Page 13 of Finding Lord Landry

“No, god no.No. I’m just here for another few days, then I’m headed to Majestic for Lellie’s birthday.”

“You’re avoiding my original question,” I pointed out. “What brought up the idea of retirement?”

I heard the rustle of bedsheets and imagined bare-chested, messy-haired Landry in bed. “You’re alone, right?” I blurted before he could say anything.

There was silence on the other end. “Not exactly…”

I sucked in a breath. “Oh.” My stomach soured, and my heart contracted. I swallowed. Oh.

“As for retirement, I just decided I’m done starving and dehydrating myself for money. I don’t need the money, and I’m past the point of feeling like the ego stroke makes up for it. Besides, it’s time. I don’t want to start getting polite rejections as the industry begins to prefer the younger guys.”

I bit back a scoff at the idea he was anything other than in the highest demand. Landry Davis was considered one of the most beautiful men in the world, and that wasn’t about to change when he got a few more years under his belt.

“I can’t say I’m disappointed to hear it,” I admitted. “The schedule was killing you. Not to mention the physical demand it’s been taking on your body.”

He let out a sleepy laugh. “There are physical demands on my body I’m more interested in these days than the ones from modeling.”

His innuendo reminded me he wasn’t alone. “Right. Well… I should let you get back to… whoever.”

“Are you jealous?” he asked incredulously. “You? The man who all but begged me to go fuck someone else when he left?”

“I did not,” I snapped. “I only wanted to make it clear that you didn’t have to do without simply because I?—”

The rhythmic buzz of a cat’s purr came over the line. I waited a beat to make sure I was hearing what I thought I was hearing.

“Is that… is that a cat?”

“Kenji Toma, may I introduce you to the ever-faithful yet ever-finicky Lady Bayliss of Kent. Otherwise known as Turkey.”

I was stunned speechless. “A cat? You have a cat?”

“My father has a cat. Well, more accurately, his… helper, Nan, has a cat. But she tends to defect to my room whenever I’m visiting. What can I say? I’m a joy to sleep with. At least someone thinks so.”

He made it sound like he visited fairly regularly, which made me wonder if he’d managed to stop in on his way to and from European jobs and I just hadn’t known. I wanted to ask him about it, but I was more interested in determining if the cat was the only thing keeping him warm at night.

“So… when you said you weren’t there alone…”

“I’m snuggled up with Turkey.”

The swell of relief I felt was borderline disgusting and humiliating. I swallowed. “Right. Well, I should let you go regardless. Why did my text wake you up? Don’t you mute your phone at night?”

Landry hesitated. “Certain contacts are allowed to break through.”

I was secretly touched by this. Until the asshole opened his mouth again. “You know, in case I’m arrested and need someone to bail me out.”

It wasn’t funny because it had actually happened. More than once.

“Maybe if you made an effort not to get arrested, you wouldn’t need to receive my calls in the middle of the night.”

“True. I wouldn’tneedto. But Kenji?”

“What?”

“I’d stillwantto. Good night.”

I stared at the phone as he ended the call. Within moments, a photo flashed up in our text window.

A sleepy Landry was full-spooning a beautiful gray-and-white cat. The man had a shit-eating grin on his face, but all I could focus on were his hands, casually stroking the cat.

---