Wilde Magic (Wilde Women Book 3) by Suzanne Halliday Page A

like a huge dick.
    Shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, he met JP’s worried frown and muttered, “I didn’t know what else to do.”
    “Well, you fucked up.”
    “Really?”
    “Si. Fucked up the pooch on this one.”
    Should he correct his choice of words? Nah. He knew what screwing the pooch meant, and JP was right no matter how he phrased it.
    Cal ran a hand through his hair and looked around the room. Ever since the accident, when healing meant slowing down and taking stock, he’d been twitchy and pissed off. All of this was fake. Every last inch. Just because he occasionally lived in this ridiculously, ostentatious symbol of his celebrity, didn’t mean it’d ever been a home.
    Acting like an infatuated teenager with a non-stop hard-on wasn’t his style even when he’d been one. But the girl was different. He didn’t just want her. He wanted … well fuck, he wanted so much it was hard to wrap his mind around what it all meant.
    Massaging the back of his neck, he met JP’s intense gaze. “What did Thalia think I should do?”
    Booming laughter filled the room, and his good friend gave him a hearty smack on the back. “Spoken like a man who’s just seen the light!”
    “Suck my penis,” Cal drawled satirically to JP’s nodding delight.
    “Maybe later,” the other man jested as he hung up their pool cues. “Let’s get a drink and enjoy a beautiful Tuscan sunset while I tell you what my wise and wonderful wife suggested you do.”

C HARLIE WAS ROLLING WITH LAUGHTER as her sister Rhiann went on and on, sharing a hilarious story about her and their older sister Brynn on a drunken night out in New York City.
    “What were you drinking? Goblets of Fire? Oh my God, Rhi! What’s Dad done to us? We even drink literary references.”
    “I know, right?” Rhiann’s distinctive laugh shot from the speaker on Charlie’s phone. “Mom sent me a cocktail recipe for something called a Book Boyfriend. Two shots and your panties come off.”
    “Bwahahaaahhaaa.”
    “Hey,” Rhi blurted out. “Wanna see something even more hilarious?”
    “Of course,” Charlie giggled.
    “Okay, hold on. Let me figure out how to do this.”
    Ten seconds later her phone pinged, and a message box with a picture appeared. “You sent a picture?” she asked.
    “Yeah. Go ahead and click on it but don’t disconnect our call. I know how tech-challenged you are little sis.”
    Rhiann was certainly right about that. Charlie wasn’t a big fan of messaging and Instagramming. All that stuff seemed cool as shit at first but in her opinion, it was all too impersonal. Far as she was concerned, the ability to be always connected just ended up being a way for people to isolate themselves. Instead of communicating, most only interacted with a mobile screen. Face to face exchanges and relationships outside social media suffered as a result.
    Careful not to hit the wrong set of prompts, she gasped when the picture Rhi sent filled the screen.
    “Holy shit! Brynnie’s butt?” She was laughing harder now and then she saw something that made her stop and take a closer look. “Is that a handprint?”
    “Yes!” Rhiann screeched with delight. “Big sis has herself a boyfriend. And a bad-boy type at that!”
    “Uh, hold on.” Charlie’s laugh suddenly quieted. “He hits her?”
    “What? No! Good grief Charlie. You can’t possibly be that naïve.”
    “Ohhh,” she replied. “Does he wear a gray tie, too?”
    “Nope. But apparently Mr. Buttwhacker has a penchant for wearing black leather and making our Brynnie swoon like a romance heroine.”
    “This doesn’t have anything to do with Nana’s crazy scheme to marry her off, does it?”
    “Oh. So you heard about that, have you? A Bryanna Charles special. Poor Brynn went apeshit. This guy though, he came out of nowhere, and she hasn’t been the same since.”
    “Aw, that’s nice. And what about you, hmm? You find your Mr. Big yet?”
    Silence. That’s never good, she thought.