Page 43 of A Match Made in Error

I snort at her words and instinctively grab her by the waist and hoist her over the tree trunk before taking her hand in mine and continuing our walk. “If you’re open to ideas, I think she’d hate to have a mole on her nose more.”

Poppy doesn’t laugh. I can practically feel the humorless energy rolling off her in waves. “I don’t even get what you saw in her.” She stops, wrenching her hand from my hold to wield it like a weapon. “You were only with her because you panic when you’re alone.”

My smile drops, hands suddenly cold now that I’m no longer touching her. I attempt another joke. “I panic when I’m unloved. Not alone.” Poppy has to understand that. No one likes being unloved.

Her face softens, flinching back as if she regrets her words. “You’ve never been unloved.”

Oh, Poppy. Sweet, innocent Poppy. I smile at her, but I can see in the dying light of her eyes that it’s more pathetic than jovial. “You don’t have to pretend I’m easy to love.” I’ve always failed at it. Both loving and being loved.

She stutters in an attempt to find her voice. Searching for words she can’t find because it’s true. I am hard to love, and she knows it better than anyone.

The rest of our quiet walk back is painful. My jaw aches from gritting my teeth, and I think I’ve made four little crescent-shaped indentations on both of my palms from how hard I’m clenching my fists. I go to bed when we get back to the bungalow, watching her pad into the bathroom and turn the shower on. I hear the door open a few times, and when I wave or call out to her, she makes up some excuse about a face mask or painting her nails as if she thinks I forget that her magic can do all of that in the blink of an eye. It’s on the fourth excuse that I realize she is avoiding me and waiting until I’m asleep to climb into this bed she’s forced to share with me. Because I asked her to go to the Festival. Because she is forced to be matched with me.

Just more ways I’ve let someone I care about down.

I roll over and fake it, ignoring the irony of how that seems to be all I’m doing lately. When she finally climbs into bed and stills herself, pretending to sleep, I would guess, based on the irregularity of her breathing, that she also pretends not to hear me call her name in the darkness. Guess she is done talking to me tonight.

It took her the longest of anyone in my life, but it seems like Poppy might finally have seen the thing in me every other woman does before they leave. It seems Poppy is finally getting sick of me.

I palm the pang in my chest and roll out of bed, tugging a blanket from the shelf and walking to the chaise on our open patio. It’s my fault Poppy is here. The least I can do is give her the bed.

Chapter Sixteen

RIVEN

Steam still clings to my skin when I step out of the shower, towel hung low on my hips, water dripping down my spine. I rake a hand through my damp hair, then pause, squinting at the glass panel set into the floor.

“Are octopuses perverts?” I ask, still actively forcing away my melancholy from last night.

Poppy, sprawled across the bed, blinks up at me. “What?”

I point down. “There’s one pressed against the window. " It's been watching me the entire time I showered, and I swear to Fate it just winked.”

She pushes herself up on her elbows, eyes flicking to the floor before going back up to me.

Slowly. Deliberately.

Not drifting down to the voyeuristic octopus, but up my bare body instead.

My mouth curves. This is an interesting development. Poppy is checking me out. “Careful, witch,” I murmur, “you’re looking at me like you agree with it.” Maybe she’s not fully sick of me yet.

Her lips part like she’s about to fire back⁠—

But a sharp knock cuts her off.

The door swings open before either of us answers.

I gasp, scandalized, clapping my hands over my exposed nipples. “Excuse you—” I grab Poppy and yank her in front of me like a shield, peering over her shoulder. “What if we’d been naked and thrusting?” Poppy makes a strangled, choking sound.

The handler doesn’t even blink. Just sighs like this is his personal hell. “I’d have heard it,” he says flatly. “Trust me, we’re well trained.”

I narrow my eyes. “That’s…somehow not comforting.”

“And there will be little time for thrusting tonight,” he continues, ignoring me. “Stag night for the men. Doe night for the women. Attendance is mandatory.”

Poppy groans.

I grimace. “You’re sending me into a room full of men who think subtlety is a myth, female orgasms are pointless, and deodorant is an option?” The handler simply drops our agendas on the entryway table and closes the door. Leaving the same way he came.