The city fumes were unpleasant and the noise almost unbearably loud, but of course, I’d gotten used to city life that the entire noise and congestion didn’t bother me as much as it used to. I raised my coffee and sniffed it deeply, loving the smell as it drifted up my nostrils, before taking a long sip.

Once on the street, I raised a hand to hail a cab but the ringing of my cell phone made it drop into my bag and pull it out. I didn’t recognize the number and flipped it open, raising it my ear.
“Hello?”
“Rose, Hi. It’s Scorpius.”

Lie. I only heard my brain utter that one instruction. Lying to your boyfriend of over a year was not an easy thing but I reasoned that I had been lying to him throughout our entire time together. I had fooled him (and everyone else for that matter) into believing that I was an ordinary muggle. This was nothing compared to that. This was worse. I was lying to him about meeting another guy behind his back.

“I love you.”

I quickly ignored it and shut the phone.

I skipped breakfast. It was a habit that had been born purely out of working at Gazette. I’d let slip to one of the girls there that I’d been late because I was having breakfast and she stared at me as if I’d sprouted two extra heads and another four arms.

“Want to try the bed?” He suggested innocently. My dull heartbeat accelerated and I felt myself blush as a raw desire crept up within me.

...