Page 20 of A Witch in Notting Hill

“Slow down,” he said. “It’s a small industry, and we do get together for a convention once a year, so yes, most of us know one another. And in case you hadn’t noticed, Fergus is about three hundred years old and has been in the industry for the same length of time, so he’s a resource for the whole community. Somehow he never forgets a thing.”

“And you still don’t believe in magic?” I asked, earning myself a scathing side-eye in place of a verbal response. “Right.”

“You have plans for the rest of the day, or you reckon we’ll go back over the river to find this bloke and see how we get on?”

“My only plans from now until I help my grandmother are helping my grandmother, so I’m all yours. For the search, I mean.”

“What else would you mean?” He raised an eyebrow, and I tried to conjure every spell in the book to stop myself from blushing. In vain. Hell, if there was a spell that could have stopped me from blushing, I’d have had a very different few years of middle school.

“You know what I mean,” I mumbled, petulant. Why did he have to say everything out loud? And why did my only two remaining brain cells decide to take the day off every time he was around? “Where’s his shop?”

“It’s not so much of a shop,” he said. “It’s more of, er, a museum? Lots of odd volumes, antiques, that kind of stuff. And he gets cross if you touch anything you aren’t going to buy, so keep your hands to yourself.”

“Got it.”

We slipped wordlessly into the Tube station, standing silent on the platform as we listened for the rumbling down the tracks. I pulled my hat a little lower on my head the longer we stoodthere, hoping no one looked in my direction, especially since I had nowhere to hide.

But, since the universe was a cruel mistress, right as I adjusted my sunglasses and ducked my head a little lower, someone caught me.

“Willow James? Bloody hell, is that you?”

People started looking, shuffling in my direction, craning their necks to see if the bystander was telling the truth. I should have been used to fans and paparazzi by now, but it never got any less unsettling for the crowd to close in and all sense of privacy to disappear in an instant. And in this case, hundreds of feet underground in the dim lighting, with the loud screech of the trains, it was almost unbearable.

I contemplated excusing myself and darting back up the stairs, but a warm hand on my back stopped me where I stood. Not a threatening hand. A comforting hand. Oliver’s hand.

Chapter 10

Oliver

Iwasn’t sure what exactly came over me, but I was awash with a sudden sense of responsibility to protect her. Not that she couldn’t take care of herself—she’d made it abundantly clear that she could—but in that moment, with the encroaching crowd and her eyes cast toward the ground, I didn’t have a second to think before I acted.

With a firm hand on her back and an “Excuse us,” “Sorry, no, you must have someone else,” “Excuse us, please,” over my shoulder, I ushered her around the corner and into a small cutout between the platforms. I tried to position my body so that it would block her from the fans without crowding her into the space, and her relief was palpable.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, taking off her sunglasses but not quite meeting my eyes.

“Do I seem like someone who does things they don’t want to do?” At that, she raised her gaze and pinned me with those deep brown eyes. They held only the slightest trace of a challengebefore they faded into something softer. Something that cut right through me.

“Thank you,” she said. “I should do a better job of disguising myself, I suppose. Sorry you had to deal with that. Usually I can handle it better, just in the Underground, and with—”

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” I said. “I don’t like crowds, either. I get it. It must be a lot to have people in your personal space like that.”

“You don’t like crowds?” she asked. “Even though you’re like, a head taller than everyone?”

“Even worse that way. Means I’m privy to everyone’s business. And when I can see everyone, that means everyone can see me.”

“I know how that feels. Not the height part, obviously.” She gestured to her frame. “But the everyone-can-see-me part.”

“Well, they can’t see you now,” I said, stretching my arms up to lean on either side of the cutout. “Why don’t we wait here until that group gets on the train, then make a break for the next one?”

She nodded. “I like the sound of that.”

So that was exactly what we did. We waited in the cutout, Willow’s breathing returned to normal, and the space between us disappeared one centimeter at a time. She smelled like rain and honey, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the way her eyelashes fanned across her freckled cheeks. It was no wonder the camera loved her. The naked eye loved her, too. If she was America’s sweetheart, maybe America wasn’t so bad.

Just as I was contemplating pushing her hair off her shoulder, giving her a little more air, caving in to my temptation to touch her even just with the tips of my fingers, a train slammed on the brakes, sending a shower of sparks onto the platform.

The commotion was enough to snap us out of our trance, hurtling us back into reality at light speed.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, looking around the people on the platform and at the train, which hadn’t appeared to sustain or cause any damage. Just a scare.