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Marissa groaned. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“We need to.” I didn’t either, but we had to clear the air. Assumptions could cause more damage than we could fix. “Listen, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you had nothing to do with it. But I know how your mom operates and how close the two of you are. I don’t want anything I say to be used against me.”
“That’s why we’re having sleepovers at Bibi and Hugo’s houses, to make sure my mom can’t interfere.” Marissa sighed. “I didn’t agree with my parents’ business model, but I felt like I couldn’t do anything about it. I’d never worked for anyone else, and I thought that was the way everyone did things in reality TV.”
“I broke you of that habit,” Bibi said as she pulled into the parking lot.
Her body tensed.
See?my bear said.She’s not behind that lawsuit.
I wanted to believe she could do better, be better. She was my mate, and I had a responsibility to show her things could be different. I couldn’t just accept her outrageous behavior because my bear wanted her.
He scoffed.It’s not just me. You want her too.
“I don’t want to spend the whole date talking about my parents,” she said. “I want to talk about us. I’m scared that—wait, is that a helicopter?”
“Yeah.”
Marissa’s eyes widened as she stared out the window. “Wow.”
“What are you scared of?” I asked softly.
“It’s so small. The helicopter, not you.” Her cheeks reddened. “Probably not something you hear often. Oh, I should just stop talking.”
“Is that all?”
“No, it’s not.” Marissa turned to me. “That ever since Wendy found the Hudaknocker, I worry that it has us under a spell.”
I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Marissa since I first met her, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it out loud yet. “Does it matter if it does?”
“Oh, that’s a great question,” Bibi said.
“It matters.” She bit her lip, and her gaze raked over me like fire. “I want to make sure what I feel for you is real.”
ChapterEight
Marissa
Did I actually say that out loud?
I did, judging from the satisfied smile on the bear’s face.
The problem was, I wanted this to be real, but it was Bjorn, who I couldn’t stand before we found that blasted relic. I was having a hard time coming to terms with that. He had me frazzled, and I could only hope the whir of the helicopter blades would drown out any incriminating thing I might blurt out next.
I froze at the base of the walkway. “That thing is tiny.”
Bjorn took my hand in his and squeezed it. “It’s gonna be great.”
He had no business being so sweet. Ugh. My mom had given him every reason not to trust me. After all, she was suing him into the next millennia, and still, he seemed like he was really into this. Intome. Was he playing me? Or was the stupid Hudaknocker making me see something that wasn’t there?
I was so pissed at my mom. She’d already started to make a comeback, so why did she slap Bjorn with this ridiculous lawsuit now?The Scoop with Suzannehad become irrelevant before he blew the roof off the dump. She’d been resorting to more desperate and dangerous measures to get the story. Honestly, he did her a favor because there was no telling what would have happened if he hadn’t been the one to stop her.
I climbed into the helicopter, and Bjorn’s large frame filled the back seat. His warm and earthy scent drifted toward me, kinda like sandalwood, and not in a wearing too much cologne kind of way. His leg brushed mine, and I stole a glance at his profile. His handsome face belonged on the cover of a romance novel.
No, there was no way he’d be this interested in me if he wasn’t high off Hudaknocker fumes. I’d give him every reason not to be.
What would happen if the spell wore off after we promised forever to each other? We’d be at each other’s throats again in no time.
