forget,” Kevin said. “What happened was, I got this shooting pain in my left arm, and there’s a history of heart problems in my family, so you, Miles and I took off for the ER. We were there most of the night. Fortunately it was a false alarm.”

Griffin stared at him. “
Do
you have a history of heart problems in your family?”

“No, you moron. That was the best I could come up with on short notice. I wanted to make sure you knew what I’d told him. And if I were you, I’d call Jack Schooner and kiss ass.”

“I’ll call him.”

“Griff, you’re going off the deep end.” Kevin said it gently, but he wasn’t smiling.

Griffin gazed at him, unable to argue that point. “Lily wanted some time apart last night. We weren’t together.”

“And you look like this? What’d you do, stay up all night pining for her like a loser?”

“Something like that.”

Kevin groaned. “I thought you could have a little fun for a change, date somebody who is certifiably hot, but this is not good. You’ve been involved with her for three days! Nobody gets that hooked on a person in three days. It’s like she’s cast a spell over you, man.”

Griffin almost laughed at that. “Well, she is an amateur magician.”

“Hey, maybe she hypnotized you! Think back. Was there ever a moment when that could have happened?”

“No.”

“I once dated a stripper who could twirl tassels with her tits. I damn near got hypnotized watching those tassels go round and round. Are you
sure
something like that wasn’t part of your bedtime routine with her?”

“No twirling tassels, Kev.”

“Even so, that magician angle could be the clue to what’s going on. They’re trained in the fine art of misdirection. I’m going with my hypnosis theory, and maybe she’s so good that she can hypnotize you without any pendulum swinging.”

“I hope to hell I would have noticed if she’d hypnotized me.”

Kevin sat forward in his chair. “Seriously, what’s in her apartment relating to this magician thing? Is there a ticking clock? She could have used that.”

“I don’t remember a ticking clock.”

“Aha!” Kevin pointed a finger at him. “It was probably there and you were so involved with her you didn’t notice that thing going like a metronome, putting you under her spell. Now she’s got you in her clutches. She could probably make you cluck like a chicken.”

Griffin put down his coffee and scrubbed both hands over his face. His chin hurt where he’d nicked himself shaving. His head ached from all the thinking about Lily. He was a disaster.

“That’s just it,” he said. “I want to be in her clutches, but instead she rejected me last night.”

“That could be a tactic. You know, to see whether or not the hypnosis worked. I’d love to get a look at her apartment, check out the scene of the crime, so to speak.”

“Kevin, for the last time, she didn’t do anything like that.”

“I’ll be damned if I have a better explanation. You’re not yourself at all. And Miles agrees with me. If you don’t snap out of it soon, you’re gonna jeopardize your job.”

Griffin noted that he wasn’t nearly as worried about that as he should be. “You’re being overly dramatic.”

“You’re being overly complacent. Do you have a key to her place?”

Griffin hesitated. “Why?”

“Because something’s going on, and you’re too lovesick to figure it out. Do you have a key or not?”

“Maybe.”

“So you do have one. That’s a break. We need to go over there this afternoon while she’s at work and check for a ticking clock, and look around for . . .”

“For what?” Griffin didn’t like this idea at all. “Magic potions? Voodoo dolls? I knew you shouldn’t have gone to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. You’re too impressionable about stuff like that.”

“Look, make fun of my suspicions if you want to, but I promised you I’d keep you from making a huge mistake. I take that promise seriously, and I now see you in the process of making one. We need to investigate her apartment. Miles should come, too. He’s stealthy.”

“We’re not doing it. I can’t violate Lily’s trust like that.”

Kevin pointed at him again. “Think about this, buddy boy. Has she been completely straight with you? Do you feel as if you know everything there is to know about this woman?”

Griffin remembered the whole weirdness with her parents last night, which, come to think about it, had centered on a discussion of magic. But magic was just a parlor trick. Wasn’t it? Anyway, Lily hadn’t wanted to explain that discussion to him, so she wasn’t being totally open.

“Griff, if you were drowning in a deep lake, I would jump in and try to save you.”

“I know that, and I appreciate that you’re thinking about my welfare, but going into Lily’s apartment when she’s not there to snoop through her stuff feels very wrong.”

“We’re not going to ransack the place. You’ll be right there. You can direct the action.”

“I don’t like it.”

Kevin wore his hard-ass lawyer expression. “What about this compulsion you have to be with her all the time? Does that feel normal?”

Griffin had to admit it didn’t. He’d never been so tied to a woman, never forgotten his responsibilities because he was so absorbed in the relationship. Yet he couldn’t imagine how Lily had done anything to him that would explain his behavior.

“Think of it as easing my mind,” Kevin said. “I’m worried about you, and if I get a chance to look around Lily’s apartment and don’t find anything unusual, then I can conclude that she’s got you by the balls because she’s the sexiest woman on the planet. I just want to make sure we’re dealing with normal lust and not something more exotic.”

Griffin knew Kevin was only trying to watch out for him. The guy had already told a whopper this morning to protect him from Biddle. Griffin knew Kevin, and now that he had this hypnotism theory he wouldn’t let it go until he could be proved wrong. “So if we spend ten minutes there, you’ll get off my case?”

“I’d rather have twenty.”

“Ten.”

“Fifteen.”

Griffin sighed. “Okay, fifteen minutes, and you don’t touch anything without asking me first.”

Kevin held up both hands in surrender. “I will be the soul of discretion.” Picking up his coffee, he stood. “Call Jack Schooner.”

“I will. And thanks for watching my back.”

“Always. It’s what friends do.”

 

The roses had shown up at eleven, breaking into a morning that had turned into a frenzied attempt on Lily’s part to forget about Griffin. She didn’t even have her folks to distract her today. Jasper’s parents were arriving this morning, and Anica had planned some touristy things for the afternoon and evening so the two sets of in-laws could get to know each other.

Therefore Lily had filled her hours with a long session in the dog park, exercising Daisy, and way more cleaning than she usually bothered with. She could have cleaned her entire apartment with magic, of course, but usually that wasn’t worth the extra adrenaline that doing a cleaning spell pumped into her system. Besides, magic wouldn’t have taken any time, and she needed to take up time.

She’d been washing windows when the florist truck pulled up outside. With a sense of inevitability, she watched the driver haul an enormous bouquet of red rosebuds out of the back of his van and walk toward her apartment building’s front door.

If she’d hoped that a few hours away from her would dial back the power of the spell on Griffin to a more reasonable level, she was now disabused of that notion. She was afraid she’d put Griffin—and herself, truth be told—through a night of misery for nothing. The storeroom sex probably had contained a double dose of binding ability because it was so illicit.

She went downstairs to get the flowers, not wanting to put a harried delivery guy through the process of carrying them up three flights. But as she climbed the stairs, cradling the mammoth vase and surrounded by the heavenly scent of roses, she realized she’d have to call Griffin. More than that, she should ask him to lunch.

Of course, lunch would be the perfect venue to tell him that she was a witch. But she couldn’t do it yet. After this weekend, after the engagement party was over, then she would figure out a way to tell him.

She’d be doing Anica a favor by holding off, she told herself. It wasn’t really rationalizing, because if she told Griffin now, he might go a little crazy. She didn’t dare try to break the spell prior to the weekend, in case she goofed it up.

So telling him would do nothing except placate her father, who had no clue about the elixir. Griffin would still be bound to her by the adoration elixir, but he wouldn’t be happy about it. He might cause a scene at the party, which could ruin what was supposed to be a wonderful celebration.