Free Once Upon Stilettos (Enchanted Inc #2) by Shanna Swendson Page A

“Ready to order?”
    Owen nodded toward me. “I’ll have the bacon cheeseburger,” I said.
    “You want the full plate with fries and slaw?”
    “Yes, please.”
    She turned to Owen, who said, “I’ll have the same.”
    She noted this in her pad and said, “It’ll be right out.”
    I felt like our earlier conversation had lost its momentum, if it ever had any to begin with. While I was still trying to think of another topic, he surprised me by starting one of his own. “You never did tell me how your date with Ethan went, other than that it was nice and that something odd happened. Where did he take you? He said he had something different planned.”
    My heart and my head went to war over what this question meant. Was this relationship recon, his attempt to see where my current relationship (if you could call it that) stood so he’d know when or if to make his move? Or was it casual interest because two of his friends were going out together and he was curious how it went?
    While the battle raged within me, I decided to just answer instead of analyzing it to death. “He took me to a wine dinner, one of those things where they create courses to go with certain wines from a particular vineyard. It was interesting. The food was good, but I don’t know enough about wine to say much about that.”
    “And what was the odd part?”
    “I’m a total lightweight. I almost never have more than one glass of wine at any one time, and they served a glass with each course. I tried to only drink half a glass each time, but after five courses that’s still a lot of wine.”
    “So you were a bit toasted,” he said with a teasing grin. Even if it was at my expense, I enjoyed the sight too much to complain.
    “No ‘a bit’ about it. And here’s where it gets interesting.”
    He leaned back against the booth, now looking at me directly, still grinning. “Interesting, how?” He raised one eyebrow.
    I glanced around to see how close any other diners were to us then leaned forward across the table. He got the hint and leaned forward until there was only a small space separating us. “I was the most sober person there, other than Ethan. It turned out to be a magical winery,” I whispered. “The wine was enchanted, so everyone else there was even drunker than I was. After dinner, they passed out order forms so people could buy the wines, and it seemed like they were using a variation on that control spell to make people order wine at what Ethan said were outrageously inflated prices.”
    “So they were using a wine dinner as a cover for a magical scam?” He managed to scowl, look incredulous, and smile all at the same time.
    “Yeah. So Ethan and I called them on it. I don’t think they expected to find a couple of immunes in the party. He offered to fix their ‘typos.’”
    “Did you tell the boss?”
    “Yeah, and Sales says they stopped being an MSI customer about a year ago.”
    “You think the spell was a variation on Idris’s control spell?”
    “I’m no expert, remember, but I did feel power in use, and there was something about it that looked similar, but it was also different. It didn’t seem to be nearly as strong as the one I watched you test.”
    He nodded and frowned. “Interesting. I wonder if there’s a connection. It’s worth investigating.”
    “Are you ready to eat, or am I interrupting a private moment here?” The waitress’s voice startled both of us. Owen blushed bright pink and my cheeks felt uncomfortably warm as we moved back so she could set down our plates. “You two enjoy. Let me know if you need anything else,” she said.
    “So, what happened after you foiled their scam?” he asked as he struggled to get catsup out of the bottle onto his fries. His injured arm must have still been bothering him, because he wasn’t very effective at either holding the bottle steady or hitting it, so I reached across the table, took it from him, and poured catsup for him as I answered.
    “I