Page 40 of Power Play

“I wanted to see if you’d defend it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re testing me.”

“Everything has consequences, mi hada.”

“That means my fairy, and now you’re doing it intentionally.”

“Good student.”

“Your teaching methods are manipulative.”

“You’re learning, aren’t you?”

“I’m going to tell Aura and Bliss.”

“I’d expect nothing less. They’ll probably ask whether we kissed.”

Charm’s smile slowed.

“Did we?”

I held her stare. “You’d remember.”

The tip of her tongue touched her lower lip before she looked back at the book.

I shifted in my chair.

Fucking hell.

She was cute when she blushed and sexy when she stopped, and spending one-on-one time with both versions was making every argument I’d built around friendship increasingly difficult to defend.

I cleared my throat and tapped the page.

“Victor creates life, then panics when it isn’t beautiful enough for him. What does that make the novel about?”

“Conditional love.”

“Keep going.”

“Parental failure. Social rejection.” Her voice slowed while she thought. “The danger of creating expectations for something, then punishing it for becoming what those expectations produced.”

The sentence came quieter at the end.

Charm straightened the edge of her notebook.

I watched her fingers.

“That one yours too?”

Her hand stopped.

“Maybe.”

“Write it.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Then you’re wasting both our time.”