Chapter 1
He’s the worst bachelor ever.
Really. In the two months that I’ve been watching Warren Knight, he’s blown a total of thirteen dates. Thirteen! Maybe that doesn’t sound too terrible, but considering his busy schedule, it’s way too many.
I shake my head as I watch him get increasingly impatient with his date. Sure, this is the fourth time she’s fixed her lip gloss at the table, and sure, she kind of has a habit of making all of her statements sound like questions, but her boobs look great and she’s definitely a ten. They’re always tens.
It’s no surprise, since Warren Knight himself is probably a twelve, and that’s even when he has bed head and a bad attitude.
But see, therein lies the problem. He’s just too good looking for his own good. Poor guy.
“So that’s what I did when I got my followers up to ten thousand…”
The girl is droning on and on about her Instagram profile, but Warren looks like he’d rather be at a dentist appointment than on this date. And I would know, because I watched him go to the dentist last week, and he seemed like he really enjoyed himself.
“So do you wanna get out of here?” the beautiful woman suddenly asks.
She’s leaning over, her hand lightly touching the sleeve of his suit jacket. He doesn’t even look up from the plate of food that he’s eating as he answers her. “No.”
The woman sits back, anger and hurt flashing across her features, but she quickly covers it up with a cool smile. “Okay...How about we go to Slash?”
Excited, I smile happily and edge closer to them, because I’ve been to Slash a few times for work. The nightclub always has plenty of music and drinking, dancing, and flirting. It’s like a cupid’s playground. Well, if a cupid were actually good at her job. Which I’m not.
I try to be good. Hell, I try to be great. But my powers just don’t work right.
“No,” Mr. Knight says again, finally lifting his head to look at her.
When he does that, it almost seems like he’s looking at me, but that’s just because I’m hovering right in front of Beautiful Date Number Fourteen. So he can’t see me, but that’s okay, because I can see him and he looks damn good.
Black suit and tie, black hair slightly disheveled, and brown eyes that remind me of crispy leaves. Pale skin, healthy covering of dark stubble, sharp jaw and eyebrows that hover a bit menacingly over his eyes. Plush lips. Cheekbones you want to run your hands over, and perfect white teeth you want to lick.
He’s even better naked. Trust me, I’ve seen him.
I look back at the woman, wincing slightly on her behalf. He’s so damn handsome, but at this point, it’s just a detriment to him. Apparently, your level of attractiveness also raises your level of rudeness.
The woman smooths down her glossy brown hair and crosses her legs under the table. Her dress hugs her curves to perfection. I bet she knows a lot of tricks in bed, but it looks like I won’t be able to find out, because just like his other dates, Mr. Knight is cutting things short. Too bad, because I’ve become a bit of a voyeur. I enjoy a good show.
“If you didn’t want to hook up, why did you ask me out?” she demands.
Oooh. I perk up at the steel in her voice. Like I said, I’ve become a bit of a voyeur, and it doesn’t just extend to sexual escapades. I pretty much like watching everything that has to do with Warren Knight, and this is the first time in fourteen dates that one of the women has snapped back at him. This is getting good.
I take the liberty of perching on their dinner table, but my ass goes through it a bit. I’m still trying to perfect the whole hovering thing. It’s hard learning to live in the Veil. The ghosts make it look easy.
Mr. Knight regards her a little more closely than before—like her clapback made her more relevant.
But then he does the eye sweep. You know the one.
The one where the hot dude looks you up and down. But it’s not in a nice way. He does it in a way that makes you feel like a total joke.
So he does the condescending eye swoopty, and her face heats up faster than a hotdog in hell.
“Stop that,” I hiss at him. He doesn’t listen, but I can’t blame him for that because he can’t actually hear me.
“I took you out as a favor,” he tells her with a wave of his hand. “Your cousin works for me. He said you’ve been trying to move on from just being an Instagram model to walking for fashion week. He knew if you were seen with me that it would help boost your career. So I agreed because now he’ll have no choice but to owe me one. I’ll be cashing in that favor quite soon, actually.”
Her teeth clench. “You’re a son of a bitch, Knight. You know that?”
He takes a gulp of wine and shrugs easily. “Now that you were photographed here with me, your career will spike, more connections will open up. You should be kissing my shoes.”
I wince. “Now you’ve really done it,” I say, hopping to my feet and heading over to him. My hand passes through his arm when I try to touch him, but that’s okay. All I need to do is use some cupid mojo on him, and then maybe I can turn this date around.
After all, I know they’re attracted to each other. My cupid senses tell me that much at least. But he always does this—always seems to purposely run his dates into the ground until it’s just a fiery crater of I shoulda swiped left.
I just don’t get it. I know he desires women, so I don’t understand why he does this.
“This is why you need a cupid,” I tell him seriously as I lean in. “You’re clearly just incapable of plugging your asshole
long enough to squelch out anything other than rude shit.”
I take a determined, deep breath. “Okay. I can handle this. I’m just gonna fix this whole thing right now before you ruin date number fourteen, okay? Okay,” I say, giving myself a much needed pep talk.
With as much concentration as I can muster, I look him in the eye and then blow out a huge exhale of Lust Breath right into his stupidly handsome face. There’s nothing like a dose of desire to really get things turned around.