Page 91 of Vendetta

I laid my head back down, running my hand over the tiger tattoo on his chest. That’s when I noticed his new piece of ink, a simple but beautiful ‘L.A.’ with a crown restingunderneath it. It took my brain a moment to wrap my head around it.

“L.A.? As in Landry Andrews?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“For now,” he mused. “Figured it would also work for Landry Astor one day.”

“You’re crazy!”

“For you,” he winked.

This man was something else. I couldn’t help but laugh, rolling my eyes in the process before laying back down next to him.

“You never told me what the tiger stood for,” I realized, tracing my hand over both pieces of work that took over his chest.

He didn’t answer for a few moments, his hand continuing to trace circles along my back where he had his arm wrapped around me.

“It’s for Emory. I always called her my little tiger because of how fierce she was. Now I can say I have the two most important girls in my life with me at all times. Sometimes, you remind me of her, you know? Fierce. Kind. A lover, but a fighter when needed. Smart. Passionate. Far from ordinary.”

I thought over the last few days, anxiety beginning to creep in.

“Do you really think…” I hesitated. “Are you sure that you’ll be able to let all of this go? I know how important it is to you to find out who did this. And it’s important to me too. I want to find out who was responsible for taking my mom away from me. But I don’t think that it’s worth risking our lives for. Maybe one day we can try again, but right now, I don’t have it in me. But I don’t want you to change your mind or regret it one day. I would rather know now.”

I braced myself, needing to hear his answer before I could let myself get too comfortable. This was everything I had ever wanted, but it wouldn’t work if I couldn’t depend on him always being here.

He must have noticed my nervous energy, sitting up to face me.

“Landry,” he started, grabbing my face as he pierced me with his eyes. “I choose you. And I will continue to choose you. You were right about what you said– Emory is already gone, and there’s no changing that. And if pursuing who killed her means losing you, then it’s not something that I will even entertain. My priority isyou. I loveyou. You are my person. I have never been more certain of anything in my entire life.”

Relief washed over me, the smile reappearing on my face.

“I love you too,” I tell him.

We lay there a while longer, basking in the view and the noises of the city below. We were in Paris. The Eiffel Tower still shone, but I could argue that the best view in the city was the man lying here beside me. His voice was gruff when he spoke, as if he were on the edge of falling asleep.

“You are my everything.”

My heart fluttered wildly. And for the first time, I let myself believe it. I had once thought I was nothing. Been so broken that I would never have believed that I could be so cherished by anybody. But I meant something to Cashton. I could see it in the way he looked at me, the way he treated me. Ifelt loved for the first time in a long time. I was his everything. And he was mine.

CHAPTER 46

2 MONTHS LATER

CASHTON

The inventor of the sundress sure knew what they were doing. I was counting down the minutes until I could see that pastel yellow sundress thrown to the floor of our bedroom. Scratch that—The sundress would stay on when I fucked Landry’s brains out later.

It should be illegal for anybody to look that beautiful. The radiant smile on her face only added to the effect, everything about her glowing. She was the picture of perfection in every way.

I watched in awe as she devoured her third croissant across from me where we were seated at a little café just down the street from our apartment. The apartment that I had officially bought as of a week ago. Landry didn’t know yet, but I had the perfect plan to surprise her by telling her at dinner tonight.

It had been two months since we had moved to Paris, and two months of me falling head over heels more and more every day for the girl sitting across from me.

We had both continued our Ivybrook classes online, the school happy to make exceptions for us after a rather charitable contribution from our family’s architecture firm.

I still worked for David and the firm from France, while Landry had been offered a remote internship running the blog and website for a national bully breed rescue organization back in the states. She still kept in touch with Debbie, who now had plenty of time on her hands with the number of volunteers she had gained from the open-house adoption event. It turns out that if rich people loved one thing, it was their public image. Either way, the shelter was running beautifully, and that’s all that mattered at the end of the day.

Since we’ve been here, we’ve made the most out of the experience. I surprised Landry with some cooking classes with one of the professional chefs that I knew she watched religiously on social media—Not that her cooking needed any improvement—And they had quickly become close.

Teresa was an American that had moved to Paris to open her very successful chain of restaurants, and we had the honor of enjoying her cooking whenever she and her husband, Paul, joined us for weekly dinners. I always caught Landry sneaking glances at me as I entertained their three-year-old daughter while they experimented in the kitchen. It only made me want to bend her over the counter right then and there and create some babies of our own. But that would have to wait until after we graduated. I deserved a medal for my self-control.

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