Page 13 of Once Charmed, Twice Cursed
Our family doesn’t need any more money, but that never stops my brother from wanting it. Now his decision takes even less time than I expect it to.
“You’ll marry Alverton.”
My next breath scorches my lungs raw. The duke says something, but I can’t hear it over the catastrophic roar of my bones crumbling.
I anchor my palms to the wall. Any moment now, Fortuna will intervene. She has to. Except...
No. She isn’t here. Not as long as Weston is.
“Why don’t you come up?” Brendan says to the duke. “So we can iron out a contract?”
Alverton polishes his fingernails against his shirtfront, then follows my brother up the stairs, leaving Weston and me alone.
I struggle to breathe. I can’t... Goddess, in all my daydreams, I never once imagined Weston proposing and being denied.
Which is stupid. I should have. I should’ve known Brendan would be blinded by a hefty enough price tag. I just assumed that things would all work out.
They always have before.
Weston stares at me, his brows crooked. My brother’s refusal has gouged a wound into him—it’s there in the way hisshoulders sag, in the way his throat works around a painful-looking swallow.
A thousand unspoken words pass between us, but I can already tell it’s a lost cause.
“Just take me,” I plead. “Take me with you.”
He shakes his head. “Birdie, I?—”
My whimper cuts him off. “Don’t tell me you can’t. If you can marry me, you can steal me. Run away and take me with you. Just...don’t let Brendan marry me to that horrible man.”
He just stands there, looking as forsaken as I’ve ever seen him. “I don’t have a choice,” he says. “I’m not that lucky. Clearly. Even when I’m standing next to you. If I stole you, the duke would chase us. He’dcatchus. You know that.”
I gulp. I do know. Because wherever we went, as long as we were together, we wouldn’t have my luck to shield us.
Weston turns away.
I want to cry out, to run after him, but my feet are rooted to the floor, nailed there by the weight of realization. He doesn’t actually want me. He only made this gesture out of some misguided sense of nobility.
I want to throw up.
Weston pauses at the threshold, but he doesn’t look back. A moment later, the door opens and closes. The enormity of what I’ve just lost crashes over me.
I slide down the wall. My one chance at freedom, at a life with the man I love...
Gone.
Chapter Five
For three days, I wander the halls like an automaton. I remind myself of a wind-up doll—I put one foot in front of the other, but there’s no purpose behind it. No meaning. And sometimes, I simply wind down and stop. The world around me smears to a drab, quiet gray.
Meanwhile, the duke’s dowry pours into my family’s coffers. Trunks filled with gowns and jewels arrive, crowding the foyer.
Weston remains absent.
Which I should be grateful for, I know. Without him here, my luck can breathe. The cogs of fate can turn and align the balance in my favor. But he never goes this long without bringing me a book, and as the days slip past, I wonder if I’ll ever see him again. Probably not.
I should be grateful for that, too. Because I know I have to forget him. Let him go. I’ve spent ten years pining for someone who doesn’t want me back, and it’s killing me.
So I push thoughts of Weston from my mind. I do my best to seal my hopeless longing into some hidden fold deep insidemyself. I even consider going to Theodore again, like I did last year, when I gave up my virginity as much out of curiosity as desperation. I went knowing I couldn’t touch Weston, but that I had to touchsomeone. That I deserved, just once, to know what it felt like to be wanted.
