Page 56 of Vengeful Vows

Gray’s phone rings. When he looks at it, he excuses himself from the table, walking into his father’s office.

“We’ll talk about this another time. I really need to think about it, Paige. I promise I’ll look at it with an open mind.” Patrick excuses himself, as well, and then it’s just me, Declan, and the girls.

“Well, that went well.”

Lara sighs. “You did kind of dumped it on him, what did you expect?”

Paige just shrugs. “I don’t know. I just wanted to get that over with. But now I need a sisterly sleepover,” Paige whines. “Are you in, Bree?”

My heart melts for her. She considers me a sister?

“Not tonight, Paige,” Lara hisses.

“Why not?”

“Because they’re just home from their honeymoon. You heard Declan, he can’t sleep without her.”

“I can,” Declan argues in a mutter, but I look at him, wondering if that’s true. “Besides, I’ll be up for a while. Took that late nap.”

“Maybe I’ll come hang out for a few hours?” I suggest. “And then go back to bed late at night.”

“Aren’t you tired from your trip?” Lara asks.

I shake my head. “No, I fell asleep with Declan. I feel kind of wired.”

“Good.” Paige grins. “Let’s do makeovers and look at houses and watch movies.”

Lara smirks. “Horror movies.”

Paige pouts. “Okay, but only slashers.”

“Fair enough.”

I look back and forth between the two of them, having a hard time keeping up with their conversation. They seem to nearly be telepathic, knowing what the other is thinking.

Paige and Lara stand up, and I walk with them, looking back at Declan who’s now eating my portion of dessert.

I smile at him, and he smiles back, and my heart seems to skip several beats.

I’ve got to get it together. It’s like I’ve forgotten about my plan to get out of here. In Vegas, I got so caught up in Declan and all the attention that he was giving me that I hadn’t even thought about escaping.

Now I’m back in this admittedly beautiful prison of a mansion, and I’m having a sleepover with his sisters. That apparently think of me as a sister too. At least Paige does. And I love that.

What am I doing?

My head’s all messed up. Half of me is still angry about the way this came about, but the other half—it's like I’m actually enjoying myself.

I let out a long breath and follow Paige and Lara.

They’re not going upstairs, though, but down toward the pool house.

“Are we going swimming?” I ask, and Paige laughs.

“No,” Lara says. “You’ll see.”

“Da gave us special permission to take you here,” Paige says excitedly, and we walk past the pool house into a building I’ve never noticed before. I guess I’ve been so much in the main house, I didn’t realize the scope of the estate.

Lara uses a keycode to get in, and when the lights come up, I look around with awe.

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