Page 55 of Uncharmed

‘Sometimes,’ Hal nodded, leaning back and rubbing a hand roughly through his beard. ‘Other times . . .’ He paused, catching her eyes under lock and key. ‘Other times, I think you might just be perfect.’

Everything in the current between them paused, the tiniest flecks of embers hanging in the air like fresh sparks of magic. Crackles from the flames snapped against the quiet. It was Annie who broke first, averting her gaze back to the bonfire and hoping that the flush across her cheeks looked only like a result of its warmth.

This wasn’t part of the plan. She shot to her feet, clenching her fists and squeezing her eyes shut.

Hal tried again softly, looking up at her with his hands still interlocked, as though he didn’t dare move for fear of frightening her away. ‘Not just for Maeve, although I think we make a damn good team for the kid. This is . . . this is good. Why won’t you give it a chance?’

She couldn’t stand to hear another word. Annie spun on her heel and followed the path back to the cottage that Maeve’s whirlwind had scorched into the grass. She found herself in the kitchen and gripped the countertop to try to steady herself while her head spun. Her knuckles were white again. She hadn’t seen that happen in weeks.

‘It’s a fair question, Annie,’ Hal said quietly behind her. He had followed her inside but kept his distance, leaning against one of the wooden beams with his arms crossed. ‘Give me one real, good reason and I’ll understand it.’

‘Because this is not the life that I am supposed to have. My real life is in London, my real life is at Celeste, my real life is at The S . . . at the city,’ she said sharply, jabbing a finger into the countertop. ‘A lot of people are relying on me and I can’t just abandon them. I can’t let them down.’

‘Right, of course,’ he nodded calmly. ‘And what kind of happiness are you getting in return for that?’

He took a step into the kitchen towards her. Annie swallowed hard and stood her ground, jutting her chin out higher. ‘That doesn’t matter. I’m just fine.’

Hal simply nodded, eyes so fixed on hers that it felt as though he was looking directly into her soul. ‘You’re allowed to do it, you know. Why shouldn’t you start again, for you?’

Another step closer. She mirrored it backwards.

‘Why should you just be fine? Why shouldn’t you be happy?’

Annie startled as she stepped back again and her shoulder blades touched the wall. She noticed Hal’s jaw muscles tighten as he slowly moved his hand towards her face and tucked a stray tendril of hair behind her ear, which would never have been there if she was still under the spell. Such a perfect, tender gesture that he wouldn’t even have had reason to do. ‘You’re too good to be tethering yourself to people out of fear instead of love.’

His voice was a thick, hoarse whisper. ‘I know it’s crazy for me to ask you to stay. I know you’re too good and bright and brilliant for a small kind of life like mine. But I have to be selfish and unreasonable and ask it anyway. Stay, just for now, and we can figure it out a day at a time.’

Their eyes felt magnetized as he leaned over her, his arm above her pressed against the wall. Annie knew she should look away and break it, but there was a sincerity in his face. There was no sarcasm, no gruffness, nothing but a confident honesty and an inch of vulnerability that felt like a mile coming from him.

But this was not what was supposed to happen. This plan was messy and unknowable and chaotic. It couldn’t even be called a plan. This wasn’t the way that she did things.

‘This is not real life!’ Annie said crossly, something in her flaring uncontrollably.

‘This is probably the most real your life has ever been, Annie.’

Hal reeled himself back in and took a breath with relenting, closed eyes. Annie looked at him blankly, a life of training taking over.

‘This can’t be real for me,’ Annie said simply. ‘Otherwise everything I’ve ever done, everything I’ve ever sacrificed, has been for nothing.’ She spoke calmly and quietly enough that a numbness returned to her from head to toe. It was as though the harsh reminder of her old life had awoken some final, lingering dregs of the spell. Like it had sparked something at the pit of her stomach to fix things on her behalf, within the confines of her bones. She slid out from underneath his arm and made her way towards the staircase.

‘Don’t go.’

Hal tried one last time. She turned back to find he was still facing the space that she’d just abandoned, the back of his head low. With a sigh, he dropped his arm, but he refused to turn around to see her disappear upstairs.

She could only reply with the truth. ‘We have to.’

Chapter Twenty-One

TIME TO GO

Arden Place was feeling its own heart break just the same as Annie was, a steady stream of rain pouring so heavily from dawn until dusk on their final day together that the clattering against the window panes transformed into a constant, aching background sigh. Karma wouldn’t leave Maeve’s side while she packed away her things, refusing to get out of her suitcase while shooting daggers at Annie that all the custard in the world would not be able to save her from.

It felt like Annie had been caught inside a snowglobe, as though some large, unwelcome hand had shaken her whole life up roughly and unexpectedly and now the fragments of it were tumbling down around her in slow motion. And she could only stand there in the drift, powerless and speechless, and watch while it faded away at her feet.

All she had ever tried to do was the right thing for everybody else. But somehow it had resulted in managing to make two very important people not want to speak to her any more, both irreparably disappointed and hurt by her decisions that were supposedly the right and proper ones to make. Annie had never felt worse.

Maeve finished her packing in a racket of furiously slammed drawers, shoved clothing and, to Annie’s greatest dismay, a few sly sniffs of tears that were definitely not supposed to be heard. Maeve refused any and all forms of breakfast, leaving a stack of her favourite chocolate-chip pancakes untouched, and wouldn’t even accept a cup of coffee from Annie. Instead, she briefly emerged from her room to make her own, ignoring all of Annie’s desperate, sugar-laced attempts to try to patch up the rift that had sliced itself so suddenly between them.

Unsurprisingly, Annie hadn’t slept a wink, but this time it couldn’t be blamed on a twisted, sinister, generation-spanning hex. Her own guilt and tangled, complicated feelings kept sleep far at bay, as well as the pain and rejection that Maeve was emanating in the bedroom just below, rippling upwards to Annie’s heart.