Page 55 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

“I would rather bear it,” I tell her quietly, “than leave you wanting.”

She cups my face, her thumb brushing my cheek with heartbreaking tenderness.

“You are such a romantic,” she says with a watery smile. “It’s almost embarrassing.”

I manage a laugh, though it sounds brittle even to my own ears.

“Promise you’ll look after the shop?”

“I promise,” I say, though somewhere deep inside I cannot imagine remaining in Blackthorn Bay if she is no longer part of it.

“And if I come back as a ghost, will you be nice to me?”

“I’ll let you haunt every square inch,” I tell her. “I’ll even arrange your lilies exactly the way you like.”

She wrinkles her nose.

“You’re terrible at lilies.”

“I know.”

“But I love you for it.”

The words settle softly between us, as quiet and certain as the snow beginning to fall outside.

The storm arrives that evening, glazing every branch in crystal until Blackthorn Bay looks less like a town than a memory preserved beneath glass. I wake sometime before dawn to find Lavinia sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a quilt and staring through the bedroom window into the falling snow.

“What is it?”

She doesn’t look away.

“They’re calling.”

My entire body stills.

“Who’s calling?”

She shakes her head, but I already know. The air itself has changed. There is a pressure gathering beyond the walls of the house, ancient and familiar, like invisible hands resting against the fabric of the world. I cannot see them, but I feel them with perfect clarity.

My sisters.

The Fates.

Time has finally caught us.

I kneel in front of her and take both of her hands in mine.

“Listen to me. I need you to trust me.”

She smiles with that same impossible certainty.

“I always have.”

“I can stop this.”

Her expression softens with gentle amusement.

“Everyone dies, my love.”