Bewitching Desire
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
More from The Coven of the North Star
Spellbinding Love Sneak Peek
About the Author
Bewitching Desire
Coven of the North Star Series #2
Elizabeth Davis
Copyright © 2017. Elizabeth Davis
All rights reserved.
Cover by Abbey Kleinert
ISBN:
ISBN-13:
For all of my Linneas
CHAPTER ONE
Alison Conner
3:23pm
State fair?
Linnea Peterson
3:27pm
STATE FAIR
Alison Conner
3:28pm
Saturday?
Linnea Peterson
3:28pm
SATURDAY
Linnea Peterson
3:28pm
STATE FAIR MOTHERFUCKERS.
Linnea Peterson
3:28pm
I assume you’re bringing my little bro?
Alison Conner
3:28pm
That was the plan, yeah. That okay?
Linnea Peterson
3:28pm
Of course it is. This is the STATE FAIR. My people used to rule it. It is our domain. My birthright, even.
Alison Conner
3:28pm
You’re never gonna be over not being Princess Kay of the Milky Way, are you?
Linnea Peterson
3:29pm
I. Was. Robbed.
Linnea Peterson
3:29pm
I’ll pick up tickets for the four of us. And Katie said she’s coming up to help with her neighbor’s goats, so I’ll check and see if she’s going to be there Saturday.
Linnea closed their conversation and pulled up Katie’s number.
Linnea Peterson
3:29pm
Question: Are you going to be a Minnesotan Stereotype on Saturday night?
Katie Frankowski
3:30pm
I assume you’re asking if I’m going to be in the goat barn on Saturday?
Katie Frankowski
3:30pm
Because yes, the prize goats and I will be there. You coming to rage about how your State Fair Queen crown was stolen again?
Linnea Peterson
3:30pm
I would have been the best goddamn Princess Kay of the Milky Way in the universe and you know it.
“Ms. Peterson?” Linnea looked up from her phone.
She made eye contact with Larry, her managing partner. His face was bright red and if she was being charitable, she’d assume he’d been outside in the broiling August weather. But his face was always that red, and he perpetually looked like he was straining to take a dump. He was also quite possibly her least favorite human in existence. “Yes?” she asked.
“We’re introducing the new associate in the conference room at four. You’ll be there, right? He’ll be working with you on the North Country merger project.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Linnea said as sweetly as she could. Larry had only emailed her three times about this meeting, and reminded her again this morning. If she was the forgetful sort, she probably wouldn’t mind, but she had yet to even be late to a meeting, much less forget about one. It was just one more reminder that every man in her office saw her as an airhead because of her blonde hair and manicured nails, instead of who she actually was: one of their best junior associates. Larry closed the door behind him and Linnea stuck her tongue out at the piece of solid oak before shifting her attention back to the pile of paperwork in front of her.
Her phone beeped with another text from Alison a few minutes before four.
Alison Conner
3:57pm
You working late tonight?
Linnea hurried down the hallway, thumbs flying across her keyboard.
Linnea Peterson
3:57pm
Safe to assume I am working late every night from now until eternity.
Alison Conner
3:58pm
How late? Because I would kill for some Pizza Lucé.
Linnea Peterson
3:58pm
I could sneak out of here around 6. Might have to come back but if I’m here straight through I’ll murder someone.
Alison Conner
3:58pm
I could use a walk so how about I stop by your office at 6.
Linnea slid into a chair in the over-airconditioned conference room, squinting a little at the glare shining through the wall of windows across from her. Her ability to conjure cool air in the dead of summer was made entirely redundant by the building’s insistence that sixty degrees was comfortable. Gibson, Dahl, and Associates had three floors in a high rise downtown, which made for spectacular views when the sun wasn’t threatening to burn her eyeballs out. She clicked her phone to silent, reminding herself to respond to Alison’s text when the meeting was over.
It seemed awkward to call a big meeting like this just to introduce someone who wouldn’t be staying long, especially since the new hire wasn’t really new or even hired. He was a loaner from their Chicago branch, brought in to wrangle the acquisition of a North Shore outdoor clothing supplier by an Illinois-based company. He would only be staying as long as it took to get everything straightened out. Three months, maybe six if the company being bought out got squirrelly.
Larry walked in with the new associate on his heels. Larry looked exactly like you’d expect; white with greying hair and expensive suits. He liked to wax poetic about his wife and kids but in reality he mostly cared about money, billable hours, and being a goddamn jackass. Sometimes Linnea wondered if she was in the right profession, but then she’d get her paycheck and remember that yeah, she kind of was.
Larry turned in front of the wall of windows and Linnea could only make out the new associate’s profile—a little shorter than Larry, but with nicely sized shoulders and a suit that fit him well. He and Larry rounded the conference table and now that they were out of the glare, Linn could see him clearly. He was about her age, clean-shaven with smooth, olive skin and dark brown eyes. His thick black hair was short, and his smile to the gathered lawyers was nothing short of charming. If she was single, she’d probably be into him. “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Jack O’Malley,” Larry announced.
Linnea felt her eyebrows start to raise at the name, because Jack O’Malley sounded very…Irish. And the man standing in front of them was definitely…not.
“What, haven’t you all heard of the Korean O’Malleys?” Jack said to general uncomfortable laughter. Everyone else in the room was white, although Larry liked to talk about being one-sixteenth Native American around Thanksgiving, as if that counted. “Seriously though,” Jack continued with a grin that managed to put a room full of theoretically liberal white people just reminded of their whiteness at ease, “I’m thrilled to be working here as long as it takes. I just drove up from Chicago this weekend, so I’m looking forward to getting to know Minneapolis.”
“You a Bears fan?” Larry asked with a big grin. “Because we might have a problem if you are.”
Linnea stifled an eye roll, because “sports banter” was her third least favorite part of small talk as an attorney, right after “how is your golf game” and “ways to avoid your wife and children on the weekends.”
Jack smiled mischievously. “I have faith we can work through it,” he said with a wink that made Larry blush. His eyes landed on hers for just a moment, and for a second she felt like she might blush too, which was stupid. But then the moment passed, and Larry started droning on about the new project. Linnea would be working on it with Jack, but absolutely nothing he was saying was at all new. Jack’s presence wouldn’t change anything—not really. She was relieved when it was all over, and sent a message to Alison confirming their dinner date.
Alison had just texted that she was less than a block away when there was a knock on Linn’s door. “Come in!” she called, hastily shoving her feet back into her high heels. The firm frowned upon her habit of walking around her office barefoot, probably because most of them didn’t have to wear heels all fucking day. She had an image to uphold as the polished, pretty, junior associate, and while most of that came easily, a few bits did not.
Jack poked his head in. “Linnea, right? I’m Jack.”
“Right. The Bears fan.”
Jack grimaced. “Not so much. That would involve actually caring about football. But I’ve found telling guys like that that I don’t watch football is like telling them I’m not planning on ever speaking English. It just doesn’t compute, so it’s easier just to go along. I was just stopping by to introduce myself to everyone in the group. I thought that was what the meeting was for, but instead—“
“—instead it was about Larry getting to hear himself talk,” she snarked. Shit. Maybe that was a little too far, she thought. She was usually better at filtering her thoughts from her mouth, but there wasn’t any going back now. She was saved by Alison walking through the door, digging through her enormous purse.
“Hey, I assume you haven’t bought State Fair tickets yet, but Joh
n wants in too,” she said without looking up. When she did, she jumped like a startled cat. “Oh, sorry—you in a meeting?”
“Nope, just stopping by,” Jack said easily. “I’m Jack. From the Chicago office.”
“Alison. From the poor office.”
“You work at G and D too?”
Alison laughed, because as usual, she was dressed more like an art teacher than a lawyer. “No. Non-profit that’s a few blocks away. I’m just stopping by to take Linn to dinner.”
“And the State Fair?”
“Clearly,” Alison said with a smile. Jack clearly had a habit of winning people over, and quickly. Then again, Alison liked everyone. “It’s the Minnesota State Fair, after all. You can’t miss that.”
“I can’t, huh?” he said, raising his eyebrows at Linnea.
Her stomach did something weird, but before she could signal to Alison, her best friend’s midwestern nature got the best of her. “Did you want to come? We’re going on Saturday.”
Linnea’s first impulse was to protest. Benjamin didn’t always handle new additions to their circle very well, and Jack—with his expensive suit and easy smile—was exactly the sort of lawyer that Benjamin despised. But if John was coming she couldn’t really say that Jack would be the awkward fifth wheel, and at any rate by the time she’d come up with a plausible reason, Jack had already accepted Alison’s offer. There was nothing more to do but buy another ticket.
Linnea let herself in through the back door and kicked off her shoes. “I’m home!” she called.
“In here!” Benjamin yelled from the living room. Linnea followed the sound of his voice and collapsed dramatically on the couch, her head in his lap. He had blond hair like hers, swooping across his forehead dramatically and setting off his ice blue eyes to perfect effect. He was well over six foot, which Linnea considered a necessity in her dating life, since at 5’9 she was roughly as tall as most men. Benjamin made her feel small and dainty and in photographs they looked like the picture-perfect couple. He ran his fingers through her hair with the absent-minded tenderness of someone who had been in a relationship for almost half a decade. “Bad day at work again?”
“Eh,” she said with a shrug, which was a little hard to do with her shoulder smushed between the gap in the couch cushions and his leg. “No worse than usual.” It was the truth, after all—she worked long hours and half her coworkers seemed to think she was a ditzy blonde, but she liked the work itself even if most people thought corporate law was the most boring thing in the universe. To her, it was like a puzzle. A puzzle in which the reward was rich men got richer, true, but she liked the challenge. And she liked the giant paychecks that came with it, because that let her do things like buy a nice little three-bedroom house in Saint Paul, nestled down near the Mississippi River in a quiet neighborhood. “How were the kiddos today?” she asked.
“The usual,” he said with the same lackadaisical shrug. “There’s leftovers in the fridge. I made stir fry tonight.”
“I told you I was going to go to Pizza Lucé with Alison,” Linnea said, her chest suddenly feeling tight. She didn’t want to fight; she was too tired. She just wanted to snuggle with her boyfriend and pass out, but Benjamin hated it when she didn’t appreciate his cooking. Linnea wasn’t hungry—not in the slightest—but she hauled herself off the couch and went and dug the glass container out of the fridge because that was better than arguing.
They’d been fighting for the last year, practically. She kept thinking that it was because of their circumstances—her mom being sick last winter, or him having a bad day at work, or the stress of her working late, or a hundred other reasons. But it just kept going, and if she was perfectly honest with herself, some nights she didn’t mind staying late at work because it meant she would get home after he was asleep.
And sleeping people couldn’t fight.
But that wasn’t who they were. They were Benjamin and Linnea, goddammit. She wouldn’t let this fall apart, so she forced down a few bites of broccoli stir fry and pretended to be interested in the prestige drama he was watching. “Oh, Alison wants to go to the State Fair this Saturday, so I’m buying us all tickets tomorrow. Does that work for you?”
Benjamin sighed and hit pause on the DVR. He hated talking over TV. “The State Fair? Come on, you know that’s not my thing.”
“But it is my thing,” she argued. “And we agreed we’d be more supportive of each other’s things.” I’m watching a boring ass show about a middle aged white dude who wants redemption but also can’t help but cheat on his age-appropriate wife with a series of nubile young twenty somethings, she added mentally, because saying that out loud would be unfair. She set down the stir fry, now officially uncomfortably full.
A muscle in his jaw ticked, but then he nodded. “Okay, sure. It’s your thing, so I’ll go. Is it the three of us?”
“Erik’s coming too. And his roommate. Oh, and we’re going to meet my friend Katie from book club there.” The book club lie still felt wrong, especially since Benjamin knew exactly what the book club really was. But being a witch and using her powers made him feel weird, so they compromised like adults. She’d even gotten used to using light switches manually after years of just waving her hand whenever she entered a room. It was good for her, she reasoned. Her powers were so strong that sometimes she got lazy. Benjamin made her better that way; more normal. He challenged her and she liked that about him.
“Katie doesn’t like me.”
“Katie doesn’t like anyone,” Linnea lied. “That’s just how she is.” Katie liked most people just fine, actually, but Benjamin had never meshed well with her. He never meshed well with any of her friends in fact, but she wasn’t sure why. He had plenty of his own friends and he was outgoing and social, but her witch friends were another sore spot with them.
“Anyone else coming?”
“Yeah, the new hire from work. Alison kind of midwesterned-polited all over the place and now he’s coming.”
“You guys hired someone new?”
“Not really. Just a loaner from the Chicago office. His name’s Jack. Our age. I figure I’ll be working with him and he doesn’t really know anyone, so we might as well bring him along and get to know each other.”
“Another lawyer,” Benjamin sighed, but his eyes were dancing.
Linnea nudged him in the ribs. “Hey, you love lawyers.”
“Correction: I love one lawyer,” he said, and kissed her and she breathed a sigh of relief. “State Fair it is.”
The next morning, Linnea found herself standing behind Jack as he fiddled with the coffee pot. “You’ve got to press the button at the top of the handle,” she said, and finally a thick stream of coffee poured into his mug.
“Thanks,” he said, moving aside and letting her pour herself a cup.
“How are you settling in?”
Jack raised and dropped one shoulder. “I just moved in this weekend, but so far, so good. You guys are smaller than Chicago, but bigger than I expected.”
“Everyone’s always surprised to find civilization this far north,” she said and wrapped her hands around her coffee. Steam was rising from the mug, so she wiggled her fingertips and conjured up just enough cool air to chill it down to the perfect temperature. “But I promise, we’re a real city and everything.”
He tipped his head to the side. “Oh yeah? Can you get sushi at two in the morning?”
“Why the hell would you want sushi at two in the morning? If you’re up that late, you’re drunk. If you’re drunk, you don’t want sushi, you want pizza. Which you can get from Pizza Lucé by the slice, so boom, suck it, city snob,” she teased.
He smiled at that. It was a nice smile. “I take it you’re a local then?”
“Born and raised. But most of us are. Minnesotans don’t tend to leave,” she admitted. “Where do they have you staying?”