Page 32 of A Kiss from the Fae (Mistress of Magic #2)
The party was being held in what had been a warehouse in the once-poor docklands area of East London, now a haven for banks, luxury apartments and exclusive bars.
Faye imagined that it would be bustling and vibrant in the summer, but in November, the concrete walkways and steps were slicked black with rain, and the glass skyscrapers only reflected the depths of the charcoal night onto the flat River Thames that lay alongside them.
Rav helped her out of the taxi. Faye had chosen a full-length evening dress as Rav had assured her it was a dressy affair; he was handsome in a black dinner jacket and sharp white shirt underneath.
Faye’s dress was black also: an off-the-shoulder gown that clung to her breasts and hips, skimming over her flat stomach.
The silk folds of the skirt had pooled around her feet until she’d put her heels on at the flat.
Now, as she picked her way carefully over wet cobbles to the door, she wondered how she was going to stand on the vertiginous heels all night.
They were celebrating the success of some album or another that Rav’s company had been doing the promotion for; it had just gone over a million sold worldwide.
Faye followed Rav into the shady interior of the converted warehouse, giving her coat to a young man in a small cloakroom as they entered.
She ran a hand nervously over her hair, which she’d braided around her head like a Greek goddess.
Its auburn had become a little lighter in the summer, and it still had dark blonde flecks among the reddish brown.
She wore a pair of earrings that Rav had given her: long droplets of rose quartz set in gold.
‘Wow. You really look beautiful tonight,’ Rav murmured, and kissed her. Faye leaned into him. She could never resist that murmuring tone of voice, the way his eyes met hers like there was no one else around.
‘Thank you.’ Faye kissed him back and expected him to pull away, mindful of the people ahead of them and behind them.
But Rav encircled her with his arms and pulled her in for a deep, passionate kiss, and Faye submitted to it, feeling her body become soft and responsive to his touch. Rav’s hands caressed her back.
‘Mmmm. Do we have to go in?’ he whispered into her ear.
She laughed quietly, prodding him in his side.
‘I think you’d be missed,’ she replied, smiling.
Rav led her to a table at the centre of the room where she recognised Sumi and Rav’s business partner, Roni.
Sumi wore a short, low-cut, shocking pink cocktail dress that displayed all her curves with pride and glowed against her light brown skin; Roni, heavily bearded, wore a safari suit with a loud orange-and-green Hawaiian shirt underneath and a black bolo tie.
‘Faye! So good to see you again!’ Sumi cried, enveloping Faye in a fierce hug, even though her head only came up to Faye’s shoulder with heels on. ‘Wow. You look stunning ! Roni. Roni! Doesn’t Faye look stunning?’ She nudged her husband who smiled broadly.
‘Faye, you look stunning, I don’t know if anyone’s told you,’ Roni admitted with a grin.
‘Good to see you dressed up, man.’ Rav clapped Roni on the back. ‘Feel like I overdid it with the dinner jacket now,’ he added sarcastically.
‘Dude. Safari never goes out of style.’ Roni handed them a flute of champagne each and held his up for a toast. ‘To Malik she was being polite.
‘Oh, whenever you like,’ Faye replied, knowing it would never happen.
‘What about your shop? Is someone running it for you, now you’re not there?’ Sumi asked, apparently concerned, though Faye thought she could detect another message. Why don’t you go back there and run it and leave him alone? ‘From what Rav said, I doubt you’d want to be away from it for long?’
Faye smiled with a brightness she didn’t feel.
‘It’s fine. I’ve closed it temporarily. We’ll see, I guess,’ she replied, and took a longer drink from her champagne glass.
Mistress of Magic was who she was. Her mother had worked hard to build the shop as part of the pagan community in Scotland, and within the village, too.
She’d run evening healing circles, taught spell-casting, read fortunes and made herbal salves and draughts for the villagers.
Leaving the shop empty was taking a toll on business, but it was also breaking down all the good work Moddie had done for all those years.
She was considering going back for at least a couple of weeks to check in and make sure everything was okay.
Mistress of Magic was Faye’s home, just like it had been home to all the Morgans before her.
The house itself – its thick stone walls, the worn flagstones of the shop floor that had once been where the family gathered around the hearth – was part of her.
She drew her strength from Abercolme – from Black Sands Beach, from the sea and the sand and the rough scrubland around the shore – but most of all, the stone house and its little garden, packed with roses and herbs, were her mainstay.
As she stood in the crowd, in the hubbub of people talking and laughing, Faye suddenly felt terribly alone and lost, untethered from where she should be.
Nausea roiled in her stomach, and she set down her champagne glass on a nearby table.
It was nerves. She knew what Rav’s friends thought of her. It was uncomfortable being there.
The dinner passed without any further difficulty. Faye sat between Rav and Roni who, together, were a double act, entertaining everyone else at the table. Rav played the straight man to Roni’s surreal, deadpan humour.
‘Oh, it’s Mallory! Hi, sweetie. You look gorge.
’ They had finished their main courses, and people were starting to mill around between tables as the desserts arrived.
Sumi stood up to kiss Mallory. Instinctively, Faye looked at Rav to gauge his reaction, but he only glanced at Mallory, meeting Faye’s eyes instead.
‘Did I tell you how glad I was that you two met for that coffee?’ he said, reaching for Faye’s hand. ‘You’ll be okay if I have to do the friendly boss bit for a while? Got to go and say hi to everyone.’
‘Sure, okay.’ Faye smiled brightly again, not wanting him to go. Reluctantly, she turned to Mallory.
‘Hi, Mallory,’ she said as amicably as she could.
‘Oh, hi, Faye,’ Mallory replied in the same falsely jolly tone. ‘Don’t you look…severe, this evening.’
It’s like she has literally no social skills , Faye thought.
‘Thanks.’ She didn’t bother to exchange a compliment, genuine or otherwise. ‘Excuse me. Going to the ladies.’
Faye made her way to the toilets, found a cubicle free, went in and leaned against its wall, closing the door behind her.
Her head was spinning from the champagne.
She had absolutely no desire to talk to Mallory and was keen to avoid her nagging about attending Ruby’s coven meetings; hopefully, when she got back from the toilet, the other girl would be gone.
She rarely drank this much and she hated feeling sick, but she could feel it coming. She leaned over the toilet and vomited everything she had just eaten into it.
Faye was alarmed. Perhaps she was ill. She wasn’t usually sick after a few glasses of champagne.
However, with much of her stomach’s contents gone, she felt a little clearer and closed the toilet lid, sitting down and wiping her mouth.
As she did so, Faye heard the door to the bathroom open and voices spill into the white-tiled room.
‘She’s some kind of witch, I heard,’ one said, over the sound of a cubicle door opening and closing.
‘Scottish,’ another voice confirmed. So, she was being talked about.
‘She’s really pretty,’ the first voice commented. ‘They met up at that Scottish festival last summer. The one that was in the papers?’
‘I heard about that. Weird goings-on,’ the other one called out from the cubicle.
‘Mallory says she’s, like, enchanted him or something,’ the other voice, out by the sinks, ventured.
‘What, like, cast a spell on him? That’s stupid,’ the other girl said. Faye heard her ripping off toilet paper from the dispenser. ‘Mallory’s jealous, that’s all.’
‘I don’t think she is. Just concerned, like. That’s what she told me.’ Faye smelled perfume being applied. ‘Have you got any lipstick on you? I forgot mine and it’s come off already.’
The cubicle door clicked again and Faye heard the girl rejoin her friend.
‘Don’t believe it for a second. Concerned.
Like she doesn’t want Rav back big time.
It’s so obvious. Always hanging around him, staying back after meetings.
Calling into his office. It’s not like she has a reason to, not as much as she does.
I’ve heard them in there, laughing, joking around.
They’re not working. Took some files in the other week and she was sitting on the edge of his desk, leaning over in this low-cut top.
I swear they’d just kissed or something ’cos they both looked really guilty when I came in. ’
‘What? Really?! ’ The excitement in the other girl’s voice was in a directly inverse proportion to Faye’s dread, which roiled her stomach. The nausea returned.
‘Definitely. I’m telling you!’ The first girl’s voice was smug, thick with triumph at her secret. ‘Don’t tell anyone I told you, obviously. Rav made out they were looking at some spreadsheet or something, but she left right away and he was really embarrassed. I could tell something was going on.’