Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 151384 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 757(@200wpm)___ 606(@250wpm)___ 505(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 151384 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 757(@200wpm)___ 606(@250wpm)___ 505(@300wpm)
“Playing in puddles!” she cried.
“It’s raining,” he said.
Rather obvious.
“You’re going to get ill playing out here in the wet and cold,” Jenner told her, running out to where she was.
“But I have my jacket and boots,” she said. “And my umbrella. It’s raining! It’s fun!”
“You need to come inside where it’s safe and warm.” Jenner reached for her, picking her up in his arms.
Tobias watched them curiously. This seemed to be overkill. She couldn’t jump in puddles for a short while? And she was dressed for it.
He waited for Immy to protest again. For her to tell Jenner off or to put her down. But she just sighed and let him carry her inside.
He followed them in. Jenner was undoing her rain jacket. “You need to warm up, baby. I’ll run you a bath.”
“With bubbles?”
“Of course,” he agreed as he crouched to help her take off her boots. “Is there any other kind of bath?”
“Sampson never puts bubbles in the bath. He says they’re slippery.”
Bubbles were slippery?
Jenner shook his head, then took her hand and led her into the kitchen. They disappeared upstairs and Tobias helped himself to some coffee. Jenner returned about fifteen minutes later.
“She okay?” Tobias asked.
“Yes, she is. Listen, I know you don’t know her well, but Immy can be impulsive and sometimes she forgets that she has limits. She can’t go dancing in the rain and letting herself get too cold or wet. She could get ill. Next time, just stop her, will you?”
Jenner grabbed a cup of coffee and headed back upstairs.
To give it to Immy?
In the bath?
Why couldn’t she go out in the rain? He didn’t like not knowing everything about her. Although he had noticed that Jenner tended to fuss over her health. A lot.
He wanted to know everything.
Because one day she was going to be his.
18
“Imbido-pardido-skipido!” she cried, waving her wand in the air.
Nothing.
A big, old, fat nothing.
“I’m the worst wizard in the world!”
“Cute, though.”
With a cry, she jumped in the air and turned to find Tobias standing in the doorway.
“How did you get in here?” she demanded.
He looked around. “Walked in.”
“I didn’t lock the door?” She could have sworn that she had.
“Was wide open, Cherry. Didn’t know this room existed.”
She nodded and glanced around. No one but their family knew about this room. It was her favorite thing in this entire house. The secret room behind the bookcase in the library.
The library and secret room were hers. And she normally always locked the main library door before coming into the secret room.
“No. It’s kind of a secret.”
He mimed locking his lips and throwing away the keys. She grinned, appreciating the sentiment.
“May I come in?” he asked.
“Sure,” she grumbled, setting her wand down on the wooden desk. The desk was so large it had to be taken apart to get in here then put back together.
But it was gorgeous and as soon as she saw it, she’d known that this was where it was meant to be. The walls were wall-papered with an image of a train. She had piles of spell books on the floor and a cage for Snowy that hung from a hook.
“Do you think I’m a complete weirdo?” she asked.
Tobias turned to face her. “Why would you say that?”
She shrugged, feeling awkward. “None of this is really normal, is it?”
He stepped closer to her and she glanced up into his face, swallowing heavily. Whoa. That should have felt intimidating. And it kind of was.
But it was also hot as heck.
The more time she spent with Tobias, the more attraction she felt toward him. The more time she wanted to spend with him.
This wasn’t good.
Yet, at the same time it felt right.
“Who gets to say what’s normal or not, Cherry?”
“Well, most people would say it’s not normal for a twenty-two-year-old to have a secret room filled with Harry Potter memorabilia and be practicing spells.”
“Who cares what they’d say? Only matters how you feel. Does this make you happy?”
“Yeah. It does.”
“Then do what makes you happy. It’s not hurting anyone else.”
Uh-huh. Sure. It wasn’t hurting anyone. She wasn’t casting spells to create warts on a certain person’s nose or anything.
“Immy? This hurting someone else?” he asked.
“Well, I might be trying to create a spell to put warts on the nose of my arch-enemies.”
“Your arch-enemies?” he repeated, sounding surprised. “Do you have a lot of them?”
“Not many. There’s Bella from high school. She was so mean to me. I’ve created the Bella spell for her. Then there’s . . . some others.”
Like Lauren.
Or Amaya. Who Jenner was out on a date with tonight. Sure, they were only dating because she’d bought him for the night.
But Immy still hated it.
She couldn’t help but feel like something more was going to develop. Jenner would see how gorgeous Amaya was. How talented. How good it would be to date her for his career.