The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1)(69)

And it wasn’t, the fresh evening air doing her some good as she made her way back to Elaine’s. She wasn’t even crying anymore as she walked in the front door.

“Vivi,” Sir Purrcival said from his basket, and she smiled as she crouched down to pet him.

“Learning new words every day! Look at you go.”

“Treats?” he asked, blinking those big green eyes, and from the kitchen, Gwyn called, “Don’t give him any! He’s eaten his weight in them already.”

Vivi followed the sound of her cousin’s voice, propping a hip against the kitchen table while Gwyn stirred something on the stove.

“Not staying with Rhys tonight?”

“Nope. Needed a breather.”

Gwyn didn’t reply to that for a long time, and then she turned away from whatever it was she was boiling and said, “You can say you’re in love with him, you know.”

“I’m not,” Vivi argued, but she turned away so that she didn’t actually have to lie to Gwyn’s face. “It’s just . . . like it was before. An infatuation. Really good sex. A distraction.”

“Vivi.”

Gwyn had crossed the kitchen and had her hands on Vivi’s shoulders as she gently turned her around. “I love good sex and distractions more than just about anything. But I also can recognize when something is the real deal. And this is, isn’t it?”

Vivi could’ve withstood a lot of things. Sarcasm, prying, possibly even torture. Had Gwyn attempted any of those, she would’ve been able to breezily insist that she was not in love with Rhys Penhallow, and that she was just a twenty-first-century woman having a good time in the midst of what was otherwise a total mess.

But Gwyn was looking at her so sincerely with those big blue eyes that had always seen right into her soul, and oh, goddammit, now she was crying. Again.

Just a little, but that was enough for Gwyn.

Her face creasing in exaggerated sympathy, Gwyn pulled Vivi in, smothering her in orange wool and the scent of lavender.

“Baby girl.” Gwyn sighed, and Vivi hugged her back, letting herself cry.

“It’s so stupid!”

“So is love, to be honest.”

“We’re completely wrong for each other!”

“Which is why it’s hot.”

“I cursed him, Gwynnevere.”

“Who among us hasn’t.”

Pulling back, Vivi stared at Gwyn before swiping at her wet cheeks. “Even you have to admit this is very bad timing.”

But Gwyn only shrugged. “There’s no really good timing for this kind of thing, is there? Finding your person? It just kind of happens when it happens. Or so they say.”

With that, she turned back to the stove, and for the first time, Vivi noticed what she was making—the particularly sweet and, in Vivi’s opinion, gross hot tea that Gwyn had always loved, a mix of truly obscene amounts of sugar, black tea, a bunch of spices and orange-flavored Kool-Aid.

It was Gwyn’s go-to comfort drink, even above vodka, and it always signaled something bad.

“Jane?” Vivi ventured, and Gwyn didn’t turn around.

“Talk about people who were completely wrong for each other.”

Without saying anything else, Vivi walked over and put her arms around Gwyn’s waist, resting her cheek against Gwyn’s back. Then, after a pause, she asked, “Wanna curse her?”

Gwyn burst into laughter, dropping her hands to cover Vivi’s, and squeezed. “You know, let’s wait to see how your sitch turns out before we attempt cursing again, okay?”

“Fair,” Vivi answered, giving Gwyn one more hug before going over to the cabinet to get them both mugs.

Tonight, she’d sit at the kitchen table and drink Gwyn’s Breakup Tea.

And tomorrow, she’d make a deal with the devil.

Maybe literally.





Chapter 31




Rhys woke up on what might be the last day of his life in an unsurprisingly bad mood.

For one, he was alone.

He’d slept on one side of the massive bed last night, like some kind of heartsick idiot, and now, as he rolled over and stretched his hand out to the place where Vivienne should be, he felt very much like some kind of heartsick idiot.

He’d fucked up last night. Badly.

And he wasn’t sure exactly where. He knew she’d been upset about the curse and what it meant, but he believed in her. Believed in them, that they could fix this, and it had stung that she clearly didn’t have the same faith.

But then, she never had had a huge amount of faith in him. Rhys might have bungled that summer pretty badly, but she hadn’t even given him a chance to explain, had immediately assumed the absolute worst interpretation of what he’d said, and until this moment, he hadn’t realized that that had stung, too.

Vivienne had loved him, but she didn’t trust him.

She didn’t trust him now.

And now he was lying in black satin sheets and brooding, which was frankly humiliating.

Rhys sighed and heaved himself up in the bed just as his phone went off on the nightstand, and his stupid, treacherous heart immediately leapt, thinking it might be Vivienne.

But no, it was Bowen on a video call, and as Rhys answered, they both stared at each other in horror.

“What’s happened to your face?” Rhys asked just as Bowen scowled and said, “You’re naked.”