Page 104 of The Cupid Chronicles

Sophie Stewart, Apartment 1C, needs dirt.

Lots of it.

For the rooftop garden.

Four bags should do it.

And that’s it. No rhyme, no riddle, it’s about as plain and straightforward as you can get. And absolutely does not need input from the man who is currently standing in front of me.

I look up to find Matteo looking at me. “You need help? Is it a riddle? It likes to test your brain. Here, let me—” He takes the newspaper from me before I can stop him.

His eyes scan the words for three seconds, and then he looks at me. “This was too hard for you?” He frowns. “Four bags of dirt. Seems pretty easy.”

“That’s not what it said before! It kept changing the words around and?—”

“Maybe you’re not the right person to hand this off to,” he jokes.

“It’s not my fault! It’s themagic’sfault. It’s playing tricks, it’s?—”

He reaches over and puts his hand on my forehead. I freeze at his touch.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking to make sure you don’t have a fever.”

I swat his hand away, grateful for the tease. I grab the paper back from him, crumple it up into a wadded ball, and chuck it into his kitchen.

Mid air, the wadded up ballpopsin a puff of gold mist back into a normal newspaper shape, and lands right on Matteo’s immaculate counter.

I hold out a hand at it.

“See?SEE?!It’s mocking me!”

Matteo laughs and says, “Maybe you’re the one who’s exhausted. You need a good night’s sleep.”

I slink over and slump onto his couch. “I’ve about had it with this magic. Sometimes it’s all warm and fuzzy and ‘oh my gosh, Joy has a job—yay!’ and other times, it’s . . .” I clench both fists and shake them in the air.

Matteo sits down across from me in the chair. “Now you’re starting to get it.”

I frown. “You’re so ready to be done with this, aren’t you?”

“It’s not all bad.” He shrugs. “Besides, I’m used to it.”

“And apparently really good at it. At least according to your entire staff.”

He pushes a hand through his hair, leaving it disheveledand sexy. “Don’t pay attention to them. They make stuff up all the time.”

I grin and pull my feet up under me. “You were matching people even before the magicforcedyou to match people.” I blow out a breath. “I’m onto you, Morgan.”

In the lull, I think about my careless comment at dinner. I want to apologize even though I’m unclear what the story is, but if I bring it up again, I’m scared he’ll kick me out.

And I really don’t want him to kick me out.

I pick up the remote control from the shallow container on his coffee table and flip on his TV. “The best way to unwind after a long day at work . . .” I click around on the screen, open up Netflix, and scroll until I findThe Great British Baking Show.

“You want me to take a break from running my restaurant by watching a show about cooking?” He looks at me.

“Baking,” I say. “It’s totally different.”

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