Must Be Magic (Spellbound) (3 page)

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

Bryce tensed at the sound of his father’s voice. He should have stayed with Darby and Riley. “Not now, Dad.”

“Do you know how hard I’ve worked?”

Better off with Darby, Riley
and
Dante. Bryce had been counting on not having this conversation with his father until after the wedding. Just like he’d been counting on having a couple of days to figure out how to break the news that he’d left his position at the DA’s office.

“How hard
you
worked?” Bryce faced his father. Thomas Lancaster may have been three inches shorter, but anything he lacked in stature, he more than made up for in arrogance. “And here I thought that busting my ass day and night played a significant role in my career.”

His father stiffened and glanced around. “You’re right. Maybe this isn’t the time.”

Bryce wondered if he should be grateful for their audience or suggest taking their conversation elsewhere so they could get it over with. Unfortunately, he knew his father wasn’t going to accept his decision, no matter how long they spent talking about it.

As stoic as ever, his father stared at the bottom of his empty glass, managing to convey his disappointment without even meeting Bryce’s eyes.

Bryce had anticipated as much, but not the gnawing ache in his stomach that came with letting his father down. “I didn’t think you were coming.”

“I may believe your sister is making a colossal mistake, but Sabrina is still my daughter.”

“So it’s more about keeping up appearances.”

Something that could have been hurt flickered across his father’s face.

Bryce let out a breath. As hard and disapproving as their father could be, he did love Bree. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know you’re under a lot of pressure, but don’t you think quitting your job may be premature?”

Since it was a rhetorical question, Bryce didn’t respond. Bree had enough to deal with without getting pulled into more family drama in the middle of her rehearsal dinner.

From somewhere inside the ballroom he heard laughter. Darby’s. He glanced inside and saw her talking to Bree and Finn.

His father followed his gaze. “Your sister has always been rebellious.”

“Don’t turn her marrying Finn—”

“A Calder,” his father put in.

“—into some kind of act to get back at you.”

“She’s never forgiven me for not accepting her first marriage.”

Bryce set his glass down with enough force to catch his father’s attention. He knew he should walk away. Nothing would come from taking his own frustrations out on his father because the man only saw things in stark black and white.

“That wasn’t about you either. Her best friend was dying and she made him happy until the end.”

“And then she ran off to Europe for months.”

“Your feud with the Calders has nothing to do with Bree falling in love with Finn.” As much as Bryce worried about whether their marriage could survive the tension between their families, he knew how crazy in love his sister was.

“
My
feud?” His father’s voice sharpened.

Bryce opened his mouth to point out that this really wasn’t the place for one of his the-Calders-are-trouble speeches, but he recognized the stubborn set of his father’s jaw and knew there would be no stopping him.

His father at least knew to lower his voice. “I don’t need to list the grievances over the years to prove the Calders cannot be trusted. You know as well as I do that sooner or later one of them will use their magic at the wrong moment and it will be up to us to clean up the mess.”

“The Hastings use magic far more often and yet I’ve never heard you worry they’ll expose us.”

“Danny Calder and his kids have chosen to work in a field that can be heavily scrutinized. How many times has your own office used their private investigation firm over the years?”

“Dad, you made it.” Ignoring the tension, Bree squeezed between the two men and gave her father a quick hug.

Bryce had expected her relationship with Finn to further strain the one with their father. Instead, she’d grown more tolerant of him—as long as he wasn’t criticizing Finn and the rest of the Calders while she was around.

“Mom was looking for you. I think she’s with Adele at the bar.”

That was all it took for their father to excuse himself. He probably intended to save his wife from Bree’s future mother-in-law.

Bree waited until their father walked away before speaking. “He looked like he was gearing up for one of his magic-doesn’t-make-the-man speeches.”

Bryce laughed. “You could tell that from inside?”

“It’s the only topic that really makes the vein on his forehead pop out.”

Their laughter was drowned out by a hearty burst of it from inside. Darby stood just inside the doorway, leaning against her brother and laughing hard at something he’d said or done. It probably involved tripping someone.

“It’s not too late to cancel,” he teased.

Bree punched him in the arm. “Finn makes me happy.”

Bryce didn’t argue, a little too distracted by the smile on Darby’s face. Smiling wasn’t something Darby did a lot of when their paths crossed. He’d forgotten how captivating it was.

“You’re never going to tell me what happened between the two of you, are you?”

Taking the glass from his sister, he drained the contents.

“You once told me that it was a mistake to lie to Finn about who I really was. Is that what happened with you and Darby? Did you lie to her?”

He gestured inside. “I think Finn is looking for you.”

“Maybe it’s not too late,” Bree began.

Bryce pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head. “Darby and I called a truce. A forty-eight-hour truce. Day after tomorrow we’ll be right back to hating each other.”

As if she knew her name had been mentioned, Darby glanced in their direction. Her gaze landed on him, lingering a little longer than he expected before she looked away.

“You sure about that?” Bree asked, then joined some of her friends who’d flown down for the wedding.

Turning away from the party, he leaned against the railing, staring across the water at the distant lights of another resort up the side of the mountain.

More than once he caught himself sneaking a glance inside. He wasn’t stupid enough to kid himself when it came to Darby. He knew exactly where he and Darby would stand when they went back to their regular lives, regardless of what his sister wanted to believe.

In the meantime, though, it couldn’t hurt to be friendly. And if sticking closer to Darby also gave his father a reason to maintain his distance for the rest of the night, great.

Decision made, he was halfway across the small ballroom when he spotted her at the bar with her back to him, standing next to Riley. He nearly changed his mind about talking to her until he saw his father look like he might break away from the small gathering of Lancasters in the corner to seek him out.

Darby and Riley it was.

“So what’s going on with you and Bryce?”

At the mention of his name, he stopped.

“Nothing,” Darby answered.

“You two have been friendlier.” Riley made it sound like her sister would be better off writing to prison inmates.

Darby shrugged. “We called a truce for Finn and Bree’s sake. That’s all. He’s still an ass.”

Okay then.

Bryce shoved his hands in his pockets and walked in the other direction.

Chapter Two

From the corner of her eye, Darby spotted Bryce walking away. She frowned, then mentally replayed the last minute of her and Riley’s conversation.

Shit.

She shouldn’t care, let alone feel even a smidgen of guilt at what he’d overheard. Without a doubt he’d called her worse, and yet…
Shit.

Riley caught on and shrugged. “At least he won’t be staring at you anymore tonight.”

Darby frowned. “What?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

Staring? At her? Doubtful. “He’s probably just annoyed because he thinks I tripped him earlier.”

Riley arched a brow.

“Finn.” It was all the explanation required.

“Ah.” Riley waved to the bartender.

Across the room, Bryce slid into a chair across from his sisters. Bree talked about her siblings often, but not until now did Darby realize just how close they really were. Bryce’s shoulders weren’t as rigid or his expression so distant or arrogant while talking to his sisters.

Riley handed her a shot glass and waited until she drank the alcohol before looking a little too serious.

“I’ve been telling myself for years that eventually you’d tell me why you hate him so much, but that’s a secret that will always stay between you and Dante, isn’t it?” Only those who knew Riley well would pick up on the trace of hurt in her voice.

Before Darby could think up a response that didn’t involve changing the subject right off, Riley continued.

“Even Dante, as protective of you as he is, can’t hide the evidence of a broken heart.”

Darby stirred the ice in her glass. “And you think it involved Bryce.”

“You cried in your sleep off and on for weeks, but only once did you call out his name.”

“That was a long time ago.” She forced a smile. “It’s easy to confuse infatuation with love when you’re too young to know the difference.”

Riley opened her mouth to respond just as Alex walked by with a redhead clinging to his arm.

“I would have been so grateful if I had been the kitten’s owner. It’s just such a shame that you broke your leg saving the poor thing.”

Broke his leg saving a kitten?

Alex winked as he hobbled past them.

“Speaking of saving.” Riley nodded across the room to where Dante was weaving his way through friends and family, his eyes locked on Bryce. “I don’t think I’m the only one who noticed the way Bryce has been looking at you.”

Crap.
“I’m sure it’s nothing.”

The expression on Dante’s face, however, said it sure as hell
was
something.

Suddenly anxious, Darby hovered on the edge of her stool before finally standing. “I’ll be right back.”

She ignored the voice in her head that ordered her to sit back down and stay out of it. Whatever Dante’s beef with Bryce was, it couldn’t possibly involve her. Yet she couldn’t let the two of them get into anything here. No one else seemed to care about the dark look on her twin’s face.

Bryce left his family but didn’t take more than a handful of steps before he finally noticed Dante and stopped. Or maybe it was the I’m-gonna-kick-your-ass look on her brother’s face that had Bryce freezing in his tracks.

Darby was one of the few people not the least bit intimidated by her brother, but watching him move toward Bryce with that single-minded stride, she understood why some people didn’t wait until he got close before they got the hell out of his way.

By sheer luck she managed to close in on Bryce before her twin, but that wouldn’t mean anything. In fact, her being anywhere near him would probably drive Dante’s overprotective streak to the surface even faster.

Catching sight of Finn leaning back in his chair—and one of these days he really would learn to stop doing that—Darby whispered
“Occido”
under her breath as she brushed past his table.

Her brother flailed backward, his own magic not quick enough to counter hers. The chair—and Finn—toppled to the floor, directly in Dante’s path.

She didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know Dante would stop to help the groom-to-be up, giving her a chance to usher Bryce outside.

“Down that way.” She pointed to the veranda that wrapped around the left side of the ballroom and led to the beach.

When Bryce reached the corner and saw the steps she pointed at, he turned around. “What’s really waiting for me down there?”

She peered down into the deepening shadows cast by the setting sun. “What?”

“This is one of your family’s pranks, isn’t it? Like what you just pulled with Finn.”

Seeing the disapproval in his eyes—probably because she’d used magic in a room with people who didn’t know about its existence—made her wish she’d left him to Dante. Now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure why she’d felt the need to intervene at all.

She’d made a deliberate point to
not
care about anything to do with Bryce for years now. Not caring had been much easier and far less painful than the alternative, and now she found herself skating closer to that line than she had in nearly a decade.

“An island wedding will be great,”
Bree had said weeks ago.
“The perfect setting to make everyone forget about all the drama.”

Too
perfect, as it turned out.

“It may be difficult to believe, but I have better things to do than plot against you.” Just not enough to stop from putting herself smack in the middle of Bryce and Dante. And it wasn’t the first time.