Page 79 of Finding Lord Landry

“You’re a nuzzler,” he said, slipping back into sleep.

As soon as I opened my mouth to say, “No I’m not,” he said the exact words along with me.No I’m not.

I sucked in a breath.

“Why can’t you admit you like to cuddle?” he asked, turning us around so he was spooning me with his knees under mine and his arm holding my wrist against my chest in a loose grip. “You’re so fucking obstinate.”

“No I’m…” My voice trailed off as I fell into his trap. His chuckle vibrated against my back.

He pressed a kiss against my hair. “You’re an elephant. Like the one guarding my windows.”

This made zero sense. I couldn’t think of an animal I was less like, and as far as I knew, elephants had nothing to do with windows. “You’re already asleep, aren’t you?” I asked, amused.

“Thick skin, nosy as fuck, highly intelligent, and… maternal.”

I snorted. “Maternal makes me sound like a harried woman trying to get five misbehaving, sticky-fingered children into a minivan at the same time.” I paused. “Come to think of it…”

His thumb holding my wrist made a gentle swipe over the center of my chest. “You mother all of us. You fuss and manage. Protect. Herd. Defend. Lead. It’s nice.”

A few minutes of silence fell when I didn’t have the words to respond. Just when I thought he was asleep, he murmured, “You’ll make a good father someday.”

My heart hammered in my chest. “Do you want kids?” It was the first time I’d ever asked him outright, and I asked it so softly I wasn’t sure it was even loud enough to be heard. But the only response was the rhythmic sound of his breathing.

I lay there wondering what the fuck this midnight interlude even meant. Was he still mad at me? Hurt? What did this mean for the two of us?

What did I want it to mean?

I tried to remember a time when we’d shared a bed all night without fucking. There’d been a night on a ski trip in Park City, Utah, when I’d brought some documents to his room to get signed and he’d been hot with a fever. I’d stayed next to him all night out of fear and because he hadn’t let me take him to the hospital, worried about the possible social media frenzy from other tourists.

There’d been the night I’d snuck into his room at Bash and Rowe’s house in the Hamptons for a quick fuck, only to find him on a call with a modeling friend who’d gone through a bad breakup. I’d lain down on the bed to wait for him to finish the call and had fallen asleep. He’d ended the call and stretched out next to me with the assumption we’d wake up at some point and fuck. But the scent of coffee had woken us instead, causing me to panic and race out of the room, nearly colliding with a house cleaner. I’d managed to stammer an apology and then stammer an unnecessary and detailed explanation to Bash about how I’d left my room before sunrise to be sure I was out of the way when the cleaners arrived because I was interested in taking sunrise photos. Which was only partially true.

Landry had overheard my stammering and gifted me a framed photo of a Hamptons sunrise the following Christmas, pointing out in front of everyone—with a perfectly straight face—that it had been the sunrise photo I’d taken that day, though it definitely hadn’t been. “I’m just grateful to those house cleaners for sending you outside with your camera so early that morning,” he’d said.

That was the same Christmas I’d given him a copy ofThe Art of Stillnessin hopes he’d not only understand my obsession with meditation better but also realize how important it was to take some time alone, to slow down and focus.

As I lay there thinking back to my misperceptions of him at the time, a little over a year ago, I began to realize just how wrong I’d been.

First of all, he’d been toobusyto be still. The man had been juggling two full lives. On the one hand, his life as Landry Davis, which included his found family—the Brotherhood, his somewhat silent partnership at Sterling Chase, and his modeling career, with its demanding nutrition and exercise expectations and aggressive travel schedule. On the other, his blood family, including his management of the Davencourt property and investment holdings Cora had described to me during our shopping trip, the expectation he’d eventually take up his family’s legacy by serving in the House of Lords, and the heartbreaking reality of his father’s Alzheimer’s disease.

When he wasn’t slammed with responsibilities from one, he was racing to stay on top of the other. And at every single moment of every day, he was hiding a piece of himself from someone.

I turned in his embrace and studied his relaxed face. My fingers found their way into his hair, brushing it softly back.

“Baby, fuck,” he murmured without opening his eyes. “You’re killing me.”

“Before San Cordova, who knew that you were Landry Davis the model, Everett Davencourt the viscount, co-founder of ETC, heir apparent to an earldom, weird freak-boy about lobsters, oddly nervous about giving speeches even though he wants to run for office, and a guy who grew up with noisy house-birds? Who knew all of those things together?”

“No one. I don’t exactly go around sharing the lobster thing.” He paused as if searching for the catch. “Why?”

I wanted to cry. I wanted to cradle him in my arms and murmur promises that this man-boy, this tall, gentle lover of fun and shenanigans, this soft-hearted son and devoted friend, would never be so fucking lonely again.

“You don’t have to hold it all in anymore,” I whispered as carefully as I could. “There’s one person who knows all of it now.”

A puff of air escaped his nose, warming my hairline. “Yeah. And that person has kept me at arm’s length for three fucking years. You make it sound so easy, Kenji. Know what’s not easy? Racing with an egg on a spoon on only two hours of sleep. Close your eyes.”

His large hand came up and covered my eyes for me, cutting off the dim light outlining the shadows of his face.

Instead of arguing, I let him dismiss my emotional plea, but I didn’t follow him into sleep. I lay there thinking back over ten years of knowing Landry Davis, the Right Honorable Everett Landry Davencourt, Viscount Hawling. He’d been a grieving, confused teenager who wanted to escape the heavy mantle of familial expectation and have a normal life. A normal life that led him straight into another blatantly abnormal experience of almost-accidentally helping found one of our generation’s most pivotal software systems, resulting in untold wealth he kept hidden from his family. A normal life that had tumbled him into the global spotlight for his good looks and charm, resulting in years of trying to keep his identity secret while under interrogation lights.

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