The Villain (Boston Belles 2)

My sister-in-law tapped my shoulder as she exited my office.

“Go get her. She’s waiting, and I’m growing tired of taking my flings back to their apartments because she’s in my bed.”

It was time to break one more promise.

“There’s a cloud in our backyard!” Dahlia, one of my students, gasped, pointing her chubby finger out the window behind me.

“Whoa!” Reid’s tar eyes rounded, his pupils dilating like two splashes of ink. “That is one giant, humongous cloud.”

“Now, friends,” I said from over the rim of the book I was reading. They sat around me on the colorful alphabet carpet. The fog outside distracted them. “Crisscross applesauce. Everybody sit down and pay attention to the story. We need to finish reading about Paddington attending the Busy Bee Adventure Trail before we can play outside.”

“Collecting B-words is b-o-r-r-i-n-g!” Noah spelled the word wrong, tossing his limbs about the carpet in frustration. “Mommy says teachers are not very smart, or they wouldn’t be teachers. I want to play with the giant cloud!”

Well, Noah, Mommy is a B for bitc…

“Please!” Dahlia cried.

“Oh, Ms. Persy!” Reid whined.

The kids swarmed me, crawling onto my lap while pressing their palms together pleadingly. “Please, please, please can we play with the cloud? The nice man wants us to join him so badly. Look at him playing all by himself.”

The nice man?

Playing with himself?

Thinking now was a great time to call the police and make use of my pepper spray, I whipped my head, my jaw slacking.

My husband—who according to Belle refused the divorce papers yesterday and kicked her out of his office—was standing in Little Genius’ backyard, sleeves rolled, hair tousled, one knee on the ground as he created a huge, white, solitary cloud that floated above his head. It was the size of a hot air balloon. Big and fluffy and white. My eyes darted to the ground. How did he make it?

I spotted a metal tray, a stirrer, a match, and a Mason jar scattered underneath him.

We stared at each other wordlessly through the glass wall.

The book slipped from my fingers. I felt the herd of kids as they ran past me, dashing to the window, pressing their sticky fingers and noses to the glass as they squealed excitedly.

Avoiding my husband was no longer an option.

He brought me a cloud.

He brought me Auntie Tilda.

My legs carried me to the glass wall. He walked over, meeting me behind the thin barrier.

I put my hand on the glass. Cillian mirrored the action, our fingertips touching through the wall.

“I told you not to come here.” I swallowed hard.

“I told you a lot of things I regret,” he answered. “I hope maybe what you said was one of yours.”

“I’ve already used my Cloud Wish, Kill. I can’t have another one.” My voice broke.

“The wish is not for you to make, Persephone.” He smiled. “It’s for me.”

The children poured into the backyard like hot lava, spreading fast, crackling with delight.

Their small arms reached for the cloud, trying to grasp the ungraspable, stretching their fingers in an attempt to capture its magic.

I was the last to get out to the yard, stopping a few good feet away from my husband. Seeing him after weeks felt like dropping a heavy camping bag at the doorstep of your home. I wanted to bury my nose in his neck and breathe him in.

I didn’t ask him what he was doing here. I was afraid to believe. To hope.

Descending from Olympus didn’t make my husband any less regal and beautiful, and the Greek gods had a history of making mortals play into their own hands.

“This one is Dahlia.” He pointed at one of the kids, who was punching the smoke, trying to bring it to submission. “You call her The Little Mouse. Sassy, sweet, stubborn. This is Teo,” he continued, jerking his chin to Teo, “shy and reserved but observant. And that’s Joe,” he continued, looking at Joel, one of my favorite pupils. A dreamer with a shock of bright red hair.

“How did you know?” I whispered.

“I’ve been listening during our dinners,” he admitted. “To every word you said. Even if I pretended otherwise.”

My heart soared.

“You’re claiming your Cloud Wish?” I wrung my fingers together in my lap, turning into the same girl he’d met years ago in the bridal suite. Innocent. Unsure.

“Yes.”

“Who said you have one?” A smile fluttered on my lips.

“Your aunt.” There was no hint of mockery in his voice, which I appreciated, considering he was fluent in sarcasm. “She said I have to be careful. That you only get one wish in a lifetime.”

Wait a minute…

It was the same thing Auntie Tilda told me. And I didn’t remember ever telling Kill about this particular part. It couldn’t be. It made no sense at all.

“What’s your wish?” I whispered.

The children were teeming around us, and I thought it was symbolic, that the reason we were brought together—heirs—engulfed us even though I hadn’t conceived.