Page 39 of Happily Ever Witch
If she left him, he’d get on just fine without her. He’d always been fine without her before. So there was no need to be awake at this hellish hour, acting like he’d lost a limb until he saw her again. It was just misfiring biological instincts.
They were leading separate lives.
He could sleep late and she could go do whatever the frozen-hells she wanted, with her glorious body and “impossible beliefs.”
Trevelyan straightened. “It’s too early for coffee or poison. I’m going back to bed.” One day in her company and it was already affecting him. This was a worrisome precedent and he needed to…
What was that smell?
He stopped short and looked around the messy kitchen. If Wonderland thrived on chaos, it must have been in its glory with Esmeralda taking up residence. The witch had ripped apart all the cabinets and piled things everywhere. Pots, pans, and teapots covered the floor. Half of them were now broken. Also, one of the walls had been blown out, so a jagged hole connected it to the next room. Apparently, Esmeralda hadn’t been able to find the doorway to the dining room, so she’d just made her own. Logical, really.
It was the palace architect’s fault that such drastic measures were needed to negotiate the Heart Castle. The Carpenter had built it all topsy-turvy, with invisible doorknobs and endless spiraling hallways. Then, he’d just expected visitors to deal with it.
Villains didn’t “deal” with other people’s bullshit. They made other people deal withtheirbullshit.
The smoldering drywall and pulverized masonry weren’t the source of the strange smell, though. The scent was chemical. His eyes swept in the other direction and spotted an array of small bottles lined up on the pink countertop. They were the only neat and orderly things left in the room, and all of them were filled with black goo.Thatwas the smell.
“Do I even want to know what you’re cooking?”
“It’s not to eat, dingus. It’s nail polish.”
“Nail polish.” He repeated with absolutely no context of how such a thing fit into his life. “Why?”
“Because I make nail polish for a living. It helps me think and right now I need to think of a way out of here.”
“Your job isnail polish?” He was momentarily stunned and it took a lot to stun Trevelyan, Last of the Green Dragons. “Your job can’t be nail polish. You’re a mostly-wicked witch, for Christ’s sake.”
“I’m averywicked witch who runs an internet business.”
“Nail polish.” Trevelyan pinched the bridge of his nose, developing a migraine. “My God… For the life of me, I can’t imagine a more useless profession.”
“I create beautiful things that my customers like to buy and wear. Every day, I get to make people happy. Have youevermade anyone happy? Even once in your whole life?”
His jaw ticked. “It’s not my job to make people happy.”
“Then maybe your profession is even more useless than mine.”
“My profession is villainy, so at least there’s always a market for it.” He stalked over to examine the colorful little jars of nonsense she’d brewed up.
Esmeralda dashed in front of him to protectively shield her creations, like she was afraid he’d begin smashing them against the walls.
Trevelyan glowered down at her. “If I was intent on destruction, do youreallythink you could stop me?”
She scowled right back at him. “Don’t screw up my work. I’m trying to perfect the formula for Bow-Before-Me Black. The polish is color-matched to the exact shade of remorseless evil.”
He glanced at the bottles and made a considering face. “I wouldn’t say it wasexact, but the un-remorsefully evil --likeyou-- probably won’t be able to see the difference, like I can. It’s very slight.” Veryveryslight. Very, very, very…
Shit. Maybe it was exact.
He glanced at her.
She arched a brow.
“It’s close enough.” He allowed and left it at that.
Esmeralda seemed to relax. Deciding that her ebony lacquer was safe around him, she shifted out of the way, so he could move closer to the bottles. “What do you really think?”She pressed, like his opinion actually mattered. “I already did a manicure to test it.” She held out her hands for him to examine. “Is it perfect or not?”
Even her hands were sexy. How was that possible?
