Page 82 of Vendetta

“I don’t think there’s really much to say.”

I let silence fill the room, waiting to see if she would say anymore. Her face seemed torn, like there were a million things running through that head of hers.

“Talk to me, princess. What’s on your mind?”

I patiently waited as she debated what to say.

“Did you and Courtney… Were you two ever serious?” she finally asked, hesitance laced in her tone. I almost laughed at the absurdity of the question, but remained composed for Landry’s sake.

“Not even a little bit,” I answered truthfully. She nodded her head, considering my response.

“The extent of Courtney and I was what you saw the day that I met you. And the only reason for it was purely because I had needed a distraction. I haven’t touched her since.”

She processed this for a moment, the wheels turning in her brain. “A distraction… from me?”

A smile pulled at my lips. “Yes, Landry. Not that it worked either. You were the only thing on my mind from that point forward, whether I liked it or not.”

“But… you hated me?” she asked, her body tensing in the slightest.

“I did,” I answered truthfully. “And I am so, so sorry for all of the terrible things that I did when I was blinded by that hate. I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

“So… What changed?”

I paused to think about that. I had asked myself the same question more than a handful of times, trying to figure out where things had shifted. If I was being truthful, I didn’t think that I had ever really hated her. I think that I hated myself, and blamed myself for Emory’s death, and that I had been looking for somebody to blame. I’d had my blinders on, only focused on vengeance.

“Everything.”

CHAPTER 42

LANDRY

“So, this one is quiche Lorraine, and the other one is quiche Florentine,” I told Cashton as I placed both of them down on the marble island in front of him.

He had requested that I make him each of the dishes I had cooked for myself when I had been locked up in his penthouse during Taken.

“It all looked so good through the cameras, and you looked so hot making them. All I wanted was to jump through the screen and try them myself, and now that you’re my girl, I think that’s a reasonable request.” He had said.

He had also requested that I cook them in the nude this time, which I had quickly vetoed due to the fact that Bexley was in the next room studying.

I had told him all about where my love of cooking had come from—How I hadn’t been allowed to cook much when I was younger, and how it helped busy my mind and calm myanxiety. He had zero complaints about anything I made, practically inhaling anything I set in front of him.

“Which one is your favorite?” he asked.

I didn’t have to think twice about it. “Lorraine,” I told him. “Can’t go wrong with bacon,” I added with a wink.

A dimple appeared as he offered me a cheeky smile.

I snuck a small piece to Tomahawk while he wasn’t looking, the pair of us thick as thieves. What Cashton didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

The dog had quickly embraced his new lifestyle, the both of us pampering him to our hearts’ extent. The little goofball took up a whole half of the bed each night, sprawling out and refusing to move over no matter how much we shoved. It all felt… Domestic. And I had to admit, I loved the normalcy of it all.

“Bexley, come get some quiche!” I hollered through the space, Bexley wasting no time peeking her head out of her room.

“Did someone say quiche?”

“Come eat before you leave!” I urged. I knew she was planning to leave after lunch to spend the weekend back home, wanting to get on the road directly after lunch. Skamper trotted out behind her, the kitten running right up to Tomahawk as he came to greet her. Believe it or not, the kitten held full dominance in that relationship.

“Okay, okay, but only because you make them so well. I gotta leave here in the next ten minutes though.”

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