Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered

‘She should be OK because they seem to have caught it early enough. But she’s in for a rough few months.’

She looked at me. ‘You have to go,’ she said.

I was already shaking my head.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘My mum needs you,’ Harry said.

‘You go.’ I tipped my wine into my mouth and poured another glass. ‘She’s your mum.’

Harry looked away. I thought for a moment she had tears in her eyes, but perhaps it was just the light in the bar.

‘I’ve got some stuff going on at the moment, Esme,’ she said. ‘I just can’t leave work just now. I’ll come as soon as I can.’

‘I don’t care. I’m not going.’

I was annoyed she’d even asked. Going to see Suky meant seeing my own mum and Harry knew how shaky my relationship was with her.

‘I know you’re annoyed I even asked,’ she said.

‘Don’t do that.’ I scowled at her. I hated when she poked about in my head and read my mind.

‘What?’ she said, her pretty face full of innocence.

Infuriated I shook my head again. Harry ignored me.

‘I spoke to your mum,’ she said. I felt a flash of anger that she’d spoken to Mum when I hadn’t. ‘She says there’s been a bit of trouble.’

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘A few things have gone wrong at the café.’

I shrugged.

‘There’s nothing I can do about that.’ My career as a lawyer was far away from my family’s quaint tearoom.

Harry caught my fingers and squeezed them.

‘You can help,’ she said. ‘You have to help. You know I’d be there if I could – it’s just really tricky for me at the moment.’

‘I don’t do witch stuff any more,’ I said.

Harry arched her perfectly plucked eyebrows.

‘Then what was that at the bar?’

She had a point. What I’d done at the bar –and what she’d done when she echoed my thoughts back to me – was witchcraft. Because, though I deny it and ignore it, I am a witch. So is Harry. And our mums. And our gran before them. You know how it goes.

But a long time ago, I’d turned my back on my mum and witchcraft, and now I only ever used it secretly, quietly and – often pretty badly – to make everyday life a bit easier. If I needed a parking space, one would appear. A mess in my kitchen? No problem. Couldn’t find the remote control? It would just appear like – well, like magic. Anything more complicated though, and it didn’t always go as smoothly as I’d liked so I tended to avoid pushing my luck when it came to spells. It was a strategy that worked for me and I had no intention of that changing any time soon.

‘I’ll come up as soon as I can,’ Harry was saying. ‘Next week, probably. Your mum needs you, Ez. My mum needs you. I…’

There was a pause. I looked at her in expectation. But apparently she’d finished.

I pushed my glass of wine away and picked up my bag.

‘Sorry,’ I said, shuffling back along the bench. ‘I have to go back to the office. Don’t you have a plane to catch?’

Chapter 2 (#u4d39c1ec-8672-574e-a3dd-0b6e34c34082)

‘So I told her, there was absolutely no way I was going,’ I said to Dom, my sort-of-boyfriend later that evening. I’d bumped into him when I’d gone back to the office to pick up my things, and persuaded him to come back to mine, which hardly ever happened. He looked out of place in my tiny flat; too big and too male as he lounged against my Cath Kidston cushions and smiled at me as I ranted and paced the floor in front of him.

‘Absolutely no way,’ I repeated.

Dom looked at me, a glint of mischief in his brown eyes.

‘So when are you leaving?

I screwed up my nose.

‘Tomorrow,’ I said miserably. ‘Straight after work.’

He chuckled, but to give him his due, he didn’t labour the point. Instead he patted the cushion next to him and pulled me down on to the sofa. I cuddled into him, enjoying the rare pleasure of having him all to myself.

‘I’m in court all day tomorrow,’ he said. ‘So I won’t get to see you before you go.’

‘Well, we’d better make tonight count then,’ I said, looking up at him in what I hoped was a coquettish, flirty manner.

Dom leaned down to kiss me, when suddenly his phone rang making me jump and ruining the moment. I glared at him as he answered and motioned for me to be quiet.

‘Hello, Rebecca,’ he said. ‘Yep, got stuck in the office, but I’m just finishing up here.’

I pulled my legs away from Dom, stood up and flounced into my tiny kitchen where I slumped against the work surface. Rebecca was the reason Dom was only my ‘sort-of boyfriend’. Because she was sort of his wife. Well, if I was being honest, there was no sort of about it. She was his actual wife. Which made me his actual mistress.

I wasn’t proud of myself. I knew what I was doing was wrong. But Dom had charmed me and I felt as though I had no control over my actions. He’d broken through all my defences. And actually, the secrecy and the subterfuge suited me quite well.

Dom and I had been working together for two years. We’d been sleeping together for nearly a year. The first time it happened I’d been working late in the office, desperate to make my mark in a company full of overachievers. As I pored over files and wrote reams of notes, Dom appeared at my office door.

‘Come for a drink,’ he said.

‘I can’t,’ I replied, not even looking up. Dom had been circling me for weeks, months even, flirting and going out of his way to pay me attention. I wasn’t interested. I avoided relationships and preferred to spend all my spare time working.

‘You work too hard.’ He walked towards my desk and sat down on the chair in front of me.

‘So do you.’ I turned a page in the folder I was reading and carried on making notes in the margin.

‘Pleeeease,’ Dom whined like a little boy. ‘I’m sooooo bored.’