Page 134 of Necessary Cruelty

Epilogue

Zaya

Perfect isn’t supposedto exist in real life.

Correction, in my life.

But I don’t have any other word to describe what it’s like to be Vin Cortland’s wife.

My brother is safely away at Blackbreak Academy, far from the criminally sophisticated friends he made in the Gulch. It will be up to him whether or not he decides to make anything of himself.

I call Grandpa every Sunday and listen to him gush about the care home as if it’s the first I’m hearing it. Apparently, there is another resident named Gladys that he has been making eyes at for the last few weeks. I hope that works out. The important thing is that someone makes sure he takes his medication every day and eats three meals, which is more than I ever managed on my own.

Everything is wrapped up tighter than a Christmas gift.

The door of our tiny apartment slams shut, which is always how Vin announces his return home.

“Kitchen,” I bellow, hoping he hears me over the blare of some pop song playing on his phone.

That man has the worst taste in music, but I manage to love him anyway.

Vin eyes me appreciatively from where I’m standing at the stove. For him, the paisley printed apron I’m wearing might as well be lingerie. Maybe it’s because he never had a real mother, but watching me pretend to be a housewife is the sexiest thing he can imagine.

“What’s for dinner?” he asks, wrapping his arms around my waist and pressing himself against my back. “Something smells delicious.”

His tone makes it clear that it isn’t only the food that he’s talking about. I try to push him away, but it’s like shoving a brick wall. “The roast is going to burn if you don’t keep your hands to yourself.”

“Let it burn,” he growls against my neck, nipping the skin hard enough to make me gasp.

“First lesson on not being rich is that you don’t let food go to waste.”

Vin licks the sensitive spot behind my ear. “Is the second lesson that you have to make your own fun? Because all the best things I can think of right now won’t cost a dime.”

Vin fits in to life in Los Angeles the same way he fits in everywhere else, like the world was designed with him in mind. He managed to get himself enrolled in classes at the last minute, probably with a sizable donation involved. Most of his coursework is at the business school, because he needs to figure out how to rebuild the Cortland fortune after it disintegrates.

I assumed the thought of being cut off financially would bother him, but he has taken it completely in stride. It doesn’t escape my notice that all it would take to right the ship would be a pregnancy, a real one this time, but he hasn’t brought it up in months, and I’m starting to think he never will.

He was true to his word about getting me on the pill, going as far as to remind me to take it every day. As if I’m the kind of girl who would forget something like that.

“I am not burning this dinner, doesn’t matter what you do. This beef cost almost twenty dollars.”

“And maybe all I want to eat is you.” He nuzzles my neck again and bites down on my earlobe, just hard enough to leave a sting that he soothes away with his tongue. “Did you take your pill today?”

He doesn’t know that I stopped taking the birth control pills months ago. Just like I didn’t know that poking holes in condoms is so easy, it makes you wonder how the things are at all effective in the first place.

There are test results in a manila envelope on the table. I just have to figure out the best way to let him know what they say.

His hands roam over my body, making it easy to forget that our dinner is sizzling on the stove in front of me. Switching the knob to low, I turn in his embrace and wrap my arms around his neck. “You have ten minutes before this burns.”

Vin smiles at me in a way that is frankly carnal. “With the way you come, I only need five.”

He carries me away as I laugh.

* * *

Vin

I’ve been spendingmoney like there is no tomorrow, because there isn’t.

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