Chapter 39

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Later that evening, Holly shared what she’d learned with her sisters and the Grimms. The news was troubling, but when she asked Winter if she’d had any visions of the Shadow Council, Winter only frowned and shook her head.

“Are they powerful enough to conceal themselves from visions of the future?” Erikson asked.

“I don’t know. I barely know anything about this curse,” Winter snapped. “None of us do.”

“There’s something else,” Connor said before Winter could stomp out of the room. “Your secret isn’t as hidden as you thought. There is a reason Erikson and I chose your apple farm. Someone sent us a photo of Daisy using her power to decay a barrel of apples.”

Holly listened to Connor, her jaw slack, and then stared at the creased photocopy of the picture he pulled from his pocket.

“That must’ve been taken from the blackberry brambles,” Missy said, looking over Holly’s shoulder at the picture. “Someone was sneaking around our property at night.”

“Or it was taken by someone who was already in the house,” Winter snarled. “Someone who wouldn’t raise an alarm by being on the property.”

Missy whipped around. “Are you accusing me of something? I swear to God I’ll—”

“No,” Connor cut in, nodding thoughtfully as he made eye contact with Winter. “She’s thinking of Jeremy, aren’t you?”

Winter’s gaze turned to Holly, and she gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Sorry, Holly, but yeah. He had plenty of opportunities to take it. If it was him, he would have sent it when you two were still together, probably thinking that if Connor came to investigate the apple farm, he would get exposure as your boyfriend. Except then you dumped him, so he convinced Amy to go along with his stupid reality TV show idea.”

Holly’s ears burned with humiliation. How many other ways could she, the so-called protector of her family, put them in danger? “Do you think he knows what we are?”

“Doubtful,” Erikson answered. “If anything, he suspects you’re witches.”

“Just like his great-great-granddaddy,” Missy said sarcastically.

Holly’s fingertips tingled. Jeremy had been boring, selfish, and manipulative, but this was leaps and bounds beyond shitty boyfriend behavior. He’d suspected her and her family of witchcraft, and so he’d taken photos of them when they were vulnerable. They’d let him into their home and trusted him, and he’d tried to expose them, to hurt them, and all so he could have a shot at being on TV and making a name for himself. Had he ever liked her? Or had “outing her” been his plan from the start?

She glanced at Connor. The parallels were too obvious to ignore. Connor had set out to expose her and her family as well, but the difference was that when he’d discovered what they were, he’d abandoned his plans for success and had committed to keeping their secret safe instead, whereas Jeremy was still trying to use her.

Holly spent the rest of the night cuddling with Connor, but he was quieter than usual. She wasn’t sure if it was because of what she’d shared about the Shadow Council or because he was leaving the next morning. Maybe it was a little of both. She knew Connor cared for her, even if he didn’t love her. He was probably concerned for her safety. Either that or he was relieved he wouldn’t be around to be caught in the crossfire.

Despite her fervent wish that the night would last forever, light eventually streaked the dawn sky. Holly felt so sick about Connor leaving that she could barely exist in her own skin.

Charlotte had already said goodbye the day before, practically peeling out of the driveway after promising to send them a vegan meal subscription so they could experience proper vegan food. Both trailers were towed away, and the film crew finished restoring all that had been disturbed during filming.

By the afternoon, only Connor and Erikson remained behind. Erikson had volunteered to help Winter fix a cracked window in the barn, even though she had flat-out told him she didn’t need his help, and Connor was hanging out in the kitchen with Holly, Missy, and the aunts.

Holly was lovingly drinking in her last moments with him when the house phone rang.

“I’ve got it!” Missy called. She jumped off the counter and answered the old-fashioned phone with the curly cord. “Celeste residence.” Missy listened for a moment and then pressed the receiver to her shoulder. “It’s for you, Holly.”

Who would call for her on the house phone instead of her cell phone? The only person who’d ever regularly used the house phone was Jeremy when she didn’t answer her cell phone “fast enough” for him.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is this Miss Holly Celeste?”

“This is she.”

“Hi, Holly. This is Tyleneka Harris from NZT.”

Holly frowned and met Connor’s curious expression across the kitchen. NZT was a rival TV station of Connor’s.

“Miss Celeste, I’m calling because we are extraordinarily excited about this concept, and we think it would add so much if you and your sisters consented to appearing on the show. The execs have already greenlighted the pilot, and the producer really wants to film on the apple farm. If you refuse, we can work around it, but then you won’t have any say in the narrative told.”

“I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The woman on the other end of the line paused uncertainly. “Jeremy O’Toole didn’t tell you?”

“Didn’t tell me what?” Holly asked, a little sharper than she meant to.

“Whoa, whoa.” The woman chucked nervously. “Don’t curse the messenger.”

Holly’s blood ran cold. It was don’t shoot the messenger. Why would she have substituted it with curse ?

“Mr. O’Toole contacted us with an exciting docuseries idea that takes a deep dive into your and your sisters’ hidden lives as Wickeds.”

Holly’s heart seized in her chest. This couldn’t be happening. They were supposed to be safe. Jeremy may have suspected them of witchcraft, but she had never told him about Wickeds, and she knew no one in her family had either.

That left only one person.

Holly stared at Connor Grimm, the man who had promised them their privacy and then turned around and shared their secret with the world. The betrayal she felt nearly forced her to her knees. How could he have done this? Had this been his loophole all along? He’d assured her he wouldn’t expose them on Grimm Reality , but he’d never promised he wouldn’t let someone else do it.

Had she meant anything to him, or had he only been trying to get close to her so she would open up to him and reveal her hand? Was he even worse than Jeremy?

Everyone in the kitchen must’ve sensed her devastation because Missy hopped off the counter, and Connor started toward her. Holly held up her palm, halting him.

“Miss Harris, I’m afraid Jeremy has misled you with a wild fantasy,” she said in a husky voice.

“He told us he heard it from Connor Grimm himself. Grimm Reality has been a huge success, and our station would love a slice of the supernatural viewing market, especially as interest has multiplied over the years.”

“It’s not true,” Holly said firmly, “no matter what Connor Grimm may have said.”

Connor’s head whipped up in shock.

The woman sighed. “I take it you won’t be participating in the filming.”

“No.” Holly slammed the receiver on the wall and spun back to face Connor. “How could you?” she hissed.

“How could I what?”

She shoved past him and stormed out of the house. He called after her, but she took off at a run, sprinting into the apple trees and weaving down rows to lose him. The sky darkened as clouds blocked out the sun and rain began to fall. She had never felt so stupid, had never felt so taken advantage of.

Holly let out a howl of agony and it thundered. The steady rain instantly turned into a torrential downpour, as if the sky gods were tipping over buckets of water. She knew she needed to lock down her powers, especially now that she was on the Shadow Council’s radar, but despair and betrayal thrummed through her blood with such force that she could barely see straight.

Holly thought she’d successfully lost him at the pumpkin patch, when Connor grabbed her arm from behind. Holly whirled around with such hurt and anger that she narrowly avoided gusting wind at him. “Don’t touch me!”

He instantly let go. “What the hell, Holly?” he yelled over the rain. Water dribbled down his face and plastered his T-shirt to his chest. “What was that phone call about?”

“You! You promised me you wouldn’t expose us and you lied to me.” She took a step forward. “You used me, got me to open up, and then you sold our secret to Jeremy O’Toole ! That was a TV network calling because they have the green light to run a docuseries on Wickeds.” She swallowed back a sob. “Do you know what you’ve done? Do you know what will happen to us now?”

Connor didn’t back away from her enraged advance. Instead, his eyes narrowed and he said savagely, “I didn’t tell that asshole anything .”

“The woman who called said you did. That’s the only reason they’re not laughing Jeremy out of the studio. He claimed you told him. How else would he know what we are? He only had a stupid picture that could’ve been faked, and a guess about witches!”

“I don’t know,” Connor ground out, “but I gave you my word that I would keep your secret. I would never in a million years share that kind of information with a weasel like Jeremy.”

Holly wanted to believe him. Connor’s character was nearly as reliable as the seasons. He would forever be curious to a fault, he would always ask questions and record stories, and until now she’d thought he’d always be a man of his word. But either Connor or Erikson had to have told Jeremy. There was no other explanation.

Rain pounded into the dirt at her feet, stirring the scents of earth and apples. “Erikson?”

“Never,” Connor said fiercely. He was breathing hard from running after her, and his gray eyes were filled with rage and something wild and desperate. “When I told Erikson about you, we were all alone in the trailer and there was no—” Connor stopped abruptly, understanding flashing across his face.

“What?” Holly demanded.

“When I told Erikson, we were alone in the trailer, but when I turned around, the door was open several inches, and I could have sworn I’d closed it. Then a few minutes later, you had the altercation with Jeremy on the steps.”

“You’re saying Jeremy listened in on your conversation?” She injected as much doubt into her voice as she could manage, but already his theory made more sense than him selling the secret to Jeremy. Connor might not love her, but she knew for a fact he liked her more than her ex. The animosity between the two of them had been instantaneous from the moment they’d laid eyes on one other. The motive simply wasn’t there.

Connor closed the space between them and gripped her hands. “I swear to you on my life, on my brother’s life—on my stupid show’s existence—that I never told Jeremy.”

Holly turned her head away. “I believe you,” she said flatly.

“Then why do you look like you still hate me?”

Holly sighed, suddenly so tired she could barely stand. The rain began to lighten until it was a soft drizzle. “I don’t hate you, Connor, but the damage is done. You came to Wicked Good Apples even after I sent your goons packing, and you used our financial situation to leverage us into doing what you wanted. I asked you time and again to leave us alone, but you kept digging, kept sniffing, kept pressing until you got what you wanted, and this is the result. You know what will happen to us now. There will be people who pass Jeremy off as a quack, but there will be others that believe him, others that will start Wicked-hunting groups online and start blaming us for everything that goes wrong. At the very least, it will damage, if not destroy, our farm and reputation.”

Holly tugged her hands from his and searched his eyes, both angry over his persistence that had led to this moment and terribly sad that it had to end this way. “Just leave, Connor.” She took a step back. “There’s nothing you can do. Even if you called up that studio right now and told them you never shared the information with Jeremy, they already love the idea. You got what you wanted: three ghost episodes and a quick fling. Now you can get back to your life.”

His face was a blank mask when he said, “I don’t want it to end like this.”

She gave a humorless laugh. “Goodbye, Connor.”

This time when she turned her back on him, he didn’t run after her.