Page 13 of Flirty Fall Fling

While there’s no witch’s hat today, she is wearing black cat earrings.

“Are you available later?” I ask.

She tilts her head. “For? If you’re asking me out, the answer is⁠—”

“I wasn’t asking you out.” I take a step closer. “But trust me, if I wanted you, I’d have you. Unfortunately for all womankind, I’m on a dating sabbatical at the moment.”

“Why couldn’t you share that with me last week? When we were alone?” She grabs a fistful of mint and tosses a bundle of thyme into the cart. Now she’s avoiding my existence.

“Can you break a curse?” I ask, only half-joking.

Her brows knit together. “Usually.”

I glance around the empty aisle. “I’d like you to break mine.”

Part of me wants to see how determined she is to prove herself. If she takes her craft seriously, she’ll help me.

She sighs. “Didn’t you have enough?”

“I love torture,” I say, shooting her a wink. “What are your prices for this service?”

“Private sessions are usually fifteen hundred dollars an hour,” she says.

I scoff. “That’s robbery. I’m clearly in the wrong business.”

“But for you, it’s three thousand dollars per hour.”

“Unbelievable,” I say, shaking my head.

“That’s the starting point for my time, Jamie. Depending on the situation, it goes up from there.” She lingers. “You have negative energy that I don’t like. It needs to be cleansed.”

I look at her and scoff. “Did you just tell me I stink?”

“Energetically? Yes. Actually, make it five thousand dollars.” She works a few ginger roots loose and bags them.

She doesn’t know I have more money than she could burn through in ten lifetimes. It’s Cross money that’s been passed down for generations, just like the curse that is very real. “Five thousand dollars an hour?”

“That’s the price.”

She believes she’s officially run me off, like she’s been trying to do. The little smirk is cute, and I let her gloat in it for a few seconds as I pretend to contemplate my response.

“Hmm.” I grab a few tomatoes. “Can I book you for ten hours?”

The avocado slips out of her hand and rolls across the floor. She stops it with her boot and then bends over to pick it up.

“I assume I can wire the money to you?”

She glares at me. “You’re joking.”

“I believe you’re the one who said this wasn’t a joke. Fifty thousand dollars. Consider it done.”

Her brown eyes soften, and she studies my face with the same expression she had when she read my grounds. “Who are you?”

“A miracle.”

I can’t tell her the truth. Oh, hi. I’m Jameson Cross, billionaire trust-fund baby, ex-hockey star. Slut of New York. That would go over splendidly.

I want her to form her opinion of me without the outside noise.