“Jesse,” Zeb mutters. I smile at him before reaching over and pressing my lips to his. It’s a soft kiss, and, to my regret, I have to pull back immediately before I really have time to register the soft plushness of those lips under mine. I turn back to Nina.

“They can get you help,” she says smugly, raising her glass to take a sip of wine.

I wait until she’s taken a sip. “No need,” I say cheerfully. “Well, not unless they employ an exorcist or the Most Haunted team. A dead woman did this when she hit me in the face with her shoe.”

To my satisfaction, that sort of kills the conversation around us for the rest of the meal.

Chapter Five

Jesse

After dessert, people start to drift away from the table. To my relief, Zeb grabs my hand and steers me out of the dining room and away from the witch. I offer her a casual wave over my shoulder while she looks thoughtfully after me as if calculating how many hours it’ll take to disembowel me.

“Phew,” I say. “Another five minutes and I’m sure she’d have brought out her flying monkeys.”

He shakes his head and picks up his pace. I follow obediently instead of pulling my arm out of my socket, and we’re practically moving at a jog as we hit reception.

Patrick appears in front of us. “Zeb, have you got a minute?”

“No, sorry,” he says tersely, seeing the lift doors open ahead of us. “Things to do.”

“That’s me,” I whisper as I pass Patrick. “I’m the thing he has to do.”

I catch his frown and offer him a sweet smile before Zeb yanks me into the lift. The doors close behind us, and I watch him as he leans back against the lift wall. His face is closed but something is working over it. Is it rage? I squint to check, but I can’t be sure, so I launch into speech.

“I promised I’d behave if people were polite to you. And I kept my word,” I say loudly as he lowers his head into his hands and his shoulders start to shake. “She was fucking awful to you, and I won’t have it.” I pause and amend my sentence quickly. “In my position as your fake boyfriend, I wouldn’t have stood for someone talking to you like that.” I huff indignantly. “She’s the rudest person I’ve ever met. I am quite frankly astounded that nobody has murdered her. If this was an Agatha Christie mystery there’d be no bloody mystery because we’d all have done it.” I pause. “I think that’s been done,” I say slowly. “Although if it was Murder on the Orient Express someone would have just chucked her under the train as it set off.”

I pause as he makes a faint sound. Oh shit, is he crying? Have I broken him? Surely not. If anything was going to break him it would have been the time I crashed my old Fiat into his new Mercedes. Nevertheless, I move closer.