Page 81 of Happily Ever Witch
“What aren’t you telling me?” He demanded instantly.
“Trev, just…” She sighed in exasperation. “I felt guilty earlier about not telling you about Marrok’s kidnapping, right away. Alright? Do you believe me?”
“Of course. You’re weighed down with virtue. It’s you’re forty-nine percent Goodness at work.”
Esmeralda rose above that provocation. “I don’t like feeling guilty. I need to figure this out for the next time. So, as long as we don’t sleep with anyone else and we live together, we’re within the ‘separate lives’ rules? Is that it?”
He hesitated, as if defining the clause made him extremely uneasy. “I mean… you’re my mate. There are certain things youshouldtell me.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.Things. You’re supposed to be the one teaching the True Love lessons. Why am I having to explain this?”
Shewasteaching him a lesson. He just didn’t understand it.
“You should tell me all the things you’re thinking of stealing, and what horrendous goals you’re scheming towards, and who you want dead.” He went on in agitation. “What a dragon’s matealwaystells him.”
“What if I don’t want to tell you any of that? Would that be against the rules?”
“I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to tell meeverything.” He complained. “I’m wonderfully wise. Instinctively intuitive. Endlessly empathetic.”
“You just laughed about my brother being taken hostage by an evil queen.”
“It was funny!”
“Remember when you promised to be kind? What happened to that?”
“Iambeing kind. At least, when I remember to try. You’re the one stirring up trouble.”
“The ‘separate lives’ thing was your idea! I just want to know the stupid rules.”
She could all but hear his brain working, trying to figure out a way to win this unwinnable discussion. Either he agreed to share with her or he agreed she didn’t have to share with him. There was no middle ground.
“If either of us feels guilty aboutnottelling something, we should have to tell the other about it.” He said very carefully. “How’s that?”
“No! You never feel guilty about anything. It would be me doing all the confessing and you keeping all the secrets.”
“That seems like a workable solution to me.”
“Dream the hell on.” She scoffed. “We’re either doing fully separate lives or we’re not. I’ll let you choose which.”
“Well, we need separate lives.” He decided without even stopping to think about it.
“Fine.” He’d chosen wrong, but that was his problem. “We’re still monogamous and living together, but we don’t have to feel guilty about not sharing things.”
“Fine.” He bit off, annoyed that she’d boxed him into a deal that he couldn’t fully control. “Fuck. You have to complicate everything.”
She stared into the darkness, already plotting. “Tell me something true, Trev.”
He brooded for a beat. “I believed three impossible things today.” He sounded irked at her, but proud of his accomplishment. The man loved to win dares. “Do you believe me?”
Esmeralda shook her head. “Nope.”
“It’s true! Three more and I’ll have beaten that smug note on the refrigerator. I told you I could meet the challenge. Dragons can do anything.”
“So can witches.”
“If it doesn’t involve snorkeling, diving, or a hot tub.” He snarked, continuing to pout over his loss on the “separate lives” debate. “It’s insanity for you to be so defiant about a waterproofing spell. Pointless, stubborn recklessness.”
