Accidentally His Bride (Oops I’m In A Story #1)

Chapter One

THE MOMENT I STEP OUT of Lauve Studio, I put my earbuds in.

It's instinct at this point. Something bad happens, I reach for a book.

It's been that way since I was eight years old and figured out that stories were better than real life.

Or at least, better than the version of real life that involved my father's voice shaking the walls and my mother's silence filling up all the spaces in between.

Books were my door out. Still are.

Today's door is Olympus Bewitched by Alice Bloome.

I've listened to it so many times I've lost count, but that's the point.

I don't need surprises right now. I need Blair and her awkward crush on Mr. Handsome and the cozy magic of Silver Mist. I need a world where self-taught witches solve crimes and the mysterious man at the diner counter turns out to be worth all the pining.

The narrator's voice fills my ears, warm and familiar, as I start walking.

"Magnetic hazel eyes collided with mine, and I quickly snapped my head back. As mortifying as it was to admit, having our gazes meet was already more excitement than I could handle..."

I smile despite everything. Blair is such a mess. I love her for it.

My feet carry me down the sidewalk while my mind stays in Panda's Diner, watching Blair try not to combust from the sheer proximity of a beautiful man.

I'm not really paying attention to where I'm going.

That's the whole point of this. To not be here, in my body, on this street, in this city where Marilyn Yuson just walked back into my life with a designer engagement ring and a smile that said I remember exactly who you are, and isn't this fun?

It's not fun.

It's the opposite of fun.

But I'm not going to think about that right now. I'm going to think about Blair, who just spilled coffee on her textbook, and Mr. Handsome, who's about to do something impossibly charming—

A raindrop lands on my nose.

I blink, looking up. The sky has gone the color of wet slate, and even as I'm processing this, the clouds open up and rain comes down in sheets.

Great. Perfect. Exactly what today needed.

I pull my jacket over my head and look around for shelter. I'm on a street I don't recognize. Old brick buildings, iron lampposts, cobblestones slick with rain. How long was I walking? Where even am I?

And then I see it.

A shop, tucked between two taller buildings like something that doesn't want to be found.

Light glows from its windows, and my photographer brain immediately starts cataloging: warm color temperature, maybe 2700K, the kind of tungsten glow that makes everything look like a memory.

The buildings on either side cast long shadows over the entrance, but the window itself is lit from within, drawing the eye exactly where it wants you to look.

Someone designed this. Someone understood that light reveals and shadow conceals, and they used both to make this little shop feel like a secret meant only for whoever stumbles across it.

There's no sign outside. No name. Just the light, and the rain, and the strange pull in my chest that makes me pause the audiobook and take out my earbuds.

The rain is soaking through my jacket now. I should find a coffee shop, something normal, somewhere with WiFi and overpriced lattes and people looking at their phones.

Instead, I push open the door.

THE FIRST THING I NOTICE is the warmth.

Not just temperature, though that too. The kind of warmth that seeps into your bones after you've been cold for too long.

But something else. Something that settles over me like a blanket I didn't know I needed, pressing gently against all the tight, anxious places in my chest until they start to loosen.

I stand just inside the doorway, dripping onto a worn Persian rug, and try to make sense of what I'm seeing.

The shop is bigger than it looked from outside.

Much bigger. The ceiling soars overhead, crisscrossed with dark wooden beams, and from those beams hang dozens of brass lanterns.

The light they cast is uneven, intentional.

Bright where it wants you to linger, dim where it doesn't. A photographer's lighting setup, I think, except no photographer would have this kind of patience. This kind of craft.

The brightest glow falls on the books.

Of course it does. That's what this place wants you to see.

Bookshelves line every wall, floor to ceiling, made of wood so dark it swallows the light around it.

The books themselves are another story. Leather-bound spines in jewel tones catch the glow and throw it back: emerald, ruby, sapphire, amber.

Cracked paperbacks with yellowed pages nestle between them, their covers faded to soft pastels.

The spines aren't arranged alphabetically or by size.

They're arranged by color, I realize. Gradients that shift from warm to cool and back again, leading the eye on a journey around the room.

Someone curated this. Someone who understood visual rhythm.

I take a step forward. Then another.

And then there's the smell.

Cream cheese garlic buns, fresh from the oven.

My stomach clenches. Peppermint hot chocolate layered underneath, and beneath that, old paper and leather, the kind of smell that makes you want to curl up and never leave.

It's the olfactory equivalent of a weighted blanket. It's unfair, is what it is.

The floorboards creak softly under my feet, but it's a friendly sound. A welcome sound. Like the shop is acknowledging my presence.

Okay. That's a weird thought. Shops don't acknowledge people.

But this one...

I turn slowly, taking it all in. There are armchairs scattered throughout the space, mismatched but somehow cohesive.

Velvet and leather and worn brocade in burgundy and forest green and midnight blue.

A fireplace dominates one wall, flames visible behind the grate even though I can't remember hearing them when I came in.

Small tables hold stacks of books and ceramic cups and candles in brass holders.

A glass display case near the counter catches my eye, filled with objects I can't quite make out.

The light doesn't reach inside the case.

Intentional, again. Whatever's in there, the shop doesn't want me looking too closely. Not yet.

And on the wall behind the counter, painted in elegant gold script:

Hewhay's.

Just that. No subtitle, no established date, no clever tagline. Just the name, illuminated by a single beam from somewhere above, like a title card in a film.

Whoever owns this place knows exactly what they're doing.

I look around for that whoever. Someone to ask about...I don't know. Anything. Whether they're open. Whether I'm allowed to be here. Whether this place is real or if I've wandered into a very elaborate fever dream brought on by emotional distress and low blood sugar.

No one.

The shop is completely empty.

A bell sits on the counter. Brass, tarnished with age, the kind with a little button on top. I walk over and press it.

The chime that comes out is strange. It doesn't fade the way bells normally do, diminishing into silence. Instead it seems to swell, filling the space, sinking into the walls and the books and the very air before finally, gently, dissolving.

I wait.

Nothing.

I press it again. Same strange chime. Same swelling silence. Same lack of shopkeeper materializing from a back room.

"Hello?" My voice comes out smaller than I intended. I clear my throat and try again. "Is anyone here?"

The fire crackles.

That's the only answer I get.

I should leave. I know I should leave. This is the part of the horror movie where the audience is screaming at the girl to get out of the creepy house, and she never listens, and then something terrible happens, and everyone in the theater is like well what did you expect, you walked right into the obviously haunted bookshop.

But Hewhay's doesn't feel haunted.

It feels like a crème br?lée. Caramelized and golden on the surface, all that careful presentation, but underneath there's something richer. Denser. Something you have to crack through to find.

Which is maybe the creepiest thing of all, when I think about it.

But I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about anything.

I want to sink into one of those velvet armchairs and disappear into a book and forget that Marilyn Yuson exists, that Heart exists, that my whole life is a series of small surrenders I keep making because I don't know how to do anything else.

The bookshelves seem to lean toward me.

That's not possible. Obviously. Bookshelves don't lean. Bookshelves are inanimate objects made of wood and nails and probably some kind of industrial varnish.

But these bookshelves...they want me to look at them. I can feel it.

So I do.

I DRIFT ALONG THE SHELVES like I'm being pulled by something I can't see.

My fingers trail over the spines. Leather smooth as buttercream.

Cloth rough with age, like the texture of raw linen.

Embossing that catches against my fingernails.

The titles blur past. Some are in English, some in languages I don't recognize, some in scripts that don't look like any alphabet I've ever seen.

I don't stop to examine any of them. I'm looking for something specific.

No. That's not right.

Something specific is looking for me.

And then I feel it.

A tug. Gentle but insistent. Like someone has hooked a finger through my ribs and is pulling me toward the far corner of the shop, where the lanterns don't reach and the shadows gather thick enough to hide whatever's waiting there.

There's a book there.

It shouldn't be visible. There's no light falling on it, nothing to make it stand out from the darkness around it. But I can see it anyway. A small volume bound in burgundy leather so deep it's almost black. Gold lettering on the spine. Gilded edges that gleam despite having no light to catch.

I reach for it.