The Lightning-Struck Heart (Tales From Verania 1)

I glared at him.

“—mothercracking bad liar,” he said instead. Because he had to think of the children.

“Pretty bad,” I said. “But I’ll marry you one day. It just won’t be today.”

The smile that formed then was as wide as I’d ever seen it. It was like getting hit in the face with a puppy made of ice cream and good dreams. “You will?”

“Yeah,” I said, sounding slightly strangled.

“You just bent your fork,” he said smugly.

“What? No, I didn’t. It came like this.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It did,” I said. “I watched them craft it. Your smile didn’t make my balls tingle at all.”

“That’s… I don’t know what that is.”

“Classy,” I said. “Classy is what it is. Just think. You get allll of this. For years.” I leered at him, sure it was more sexy than rapey.

He grimaced slightly. “I may not have thought this through as well as I should have.”

I tried to unbend my fork. “This is the worst proposal ever.”

“I’m not proposing!”

“I know,” I said. “I’m just saying if you were, this would be the worst proposal ever. First asking me to marry you and then insulting me.”

“Oh please,” he scoffed. “When I ask you to marry me, you’re going to be sobbing in joy because I’m awesome. And you still need to work on your leering. I was worried for a moment you’d put something in my drink and I’d wake up tomorrow sore and smelling like you but not remembering how it happened.”

“We may be spending too much time together,” I said. “Because that sounded way too much like something I would have said.”

“Better than you spending all your time with Justin.”

“Hey,” I said. “You leave him alone. He is a best friend in training.”

“Which is weird.”

“It’s not weird.” I gave him my fork so he could eat and started to unbend the other one.

“Sam, it’s kind of weird.”

“Okay,” I admitted. “Maybe a little bit. But since you left him at the altar—”

“For you.”

“—at the altar,” I said loudly, “he’s had a bit of a change of heart. He’s back on track in his relationship with the King, he doesn’t look angrily ill every time I walk in the room, and I think I almost convinced him the other day to let me send him on a date.”

“With Todd.”

“He has these awesome ears,” I said, as if he didn’t know. Because he should. Everyone should.

“I would not be sad if Todd lost his ears in an accident,” Ryan grumbled.

“Oh my gods

!”