Page 4 of Head Witch in Charge (The Sherwood Witches #2)
At least it would if I actually gave two shits about anyone other than myself, my brother Cy, and our sister Sigrid.
Lucky for me, I don’t, so don’t get your hopes up about a redemption arc.
I know exactly who I am, and a secret nice guy is not it—and everyone knows it.
According to Witchingdom gossip, all of us Svensens are gorgeous, greedy assholes always looking for a way to one-up the other witch.
They aren’t wrong.
“Erik Aldus Svensen, are you listening to me?” Dad asks, his annoyance palpable in the zip of electric magic that comes through the earbud and sends a small shock down my spine.
I shake off the pain, used to what he calls an “attention-getter.” “Yes, Dad.”
“You better be, because if you fuck this up, I’ll have to resort to other measures to raise some capital.
Cy’s lab equipment would get some fast cash on the black market.
Then I could marry your sister off. Fitzwilliam came by the other day.
His third wife died a few months ago just as mysteriously as the previous two.
He’s on the market for wife number four, and everyone in Witchingdom knows he only loans money to family. ”
Fury blasts through me at the idea and the truth escapes before I remember who I’m supposed to be around my dad. “And you think selling your daughter off to the highest—probably murderous—bidder is the best option, do you?”
“I don’t need you to tell me my business, boy,” he snaps back.
“I can’t keep up the pretense of our wealth much longer.
We need a cash infusion and we need it now.
I’ve sacrificed all I can for this family.
It’s up to you to make it happen by doing whatever it takes to get The Liber Umbrarum, keep the best money-making spells for ourselves, and auction off the love potions and other idiot candy magic to the highest bidder, or your siblings will have to pick up the slack for your failing. What. Ever. It. Takes.”
Oh yes. “Whatever it takes” should be the family motto—especially if it involves blackmail, deception, and outright thievery.
However, before I can tell him exactly that, Leona Sherwood gets out of the pool and my brain goes blank for a second.
There’s just something about seeing her wet, happy, and smiling up at the sun while wearing a pair of ridiculously huge sunglasses that hits me like a right hook from a pissed-off construction gnome.
I watch as Leona saunters over to her cabana, grabs a tropical-themed sarong that she ties around her waist, and starts toward the pool bar.
The same bar where I’m sitting. The same bar where I’ve been sitting for hours with my book, nursing the same mai tai, waiting for Leona and her friends to come out to the pool.
The universe, however, decides to blow a little good luck my way and she is finally heading straight for me.
“I gotta go, Dad.”
“It better be so you can get your ass to that meetup and get the location of that damn book,” he says.
“The clock is ticking on the rest of Witchingdom finding out how flat broke we are. I will not be publicly humiliated like that. I will not lose my power and my place in society because you can’t do a simple thing like get a tiny bit of information from those stupid fucking werewolves who have absolutely no idea what’s in the spell book.
I’d like to think that my heir couldn’t fuck up something that’s practically idiotproof, but you’ve disappointed me before. ”
My anger that’s always simmering under the surface threatens to boil over, making my skin burn with a heat that the desert sun couldn’t even dream of producing. It’s enough that the edges of my spell altering how I look start to shimmer and weaken.
Of course that’s what the old man is most concerned with.
Not my brother’s and sister’s lives, not the rest of the Svensen relations, and not the general caring for and well-being of those under the family’s protection, but being revealed as cash-poor gentry and, thereby, losing any social power he has among Witchingdom’s elite.
I hang up while he’s still talking.
It doesn’t matter. I know what he’s going to say anyway: “ It’s only the head of the family that matters. Everyone else can fend for themselves .”
If you’re thinking there’s a reason why I’m such an asshole, you’d be right, and it doesn’t change a damn thing. I am who I was born to be.
Keeping Leona in my peripheral vision, I let out a calming breath and lock my false appearance spell back in place.
Then I turn back to my book. It’s a rare first edition of Elini Horsn?s’s biography, one of many that my dad had ordered me to put up for anonymous auction so he could get a new wardrobe for the social season. I’d pocketed it instead.
You never know when an oddity will come in handy—like now.
Leona stops a stool down from me and orders drinks for her and her friends before glancing over at me and doing a double take. “Oh, I love that book.”
Bingo. I just love it when a plan comes together.
Everyone in Witchingdom knows the Sherwood heir is a voracious reader. With only the minimum amount of research, I locked in on her genre (biographies) and niche (badass women). And now my dad’s throwaway for quick cash is going to gain me a lot more than a new tuxedo.
“It’s great.” I close the book and hand it over to her so she can look at it. “I came across this first edition in a secondhand shop and it just grabbed me.”
“You found a first edition Elini Horsn?s biography in a used bookstore?” she asks as she turns the pages with reverence and care, a soft smile curling her lips. “You might be the luckiest person I’ve ever met.”
“Well,” I say, laying the awkward charm on thick, “since it led me to getting to meet you, I’m going to agree.”
She lets out an amused snort and hands me the book. “That was a horrible pickup line.”
I take the book back, making sure not to touch her fingers with mine. The key when reeling in a mark is to always make sure they think they’re the one making the decisions.
Dialing my smile to bashful, I ask, “Too much?”
“Definitely too much, but I appreciate the laugh,” she says with a chuckle as the bartender places a tray with four fruity drinks topped with little umbrellas on the bar. “I’m LeLe Collins.”
“Nice to meet you, LeLe.” I offer my hand. “Erik Phillips.”
She shakes it, her grip firm and confident.
There’s a zing of something that makes my balls tight.
Yeah, she’s hot and I’m horny, so what? It’s not like I haven’t played with my prey before—nothing like a handful of orgasms to make getting screwed over go down a little easier. They have fun. I get what I want.
I’m not Mr.Nice Witch, remember?
So yeah, the idea of finding out how tight her thighs would grip my head while I’m tongue-deep crosses my mind. Sue me.
I don’t want to let go of the Sherwood heir’s hand, but there’s too much on the line for me to give in to what I want. Instead, I do a silent spell that sets off a text notification on my phone.
I glance down at the screen as if I don’t know what it’s going to say. “Sorry, it’s my friend. We’re here so he can forget his now ex-girlfriend.”
Her face scrunches up into a sympathetic grimace. “Bad breakup?”
“Let’s just say finding out she cheated on him with his dad is doing a number on him.” Which was the plot of the latest romance book Sigrid insisted I read.
“Oh.” The heir—LeLe—puts her hand to her heart. “Ouch.”
“Yeah.” I stand up and scoot my barstool back into place. Time to drop the next little crumb. “It was nice to meet you, LeLe, but I gotta go. I have a poker game tonight in the Reservoir Room, but maybe I’ll see you after?”
A smile lights up her face as she does a finger wave and her tray of drinks floats up in the air and over to her side. “Oh, you’ll see me there. I’ll be the one taking all your chips.”
Her skill at the table is legendary according to all the digging I’ve done on her, but I needed the confirmation she just provided that she’d be at the high-stakes table tonight.
“I don’t know.” I tuck the book under my arm. “I’m pretty good for a book nerd.”
Her grin turns flirty as she looks me up and down. “Well, I look forward to seeing if you’re the player you think you are.”
Then she walks away, the tray of drinks keeping pace next to her. I don’t need to watch her stroll all the way to her cabana, but I can’t look away. She glances over her shoulder at me and smiles.
Yep. Lady Luck is definitely with me in Vegas.
I may not have much, considering Dad has decimated our family fortune, but I’m as lucky as a leprechaun on a hot streak. Things just work out for me. That’s how I know my plans for getting rid of dear old Dad are going to work out perfectly.
And if LeLe and her family pay the price? That’s just the cost of getting what I want.