Page 171 of Mama Si's Paradise

Two whole years and I’d still been paralyzed by inaction somehow. I still hadn’t stepped far enough back to see the full picture.

“And?” said Grey when I was lost in my own head for a moment and forgot to continue.

I smiled. At least he was still curious. He didn’t look bored in the least—on the contrary. He was completely consumed by me.

No idea why Ilikedthat, but I did. I liked his attention very much right now.

“And then I forgot my wallet one morning and went back to get it and caught him in bed with a woman he works with. She didn’t want me there anymore, so he gave me train money to go back home and kicked me out.”

Brandon’s face was still right there in front of me, and it fascinated me all over again that I didn’t hate him. I wasn’t resentful. I wasn’t even all that mad—maybe because I understood that it hadn’t been fair to put the burden ofsaving meon his shoulders the way I had. It had never been his job to fix me.

Maybe.

“So, then I found myself drinking my savings away at the only bar in town that didn’t care about my ID, and I heard about a position being open at Mama Si’s Paradise. I thought I’d give it a try since nobody else was hiring, and I refused to go back home. I applied for housekeeping, but then Mama Si saw me accidentally just as I was starting the interview, offered me a job as one of her dolls, and…” And I was foolish enough not to see right through her. “Well, I saidyes. The rest is history.”

For a long time, Grey sat there with me in silence, watching the birds, focused on their song.

And slowly I came to my senses, and I realized I’d just told him all of that. I’d just told Grey Evernight my life story the way I’d never told anyone, and…it wasn’t so bad, was it?

I mean, the birds were still there. And the instruments. And the books, the canvases, the colors. I didn’t feel bad for sharing—on the contrary. My shoulders were a bit lighter.

I risked a glance at him, at his profile, and my stomach did a flip.

Fuck, he was so beautiful I could have been making him up. There was a roughness to him, to that stubble that covered his cheeks, to his eyes, to the way he held his shoulders.

Was that why I was so drawn to him?

Or was it simply this room?

“There’s no piano,” I said in wonder—not that it mattered. But he’d gotten everything right, except that.

“You play the one in the theatre. I figured you’d want other options here,” Grey said as if he, too, was coming out of a trance.

There went my stomach again, twisting and turning. “You heard me.” He’d heard me play.

Grey only nodded, and I didn’t need to ask to know that he’d been there every single time. I thought Valentine was my only audience when I played, but Grey had been hiding nearby, too.

“How did she do it? How did Mamayka manage to trick you? There must have been something she did right,” he said after a minute.

“She dideverythingright, actually,” I said. “But the one thing that broke me was that—a piano.” Incredible how silly I’d been. How easily fooled. “A magical piano that she made me believe the Burrowgaveto me itself, made out of tree roots. The most beautiful piano you’ll ever see.” One that wasalive—or so it had felt to me.

“You didn’t deserve that, Fall,” Grey said after a moment, and it was so much better thanI’m sorry.It was so much better thanbut you couldn’t have knownorshe’s the original seductress, so of course she knew how to make a fool out of you.

It was exactly what I’d needed to hear and didn’t even know it.

I almost asked himwhyhe said it, why he bothered.Whygo through all this trouble? Why listen to me play in secret and spy on my conversations and prepareall of thisfor me? Why risk his life to bring me books I liked to read—why?!

Unfortunately, I already knew that answer.

Because of my blood. Because of my body.

These men wanted me to bear their children, and each would do anything to win me over.

“Is there something wrong?” Grey said, and he’d leaned closer to me from his recliner. He looked at me like he was trying to read my fucking mind—and suddenly it pissed me off. And it fascinated me. It made me feel so much I might explode into fireworks any second.

I stood up, and he did, too. The birds kept flying and chirping as I rose on my tiptoes and did possibly the silliest thing I’d done tonight, which was to kiss him on the cheek.

When I moved back, my lips fuckingburned, and my hand flew up to touch them, to make sure they weren’t on fire. “Thank you for this. I appreciate it, but I can’t accept it,” I finally said.

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