Page 34 of Vengeful Union

“Not yet,” he says quietly, looking up into my eyes. “Trust is earned.”

“Fair enough.” I don’t expect Rory to trust me not to run away. God knows I want to. I just want to be back home with my father and the rest of my family.

“I want to take you on a tour of the mansion.”

I blink at him. “A tour? Why?”

“You’re going to be living here for a while. And I want everyone to see you as my wife, not as a Burke. You’ll be safer that way.”

I shiver slightly. “Will I have to meet your father?”

Rory grimaces. “Eventually. Not today.”

My shoulders relax slightly. “All right. A tour it is, then.”

Rory takes my hand, and my skin heats up as I pull away after he tugs me into the hallway.

“You’ve seen the left wing. It’s mostly storage and rooms we don’t use.”

I nod, looking around the mansion.

It’s not as ornate as my father’s, but it’s nice. There are statues of wolves at the bottom of the stairs when Rory leads me down them.

“The right wing has my room, Bree’s old room, and Dad’s master bedroom. His office is at the end of the hall.” He hovers his hand over the small of my back, not quite touching, to lead me into the foyer.

Pictures of the whole family adorn the walls, a smiling teenage Bree and Rory in one of them, with Rory’s fingers making a “v” above her head.

I smile at the picture. “You two seem close.”

“We were,” he says softly, making me think that something had changed.

But I don’t push.

Next is the dining room, with a huge, medieval-looking table that I assume Niall sits at the head of. It can easily seat fifteen people.

“Do you have a lot of dinner parties?”

Rory laughs. “Not exactly. But a lot of the men eat dinner here. Like a twisted idea of a family.”

I get that. My father’s men are like family to him, too, even if they’re not actually related to us.

He opens the door to the kitchen, and I peer inside.

It looks a lot like ours–two ovens, a big kitchen island, a sink, and a flat-top.

“I’ve never cooked, here,” Rory admits. “The chef always cooks for us.”

“You don’t cook?”

He grins. “I do. When I can. I mostly eat out, if I’m honest, because work is consuming most of the time.”

“I can’t even boil water, so I’m impressed.”

He closes the kitchen door and leads me out onto the terrace.

Flowers bloom all over the place, and it smells delightful.

“My mother had a green thumb. And after she left us, Dad hired a gardener to keep it up.”

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