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“I have questions,” she said, cutting off his next line of bullshit. “And if you cared for me at all, you’re going to answer them.”
Brass elbowed his brothers off him and forced his weight on his mangled leg. Worried panic shone behind his strained eyes, and didn’t that just gut her heart even more? When he nodded tightly, seemingly already knowing he didn’t have a horse in the race, she bit back a sad laugh.
Still no words for me.
But oh, she had plenty for him.
“Did you know I have magic?” Molly trained her gaze on him, never once glancing at the others. If she saw pity there, she’d fucking lose it. It was by some miracle she was even holding it together at all.
“I did.”
“And is that what drew you to me? Is that why you ripped down my Help Wanted sign and never let me out of your sight? Because it calmed your curse?”
Brass’s jaw ticked on words she wished he’d say. Oh, how she wished he’d say no, that her wit or food or, hell, she’d even take cute ass, were the true draws, at least in the beginning. How some part of her that made her her was worthy of the closeness they’d grown to share.
Just say it. Say it so I don’t have to wonder.
“Molly, please . . .” The desperation in his voice was almost enough to drown out the desperation in her heart.
“Just say it!” she cried, tears already leaking out of the corners of her eyes.
Brass’s auburn head lowered. “At first, yes, but it wasn’t?—”
“When did you know? Hmm? When did you suspect I have magic?”
“All the fucking time!” he roared so loudly that she had to take a step back. “When I saw you in the alley and was slammed with the look of shame on your face that another man had caused. I almost lost my fucking mind then and nearly melted the dumpster with a thought. Instead, it was your thoughts that nearly did it. When my angel fire erupted in the dumpster on its own, that was when I first wondered whether you had something to do with it. The next time was in your apartment, when I blew the fucking door off its hinges in my rage. One kiss from you then had taken it all away. You’d done more to lessen my fury in two seconds than I’d managed to do in two thousand years. And let’s not forget the blown pipe and what preceded it.” His eyes darkened, quickening the pace of her bruised heart as they both recalled the sexual tension that had nearly consumed them, along with her entire restaurant.
“Every single time my rage and emotions were about to get the better of me, you were there, absorbing it all into your slim frame and redirecting it. The writing was on the wall, Molly. Yes, I knew you had magic,” he seethed and lowered his eyes in anguish. “I knew it from the moment you used it to steal my soul, when I realized I would have given it to you regardless.”
Molly’s heart shattered. Hearing the grocery list of their encounters, and the vitriolic delivery Brass had recited them with, was a blow-by-blow of faults laid at her feet from the one man who had never faulted her for anything.
It was enough to hasten one final question to the surface. “Were you planning on telling me?”
Wild dread spread across Brass’s face. “Molly, please let me?—”
“If you say my name one more fucking time, it’ll be the last time you ever say it. Now, answer me.” She wasn’t yelling anymore. There was no point. Her lungs had already gone on strike, her tears dried up.
Only her heart, shriveled, worthless thing that it was, still hung around so it could witness the final swing of the executioner’s ax. Damn thing always did have a flair for the dramatic.
“Were. You planning. On. Telling me.”
Then the deeply resonant voice that had whispered her to sleep and coaxed her wildest dreams to the surface also pounded the nails into her coffin.
“No,” he relented.
Molly kept her eyes to the ground, refusing to look at him as she tunneled into her pocket and heaved the sundial he’d given her at his feet. It landed with a thud in the chewed-up earth. “You’re right about one thing. I am so much more than what others have carved out for me, including you. Don’t ever come looking for me again.”
She made it out of the stadium with no apologies or pleas chasing her. No explanations or grand gestures.
As usual, Brass’s silence spoke volumes.
Chapter 31
Three weeks later
Brass decided that, when it came to the seasons, winter was a mean girl.
Her frosty face could be so serene and whimsical, pumping out the fresh powder and dusting mountains with snowcaps of unmatched beauty. But all it took was a dirty look and a dip in pressure, and she hammered out storm after storm of freezing rain, nor’easters, and spite.
