WILLEM (The Witches of Wimberley Book 1) by Victoria Danann Read Free Book Online Page B

that would be hard to sell from a hilltop Grecian palace with all the time I wanted to do whatever.
    The video faded to black, the lights and music came up a little and the wait staff rushed out to make sure we were treated like kings, removing dinner plates to make room for dessert.
    “What else can we get you, Mr. Draiocht? Coffee? Bananas Foster?”
    I smiled. At that point it didn’t surprise me that they knew I had a place in my stomach in permanent reserve for the next offer of Bananas Foster. “Now how could I refuse an offer like that?”
    My waiter’s brown eyes gleamed. “It will be right out, sir.”
    I nodded. “Thank you.”
    I heard the other ‘contestants’ agreeing to similar offers. All except for Robert who declined while making a rather loud statement about love handles and the evils of sugar. If you’d have asked me which of the four would be that asshole, I would have pointed at him an hour ago and said, “Yep. That’s the one. No question.” He was just wearing that holier-than-thou smarminess like a gooey aura.
    While we waited for a selection of the world’s best desserts, three of us were poured coffee from individual silver carafes that were left sitting at our place just in case we wanted self-serve seconds.
    The waiter lifted the little pitcher of cream, “Shall I pour, Mr. Draiocht?”
    “No. I prefer doctoring my own coffee. Thank you for the brown sugar. Nice touch.”
    My waiter looked a little shocked that he was being thanked for condiments. “You’re welcome, sir. Would you care for more?”
    I looked from him to the Sterling sugar bowl holding enough brown sugar for six months. “This will do.” I leaned forward, lowered my voice in conspiracy. “And I wouldn’t want to offend the sugar police.”
    My waiter, who had apparently heard Robert’s rant, snorted.
    After stirring with a dainty demitasse spoon… I know what it is because my mother collects them and hangs them on the wall, I lifted the cup to my lips and took a sip. I barely managed to suppress the kind of moan that comes from getting really, really good head. The coffee was so good I thought I’d been transported to nirvana.
    “Oh, man,” I said, turning to Harper. “This coffee is good.”
    “Nothing but the best for the witches,” he confirmed.
    “You know, I get the feeling that everybody here knows more than I do. I more or less did this on a whim. A guy gave me a mysterious card. Anyway, this is about mail-order husbands or something like that?”
    He grinned and shook his head. “It’s more like winning the lottery. You get picked by one of the witches. You’re set for life.”
    “Okay. Now when you say witches, what do you…?”
    Desserts were being served, mine with some extra flamboyance , heavy on the first syllable since they actually lit it on fire. They did a beautiful job of it, just enough brandy to cause a show without singeing eyebrows off or making torches of tablecloths.
    Again the lights went down and the music came up.
    We were looking at a guy sitting in a high tech music recording studio that would have put the MIT band, Boston, to shame. He was holding a guitar that even I recognized as a vintage Gibson, fifties Les Paul. I almost whistled because I knew that it would cost more than ten thousand dollars if you could find one for sale. They normally only came up as auction items at charity events for the super-rich.
    Anyway the guy was sitting on a stool, in front of a mic. He was what you’d call average-looking. His hair was curling over his ears. He was wearing a bright floral Hawaiian shirt and Buddy Holly glasses.
    “I’m Simon,” he said, reaching up to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I think they picked me to be in this promo video thing just to show that winners are no particular type. You don’t know what they’re looking for until they pick.
    “That should be comforting. Means you can relax.” He looked down at his guitar and strummed a riff