Chapter Five
The next morning, the first thing I noticed was an unfamiliar warmth wrapped around me like a cashmere sweater. A steady, radiating heat pressed against my back, the weight of an arm slung over my waist like it belonged there. My breath hitched.
I didn’t just sleep with people. Not anymore. Not for a long time.
My body stiffened as my brain caught up, heart hammering against my ribs, and I took shallow breaths, hoping not to wake the stranger next to me in my bed.
The room smelled like clean linen and something deeper, something unmistakably familiar—faint cologne mixed with the natural scent of the sea—recognizable in a way that made my stomach lurch.
I swallowed hard and peeked through a squinted eye.
The bedroom was mine. My navy curtains, my cluttered dresser, the faint glow of the city at sunrise peeking through the blinds.
But my bed? My bed held a stranger. Someone I didn’t remember bringing home. Someone whose presence should have jolted me awake and sent me straight toward the door. But instead, wrapped in his embrace, I felt an unusual sense of calm.
I moved as slowly as possible, peeling his arm off me inch by inch, my pulse pounding in my ears. He barely stirred, just let out a deep sigh and turned onto his back.
My stomach flipped. How in the ever-loving hell was Leo, South African Leo, Leo-from-halfway-around-the-world Leo, now in my bed?
Dark hair, a hint of stubble, lips parted in sleep. A strong jawline, the kind that looked carved for smirking. And beneath the covers, the outline of broad shoulders and a long, lean frame.
My mind reeled as I swung my legs off the bed and planted my feet on the hardwood. The room seemed to be tilting off its axis, and I was surprised my dresser wasn’t sliding its way toward the windows.
I scanned the room, looking for any hint of what had happened. Why or how he was here.
And then I saw it.
A five-by-seven-framed selfie of Leo kissing my cheek in front of the lit-up Eiffel Tower, golden fireworks exploding in the background, now replaced the picture of me from my study abroad that had sat there before.
In this photo, my face was flushed from the cold, my breath visible in the air, and Leo had his arm around me, our kitschy New Year’s Eve glasses glittering in the flash.
The picture sat next to a mug of tea, the rare blend I always had to order online, steeped to the exact shade of caramel with a splash of milk, just how I liked it. All prepared in my favorite chipped mug, the one I always grabbed instinctively . . . But I hadn’t made tea.
A shiver ran through me. My morning routine was muscle memory. I woke up, I made tea, I sat in bed for ten minutes before starting my day. But this had been done for me. Thoughtfully. Knowingly. Like it had been done a hundred times before.
I wrapped my hands around the mug, warmth seeping into my palms. This should’ve been comforting, and yet my skin buzzed with unease.
Am I losing my mind? Is this all just a dream?
I forced a breath and walked to the bathroom, bracing myself as I flicked on the light.
My reflection looked the same. Messy hair, sleep-swollen eyes, last night’s mascara smudged under one lid.
But my toothbrush sat next to another one in the holder.
An electric razor that wasn’t mine rested on the sink.
I gripped the counter as my stomach twisted.
What the hell is happening?
I looked at myself in the mirror one more time.
At the girl staring back at me. She didn’t look lost or untethered.
She looked . . . happy. The oversize T-shirt I had thrown on before bed wasn’t one I recognized.
It smelled like Leo. And my phone, charging on the bathroom counter, was already lighting up with notifications.
February 14.
Valentine’s Day.
A picture on my lock screen . . . a picture I had no memory of taking, showed Leo and me standing in front of a Christmas-lit café, his arm around me, both of us smiling like we knew something no one else did. It was time-stamped December 24.
No. No, no, no.
But I never met him in Paris for Christmas. I’d never gone. I was supposed to meet him but changed my mind and instead spent Christmas exactly how I always did, rolling my eyes at Hallmark movies and drinking wine with my friends, insisting I didn’t regret a thing.
Right?
His voice was thick with sleep, rough around the edges, and came from just outside the door. “El, you okay?” I jumped and turned off the light, as if the dark could hide me.
I needed air.
Now.
Fleeing out of the bathroom to the front door, I flung it open, sucked in a huge breath, grateful there was no one in the hallway at such an early hour, and tried to slow my racing heart.
Each wheeze followed the last when I heard an all-too-familiar voice tinged with a smooth South African accent call out, “El, you grabbing the paper? I made you tea already before falling back to sleep.”
I looked down to find a copy of The Wall Street Journal resting on my welcome mat.
Only I didn’t subscribe to The Wall Street Journal!
I carefully grabbed the rolled-up newspaper between my thumb and forefinger, like it might explode, and glanced at the plastic cover, where the mailing label read Leo Kindell.
What the hell? He lives here? Lives here enough to have his morning newspaper delivered here?
I slowly backed into the apartment, holding the paper a good arm’s length from my body like it could potentially ignite, and scanned the space around me.
All the art on the walls was now different, the furniture laid out all wrong.
My eyes flitted over to Pickles to see if, with her keen animal instincts, she could sense whether we were in danger, but she was just happily munching away on some dried alfalfa.
Apparently, I was the only one who felt like they’d stepped into a wormhole.
I wanted to pinch myself hard enough to wake up, but a sinking feeling rooted inside me that this wasn’t something I was going to be able to undo.
I made my way back to the room, peering around the doorframe to make sure he was really there. Leo was sitting up in bed now, the covers pooled low around his waist. He scrubbed a hand over his face before offering me a lopsided, still-waking-up smile.
“There you are,” he said, voice still gravelly. “Thought you ran off on me.”
“I have your . . . um . . . Wall Street Journal,” was all I could manage to squeak out. I hovered in the doorway, not knowing what to say, what to do, where to put my hands. My brain felt stuck between two versions of reality, neither making sense.
He reached behind his pillow. “And I have your Valentine’s gift. Why don’t you come back to bed and open it.”
“I’ll just stay right here at a safe distance, if that’s alright,” I said, skirting the bed in a wide arc to reach the nightstand. My mug was there . . . something to soothe my Sahara-dry mouth . . . and, if necessary, a makeshift weapon, should things take a turn.
He laughed and patted the empty spot next to him. “Stop being such a goof and come snuggle.”
My expression pinched like I’d sucked on a lemon. “I don’t really love to, you know, snuggle.”
“Since when? Last night you were more than happy to be the little spoon.”
I choked on a sip of tea. The thought of being the little spoon and enjoying it was almost too much to bear. “Speaking of last night? Were you at the wine event? Is that where we reconnected?”
“Wine event? What are you talking about? Last night you passed out with your head in my lap, watching The White Lotus.”
The White Lotus! Maybe there was a clue in that as to what timeline or reality I’d jumped to.
“Right, right. What season are we watching? Which hotel is it?”
His mouth twisted and he narrowed his eyes at me, his words coming slowly. “The one in Thailand? The one we talked about going to for our honeymoon someday. Are you okay?”
Honeymoon?! What the actual—
“But we’re not . . . We didn’t get . . .” My eyes zipped down to my left hand, which thankfully was devoid of any engagement ring. And then my eyes flashed to a long box in his hand, wrapped neatly with navy paper and a white silk ribbon, and I started to sweat again.
Leo held up the wrapped package and playfully shook it. “And don’t worry,” he said, as if reading my mind, “this isn’t a ring either, but don’t you want to climb back under these cozy covers and see what it is?”
Sensing there was going to be no way to dissuade him, I relented and crawled back under the blanket, doing my best to keep a comfortable distance.
“That’s better.” He sighed as he leaned over to kiss me lightly on the forehead and passed me the box.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetheart. The past month has been the best of my life.
Seeing you beneath the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower was unforgettable, and moving to New York to be with you was the best decision I’ve ever made. ”
“You moved to New York . . . for me?”
“You say that like it’s a surprise,” he teased, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “Of course I did. You know that.”
“I . . . I do?”
His brows drew together as he turned on his side, his washboard stomach tightening with the movement. He motioned to the gift. “Now, are you going to open it or not?”
Unable to delay the moment any longer, I tugged on one side of the white silk ribbon while the other fell away. Carefully, I lifted the lid and my pulse quickened as I peeled back the tissue paper to reveal a framed picture of what appeared to be a map of the stars.
“A constellation?” I murmured.
“Not just any constellation. It’s from the night we reunited in Paris. I really do believe that fate, timing, and something bigger than we can even understand brought us together once . . . and then back together again. And now we’ll always have a piece of that moment with us.”
It was romantic and poetic and everything the woman who met Leo under the lights of the Eiffel Tower would want to hear.
Only I wasn’t that woman. I never went to Paris. I never met Leo.
None of it had happened.
So how the hell was he lying here next to me?
And then I remembered the spell. The freakin’ love spell.
My stomach bottomed out and all my blood rushed to my ears.
Suddenly lightheaded, I swayed in the bed, remembering the red string, knotted and pulled taut between the old woman’s fingers, and the intricately illustrated tarot cards splayed out on the table.
I tried to recall her words, something about connections that were not so easily severed and second chances, even ones you didn’t ask for.
Had she somehow conjured Leo back into my life? Though positively preposterous, it was the only somewhat reasonable explanation I could come up with for any of what was happening.
In this parallel universe, I’d apparently met Leo in Paris in December just like we’d planned. We fell in love, and then he decided to move to New York to be with me. If I opened my dresser drawer, I was pretty sure I’d find his boxers tossed haphazardly next to my Hanky Pankys.
The magic had worked. I’d somehow gotten zapped to an alternate timeline, and this was my life now! I gasped and my hands flew to cover my mouth.
Leo’s eyes sparkled with delight. “I knew you’d love it. And”—his accent even more evident—“this is just the start of the Valentine’s Day surprises. Tonight there’s so much more waiting for you.”
“More surprises?” I managed. “I truly am not sure how many more surprises I can take today.”
He chuckled. “Just a few more. And you’re going to love them. I promise. But first, I have to head into the office for a bit while you’re meeting Sonja for brunch.” He popped a kiss to my lips before rolling out of the sheets and off the side of the bed to lumber toward the bathroom.
“Who?”
He paused and spun around. “Sonja. Your mother. Are you feeling alright, sweetheart?”
“My mother? You know my mother?”
“I mean, does anyone really know your mother? She’s a genuine live wire, that one.”
I nodded slowly, thrown by the fact that he seemed to have met her. “Yeah . . . she is.”
“Don’t forget to meet me outside Madame Tussauds in Times Square at seven thirty EST, sharp. I mean it,” he said with a playful grin. “That’s seven thirty Eastern Standard Time, not Elliot Standard Time.” And with that, he stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
Dammit, I guess he does know me well.
I sat frozen, marveling at the apartment that was both the same and not, listening to the sound of the shower and the man singing inside it, both a stranger and not.
His presence was oddly familiar yet unsettlingly foreign, much like the song he was belting out at the top of his lungs.
At first, it was just a jumble of sound, but then the melody began to take shape.
Suddenly, it hit me. Journey. “Faithfully.” A great song, actually .
. . if not for the fact that it was being absolutely butchered in there.
While the muffled strains of the song carried through the apartment, I moved on autopilot, pulling on jeans, socks, boots. I found myself humming along before I even realized it.
What the hell am I doing?
This was madness. This wasn’t my life. And yet the shower was running, steam curling under the door, and Leo’s voice filled the space as if this really was his home. I grabbed my bag and keys with shaking hands.
I needed to get out of here.
Now.