Page 1 of Once Charmed, Twice Cursed
Chapter One
There’s only one man I want to marry, and he isn’t one of the ninety-nine who have proposed.
I stand by the window in our grandiose second-floor hallway, staring out at the graveled drive below. Today is the last day any prospective husbands can make an offer for me.
Tomorrow, my brother will decide who I’ll marry.
At the thought, my breathing accelerates. The drive outside is empty, as is the road beyond, and the sun is already making a rapid dive toward the trees. But before the day ends, therewillbe a hundredth proposal. Any moment now, Weston Wildes will come stomping up the road, his golden brows pulled low over the eyes that never fail to drive a shiver through me.
I can see it already. Weston will let himself into our home without so much as a knock, the same way he always does. He’ll clomp upstairs and glower at my brother because he glowers at everyone, then clap Brendan on the back to let him know they’re still friends, regardless. Theease with which they touch one another will make my chest ache. The ease with which Weston touches everyone but me.
But then will come the moment. My favorite moment. Weston will peer past Brendan, searching. His gaze will collide with mine.
I’ll forget how to breathe. The knowledge will desert me just as readily the thousandth time as the first, and I’ll stand transfixed, my entire body kindling under that piercing stare.
Brendan will start yammering about finances, but Weston will hold up a hand, halting my brother mid-sentence. He’ll step past and come close to me. Closer than propriety strictly allows, but not so close that we risk touching. He’ll rummage in the pocket of his modest tailcoat and produce a careworn book, one he probably spent half an hour choosing for me.
At the sight of it, my heart will threaten to overflow. My brother will try to ruin the moment by mocking his best friend for indulging my love of stories, but only because Brendan never catches the way Weston’s glower eases when we’re close like this. He won’t see how the ruthless angles of that beautiful face soften only for me.
Weston will hand me the book. He’ll ensure our fingers don’t brush, even though he will have pulled on his gloves, like he always does when he’s in this house.
I’ll smile. Pretend not to imagine what his hand would feel like against mine, the warmth of it.
“Hello, Birdie,” Weston will say. He’ll do it in that way of his, like my nickname is a secret he’s keeping from the rest of the world. Then we’ll talk, and he won’t once let his gaze stray downward. He’ll ignore my Mark entirely, and I’ll marvel at the effort, because every gown I own boasts a neckline lowenough to put the triquetra between my collarbones on prominent display.
But Weston will study my face. Only my face.
Once he’s told me why I’ll love the story he’s brought—and he’ll be right, he’s always right—Weston will follow my brother upstairs to his office. On the third floor, they’ll talk accounting and business and boxing, and then the man I’ve loved for a decade, the one I fell for on sight at fourteen, will finally muster the courage to ask for me.
Weston will be the last man to propose. The hundredth. And the only one who actually matters.
“Bria.”
I turn at the sound of my name. My brother stands amid the hallway’s opulence, his hands loose at his sides. His satin waistcoat gleams in the slanted light. “Is there a reason you’re standing there, staring out the window?”
I shift my weight. “I’m waiting.”
An easy smile tilts his mouth. “For?”
The answer swirls in my veins, filling the spaces between my ribs.Weston, I want to say.Freedom.
But Brendan has no idea I’ve spent the last decade yearning for the one man I’m not allowed to touch. For the gift only Weston can give me.
I’m not sure what he would do if he did.
“To see if anyone else comes,” I hedge.
My brother chuckles and wanders over. The late light deepens the green of his eyes and gilds the streaks in his light brown hair. I imagine it does the same to me, because our coloring is identical, enough that when we were younger, people often mistook us for twins. In actuality, Brendan is ayear older, but as children, we stuck so closely to one another that people assumed we shared a birthday.
That wasbefore, though. Before I retreated into books, and my brother into things like satin waistcoats and matched cutlery sets.
Brendan studies the window, using its reflection to arrange his hair into a more stylish configuration. “There’s no one left, Bria. Every man in Pine’s End has already thrown his hat into the ring.”
I inspect the drive. It’s still empty, but with any luck, Weston will round the bend in the road in moments.
And that’s the thing—when it comes to luck, I have lots. I have all the luck in the world, in fact.
The fortune goddess decided so herself, before I was even born. She inked her three-pointed knot onto my skin when I was still in the womb, marking me as one of her favored.
