And then, as I suspected, all hell breaks loose, and the floodgates of questions pour forth.

“Ash’s soulmate, apparently,” Ellis states dryly. Her hands fly to her hips, and up on the coffee table, she looks like a strange statue of a bossy superhero.

The urge to paint her like that—her face fearless and undaunted, her eyes sparkling, the ring freaking glowing in the sun creeping through the big windows into the room, and her hair wildly tangled and finger-combed around her shoulders—is almost more than I can bear. My hand itches.

“No,” I cut in, stepping forward. “No, she’s kidding. She’s my cleaner. Uh, a maid?” Does it sound bad to call a person a maid? I don’t even know, and it makes her rich asshole accusations hit home. “It was an accident. This whole thing. She’s not my soulmate, and we are not in love. Or anything else. She’s basically a stranger.”

Ellis’ lips curl back, and I know she’s not going to make this easy for me. She looks directly at me. “A stranger who spent the night last night.”

“In a separate room!”

Kirian groans. “So, you’re one of those cliché douchebags who bangs their maid?”

“No!” Ellis looks at me smugly as I squirm on the spot. She’s enjoying this far too much. I give her a sharp this is not helping anything look. “Do you think I would do that?” I give my brother a withering stare. “With her?”

“Thanks a lot,” Ellis quips. “Totally standing right here.”

“He’s been keeping this on the down-low,” Taylen says snarkily, elbowing his brother, who is choosing not to participate so far. Taylen looks back and forth between Ellis and me.

“What about Meryl?” Leandra goes there fearlessly.

“What happened?” Toren finally asks, the voice of reason.

“I just met her.” Why do I feel the need to defend myself now? I haven’t done anything wrong. “She’s my maid. There was a mishap, and she put the ring on by mistake.”

Taylen looks at me like he doesn’t believe me, but lucky for me, the rest of the group is on my side. “How do you know it’s real then?” he asks skeptically. “You can’t know you’re meant for each other. You’re not soulmates, and you’re not in love, so how has the curse come into play?”

“Because the ring won’t come off,” Ellis informs everyone. She slowly turns in a circle up there on the coffee table, holding out her hand. She tries to tug at the ring, but it doesn’t budge.

Kirian gives us his expert medical advice without hesitation. “You must have swollen fingers.”

Ellis looks up at the ceiling in exasperation. It must be extremely tough for her to deal with five rich a-holes instead of just one. “Thanks.”

“We’ve tried everything,” I say, stepping closer to the coffee table. I really want to get Ellis down from there for the sake of the table. Not because I want to set my hands on her curvy hips or get close enough to drink in the scent of any lingering perfume she might have put on yesterday or because I want to tangle my fingers in her hair, tip her face to mine, and take the proper time to explore her tantalizing mouth this time—what the hell?

“It’s not a tight fit.” Ellis’ voice breaks through my line of WTF thoughts. “But it won’t come off. We can’t budge it.” She swallows thickly. “We even had our cards read this morning-”

“No.” I put up a hand, stopping her. “Don’t get that involved. That was a bad decision.”

“You did what?” Leandra leans forward, far more interested now. I swear, she thinks this curse thing is kind of a great idea even though she joined in our pact, with a little bit of cohersion. Then again, Leandra is the least cynical out of all of us, though that’s not saying much. “My most sensible cousin went for a card reading?” Leandra hoots, slapping her thigh. “How did you ever manage to drag him there?”

“Oh, he went willingly.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Toren puts up a hand. “Okay, so we all swore an oath not to believe in this curse. We said we wouldn’t let it be real.”

“Just from the outside looking in,” Ellis starts cautiously, “I don’t think you can prevent a curse or keep it from being real. You can be oblivious, but it’s still probably going to come for you.”

“Looks like the ring chose her,” Kirian sighs. “You are soulmates whether you like it or not.”

I swear this is some younger brother payback for all the times I was a mean older brother to him.

Taylen thinks that now is a good time to point out the obvious. “It’s stuck on her now, so you’re stuck with her.”

“Hey!” Ellis stomps her foot, and the coffee table vibrates beneath her.

Leandra’s eyes sweep back to me. “Does Meryl know?”

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