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“Which will be much easier with wine,” Remy said, dropping her hands.
Kinsley mouth twitched as she sat down on the bed next to Remy. “Dude, we got loaded with you last night, remember?”
Yeah, Remy remembered everything. She remembered curling up in her bed, sobbing until she had no tears left. She remembered chugging the wine straight from the bottle, while Kinsley and Peyton drank from their glasses. “Yes,” Remy stated, “and we should do that again. Right now.”
Kinsley gave a knowing look and patted Remy’s leg beneath the sheet. “You can’t keep drinking this away, babe, no matter how much you want to. Peyton’s right—you’ve got to face this.” She reached out and petted Salem, who hissed at her. “All I want to do is love you,” she snapped at Salem. To Remy, she said, “And you can’t run from this. Everyone is calling to check on you.”
Peyton agreed with a nod and then, being her sweet self, she added, “Damon—and I’m on board calling him Damon because it is totally weird to call him Kyle—is at fault here.”
“Exactly,” Kinsley agreed, nodding quickly. “Once all this is said and done, you’ll see that he’s an asshole who doesn’t deserve another thought. He deserves to have his nuts squeezed in a vise or ripped from his body, but not anything else.”
Remy considered that and then gave a firm nod. “Yes, to the nuts part.” The truth was, she wasn’t only hiding from what Damon had done to her; the girls simply didn’t know that. But there wasn’t a chance in hell that she would tell either of them what her heart did when she thought Asher had come to make her his again. In fact, there would be no facing that at all since she’d decided to pretend it never actually happened.
Once, she forced her heart to forget Asher. She could do that again, as she’d forget Damon too. But she couldn’t ignore that she had embarrassed herself in front of everyone she knew. She’d been so desperate to move on, to finally get her shop, and to show Asher that she had moved on, she’d found herself a con man.
Perfect.
Remy realized that her thoughts must have showed on her face when she caught the pity in both her friends’ expressions. So she went right back under the sheet again. “Please just let me die in peace.”
Kinsley snorted. “Can’t do that, babe.”
Sure, a part of Remy wanted to stand up and fight back, be the strong woman she was. But for this one second, she wanted to do none of those things. She was so damn tired of fighting this same game to find happiness and always meeting brick wall after brick wall.
Her heart hurt. Her head hurt. Hell, everything hurt. And while the tears were dry now, her soul felt empty, exhausted.
A sudden shuffle sounded outside her makeshift tent, obviously another set of feet entering the room, and just like that, the air thickened, and the hairs on her arms rose. Great. Just what she needed. “I don’t want to see you,” she told Asher. She hated being so in tune with him, but back when they’d dated, she was convinced they’d been in love in their past lives. The tarot cards told her as much, as did her nana. But there was no denying that whenever he got close, the air became electrified. On a spiritual level, her soul knew Asher’s intimately.
“I’m not leaving until you come out of there.”
His voice, both strong and smooth, almost tripped her heart. That was if she didn’t hate him. And right now she hated all men, especially men who broke her heart. “Unless you have wine, ice cream, or an athame”—a black-handled knife used in rituals—“that is blessed in such a way that I can use it on Damon, leave me alone.”
Four feet exited the room, but not the ones Remy wanted.
Heavy weight sank the bed next to her. “Remy.”
“No,” she snapped.
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Asher’s heavy exhale filled the room before he grabbed the sheet and yanked it back as she tried desperately to hold it into place. Salem hissed and then jumped off the bed. Not a surprise. Salem only loved Remy.
“Missed you too.” He grinned at the retreating cat.
Remy became utterly lost in the view. With the sunlight beaming on his sculpted face, and with his perfect hair, perfect lips, perfect everything, Asher was a damn near god. “I want to punch you,” she told him seriously. Not for interrupting her, but for being so handsome. Men were devils.
Asher’s eyebrow lifted—his signature move. “Would that make you feel better?”
She considered it for a good few seconds. “No,” she finally admitted. Hell, she’d probably feel worse because she hated any kind of violence. Nana had raised her to walk in the path of light. Sometimes she really hated the promise that she’d made as a child to never use what she’d learned from Nana to harm. She had been taught a few spells by Nana that made people violently sick to their stomachs, but she learned those for protection, never to seek revenge.
Asher stared at her for what seemed like a lifetime, his expression unreadable before he rose and headed for the adjoining bathroom. She frowned at his back, and his great ass in his jeans, rethinking her decision not to use one of her spells. He deserved one night of pain for the pain he caused her, didn’t he? Maybe she needed to drive over to Damon at the jail and bring him a drink. What Nana didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her…
Asher disappeared into the bathroom and then she heard the water running. When he returned to her, she told him straight up, “I’m not having a bath.”
Obviously having a death wish, he stepped next to the bed, yanking the sheet off completely. “It’ll do you good.”
“Bossy much?” she growled.
He gave her an answering grin that made her belly flutter. “No one’s perfect.” She glared at that damn irritating smile while he grabbed the clothes off the chair. Kinsley had set them out last night when Remy dove under the sheet still in her wedding dress. “Come on. Up you get.”
