Page 12 of A Witch in Notting Hill

Oliver

I wasn’t sure what exactly came over me, but I was awash with a sudden sense of responsibility to protect her.

Not that she couldn’t take care of herself—she’d made it abundantly clear that she could—but in that moment, with the encroaching crowd and her eyes cast toward the ground, I didn’t have a second to think before I acted.

With a firm hand on her back and an “Excuse us,” “Sorry, no, you must have someone else,” “Excuse us, please,” over my shoulder, I ushered her around the corner and into a small cutout between the platforms. I tried to position my body so that it would block her from the fans without crowding her into the space, and her relief was palpable.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, taking off her sunglasses but not quite meeting my eyes.

“Do I seem like someone who does things they don’t want to do?” At that, she raised her gaze and pinned me with those deep brown eyes. They held only the slightest trace of a challenge before they faded into something softer. Something that cut right through me.

“Thank you,” she said. “I should do a better job of disguising myself, I suppose. Sorry you had to deal with that. Usually I can handle it better, just in the Underground, and with—”

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” I said. “I don’t like crowds, either. I get it. It must be a lot to have people in your personal space like that.”

“You don’t like crowds?” she asked. “Even though you’re like, a head taller than everyone?”

“Even worse that way. Means I’m privy to everyone’s business. And when I can see everyone, that means everyone can see me.”

“I know how that feels. Not the height part, obviously.” She gestured to her frame. “But the everyone-can-see-me part.”

“Well, they can’t see you now,” I said, stretching my arms up to lean on either side of the cutout. “Why don’t we wait here until that group gets on the train, then make a break for the next one?”

She nodded. “I like the sound of that.”

So that was exactly what we did. We waited in the cutout, Willow’s breathing returned to normal, and the space between us disappeared one centimeter at a time.

She smelled like rain and honey, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the way her eyelashes fanned across her freckled cheeks.

It was no wonder the camera loved her. The naked eye loved her, too.

If she was America’s sweetheart, maybe America wasn’t so bad.

Just as I was contemplating pushing her hair off her shoulder, giving her a little more air, caving in to my temptation to touch her even just with the tips of my fingers, a train slammed on the brakes, sending a shower of sparks onto the platform.

The commotion was enough to snap us out of our trance, hurtling us back into reality at light speed.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, looking around the people on the platform and at the train, which hadn’t appeared to sustain or cause any damage. Just a scare.

“Doesn’t it do that sometimes?” she asked. Wisps of her hair floated up from her shoulders, surely a result of the electricity in the air, drifting across her face in a scene entirely too angelic for the grimy underbelly of the city.

“Not like that,” I said. It appeared everyone was fine, and the sparks were definitely a sound distraction, so I nodded toward the train. “Ready? Now’s our chance.”

“Let’s do it.”

I grabbed her hand to make a break for the closing doors, ignoring the shock I felt at the contact. Again, electricity. Not at all a literal spark between us. Only she pulled hers away at the sensation, leaving me to take the hint.

We made it onto the train just as the doors slammed closed, and I was relieved when she stayed close, positioning herself between me and the doors the same way she’d been in the space between the platforms. Hidden, secure, protected.

I liked her there. And judging by her return, she didn’t seem to mind, either.

We got off the train at Camden Town, dodging the crowds outside the station until we could slip undetected onto a quiet side street.

Fortunately, there were enough street vendors hocking knockoff designer bags and punks begging for a few quid for a photo that Willow’s presence didn’t demand any attention.

“You can exhale now,” I said, looking around the tree-lined street to make sure no one noticed her. “Bromley’s place is tucked away back here, so I doubt we’ll be seen. Just a few minutes’ walk up this way.” I started up the street, exhaling as she fell into step beside me.

“That was crazy back there.”

“Never been to Camden Town?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“The market is a good time, but the crowds make it nearly impossible to tolerate. Solid food, though. I’ll take you back sometime if you fancy the best bao bun you’ve ever had.”

My words shocked me as much as they seemed to shock her.

What the hell was I doing, offering to take her to the market?

I didn’t even go through the trouble of taking women I was dating to the market.

And here I was, technically on a work assignment, offering to take this woman for bao buns, even after she’d made it abundantly clear she was only here to get what she needed to help her gran and then go straight back to California?

In an even more surprising turn of events, however, she didn’t run for the hills. “That sounds nice,” she said. “I love bao buns. There’s a place around the corner from my apartment that makes the most delicious vegetarian ones.”

“Flat.” I couldn’t resist.

“Sorry?”

“Your flat. You’re in England now, love.”

“You know what they say.” She smiled. “Can take the girl out of America and all that.”

Why did I love the thought of taking the girl out of America?

“Just up here, then,” I said, trying to bring myself back to the present before I said what I was really thinking.

“This one?” she said, pointing toward a townhome with smudged windows and a beat-up door.

“Mm-hmm,” I confirmed. “I know it doesn’t look like much on the outside, but trust me. It’s a proper show inside. And remember, don’t touch anything.”

She made a show of shoving her hands into her pockets and arranging her features into something solemn. Or her version of solemn, anyway. Her eyes still sparkled and her full lips still curved up at the corners, but I appreciated the effort.

We climbed the rotting front steps, and I knocked before entering, so as not to alarm the old bugger. “Bromley,” I announced, looking around the ground floor. “It’s Oliver Hadley. Are you in?”

“Where else would I be?” he grumbled from the back room. “Come through, will you? I’m in my chair and I’d fancy staying in it if it’s all the same to you.”

“Come on,” I said to Willow, trying not to smile at the startled look on her face “He’s harmless. Trust me.”

“Can I?”

“I’m on the other side of the bloody city on my day off looking for an old book for your gran,” I said. “You tell me.” When she said nothing, I took it as a concession. “This way, then.”

We picked through the overflowing antiques and showcases that littered every square inch of his home: glass boxes displaying old dolls; large, yellowing books propped open down the middle; tasseled lamps and brass candlesticks and porcelain figurines.

“It really is like a museum,” Willow whispered, closer behind me than I’d realized.

“Told you,” I said as we reached the back room. “Bromley, nice to see you. Please, don’t get up.” I leaned down to shake his hand, noticing how much older he looked since the last time I’d seen him. “This is Willow. She’s American, but I’m trying not to hold it against her.”

He laughed, or rather exhaled a little harder than usual out of his nose, extending his hand to Willow. “What brings you in?”

I explained the situation with Willow’s gran and our hunt for Rewind: A Manual for Counter Magic , mentioning that Fergus from the South Bank Book Market had sent us in his direction.

“How is that old bastard?”

“Old and a bastard,” I said with a laugh. “But doing well. Sends his regards.”

“No he doesn’t.”

“No.” I smiled. “He doesn’t.”

“But because I like you , I’ll give you both a hand, hm?”

“Thank you, sir,” Willow said.

“Don’t call me sir. What do I look like, an old man?

” She pressed her lips together, whether fighting back a laugh or dying from embarrassment, I couldn’t tell.

“Fetch me that ledger there, would you?” He pointed to a book—not unlike Fergus’s—buried under a stack of paperwork on a nearby writing desk.

I pulled it from the stack, careful not to disturb anything else on the desk. There was definitely a method to his madness, and I’d be damned if I was the one to disrupt it. Willow watched me, seemingly holding her breath, which I found impossibly endearing.

“Feel free to look around,” I said to her as I handed over the ledger. “If you’re interested in this kind of thing, there’s some good stuff in here. Just—”

“Don’t touch anything.” She rolled her eyes. “I know.”

She slipped back into the main room, and I returned my attention to Bromley as he flipped through the pages, muttering to himself and peering over the rim of his glasses.

“There it is,” he said eventually, jabbing the page with two fingers.

If only he’d known how much he and Fergus were alike.

Though if I pointed it out, I was certain I’d be forcibly removed from the shop, so I said nothing.

“Looks like I sold it to an auctioneer a year ago. Over in Islington there.”

Of course he did. And I was sure the auctioneer sold it to a client, and the client gave it to a friend, and the friend shipped it overseas to someone who buried it in the yard.

He scribbled the name and address of the woman on a napkin and pressed it into my hand.

“Should be able to find her there. So long as you get past security. Third floor, office with the green door hanging sideways from the hinges. Unless she’s had the good sense to fix it, but I doubt that. Give her my regards, will you?”

He wiggled his eyebrows in a way that suggested he wanted me to give her more than his regards, and the thought made me nauseated. “Thanks, Bromley. Much appreciated.” The moment I turned to leave, I heard a crash from near the doorway, and my nausea doubled.

“What the hell was that?” Bromley started to get up from his chair, galvanized by his irritation, and I had no choice but to jump in.

“I think I might have left the door open,” I said. “Must have been a gust of wind. I’ll take care of it. And I’ll, er, purchase whatever that was. Do send an invoice to the shop, will you? We’ll be getting out of your hair now. Willow? Let’s be going.”

I ducked into the front room to find Willow, white and still as a statue, standing over a pile of marble shards that might have once been a bust of Medusa. Hopefully it wasn’t haunted.

“What the hell happened?” I whispered, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her toward the door. “What happened to not touching anything?”

“I didn’t, I swear!”

“Then how did the bust end up in a million pieces on the floor?”

“It just fell!”

“Things don’t just fall, do they?”

“In places like this they do,” she argued, raising her voice as we made it out the front door and onto the street. The door slammed behind us, but not before we heard Bromley muttering a slew of obscenities and cursing those “damn Americans” as he picked up the pieces.

I didn’t want to laugh. Really, I didn’t. But she looked so horrified and adorable I had no choice.

“This isn’t funny,” she moaned, letting her head roll back on her shoulders. “I swear it wasn’t me.”

“Must have been magic,” I teased, laughing harder when she shoved me.

“You’re the worst.”

“If I was the worst, would I have this?” I waved the napkin in her face, pulling it back when she went to grab for it.

“What is that?”

“Our next stop.”

The slow smile that spread across her face was worth every minute of chaos. And worth doing what I had to do to get us into the building.

I fired off a text to Minho as we got back on the Tube, saying a silent prayer he wouldn’t ask too many questions.

Need a favor. Think you can get us into the Islington North Creative Arts building?

His response came in as soon as we reached the next stop.

Minho: Who’s we?

Me: Don’t play dumb.

Minho: Yes to the building. But you know we can’t do this without telling Lola.

Me: Is that really something I know?

Minho: Don’t play dumb.

Me: Fine. But I swear to god, she better not make this a thing.

I closed out of the text thread and leaned my head back against the train window.

“Everything okay?” Willow asked. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I just... I know this building. The one where the auctioneer is. My friend Minho is an architect and he did some work on the building a few years ago, and he still has a key fob, so he can get us in.”

“That’s great! Is it not? Why does your face look like that?”

“Because it means Minho is going to tell Lola, and Lola is, well, she’s—”

“A girlfriend?”

“A fan.”

“Ah.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the look on her face was something strangely like relief. Since when was she relieved about fans? “Well, we have to do what we have to do, right? As long as she isn’t the crazy kind.”

“As a person, she’s insane. But as a fan, I’m sure she’ll keep herself in check.” Because I’ll threaten her within an inch of her life , I refrained from adding aloud. I loved Lo, but if she added any stress to this situation, we were going to have a problem.

Though I had to admit, the thought of having my friends on board was oddly comforting, so long as they behaved.

The harder it got to find this stupid book, the more relieved I was to be calling in the reserves.

I hoped Islington would be the last stop, but judging by how the day had gone so far, I knew better than to get my hopes up.