Page 9 of Love & Heart Braking

Her gaze popped. “Why didn’t he just kiss me at the time?”

“You tell me.”

She huffed. “We hadn’t fought once in over two hours. And we’d had some drinks. I don’t know what I was thinking—”

“That his hair is super shiny?”

“You notice that too?”

“Totally.”

She sighed. “I just was drunk that night, I guess. Decided to do something stupid. I don’t even like him.”

So she kept saying. “He didn’t kiss you because you were drunk, Sol. You know he’s a stickler for doing what’s right.”

She wrinkled her nose. “He was drunk too.”

“He’s always drunk,” I said scathingly, stealing a look at her to see if she took the bait.

“He wasn’t drunk tonight,” she blurted. “Or that time at Love in the Dark. He’d ironed his shirt again too.”

The urge to cackle was real, and I wasn’t a cackler, but matchmaking Soleil was turning me into one. “Crazy, crazy theory time. Don’t laugh too hard. What if it’s you he’s cleaning up his act for?”

She scoffed four times in a row, and I ducked under her arm, striding to the far corner.

You know what people never wanted to touch? Shapewear. Shapewear held the gross factor of underwear, but the added benefit of people assuming you wouldn’t want anyone to know that you sometimes wore shapewear.

Which made it perfect to hide my bow.

I threw off the top few garments.

Sucking in a breath, I tossed more of the shapewear over my shoulder as I dug deeper. “Sol,” I said hoarsely.

“… and I can’t see why he’d clean up his act when he doesn’t even like me. Though sometimes, I swear I catch him checking me out, but—”

“Sol,” I said loudly.

She whirled. “What’s wrong?”

My mouth had never been drier. “My bow is gone.”

3

“You’ve tried again?” Soleil asked in a quiet voice.

I’d been disappearing into the bathroom at Yearning Hearts all morning to summon my bow with no success. For its appearance terrifying me so much, its disappearance sure had left my heart aching. “Fifty times at least.” And another hundred last night. “Dad said a bow would always come when called. There’s no magic that could keep it locked away if someone has stolen it. Sol… I think I unearned the bow.” I’d considered asking Rodney if he had any footage from around the apartment, but in my heart, I knew the truth.

Tears stung my eyes. I hadn’t even used the damn thing, yet, but the joy of Venus’s gift had welded to my heart. That the bow might no longer be mine hurt on every level.

Her eyes narrowed. “That isn’t true. Your power hasn’t weakened—you aren’t drinking more coffee. The curse must be just as loose and not shaking your magic more than usual. Plus, you’re still releasing into all four computers in the morning.”

Soleil was Team Cerys, and that meant she wouldn’t point out the obvious when I was down and out.

The bow came to me after I opened myself to the idea of love with Devereaux—maybe loosening the curse more at the same time. She was right. The curse was just as loose today. The only difference was that I’d closed myself to the idea of love with Devereaux for the foreseeable future.

Venus’s power was angry at me.

“Maybe I made the wrong choice with Dev,” I whispered, darting a look at our three cupid employees. They were busy with clients, none of which were types possessing better-than-usual hearing.

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