Page 55 of The Pretender

“Are you sure you don’t want to put the suit on again?” she teases, tossing a frisbee for one of the dogs who darts after it.

“I’m sure,” I return. “I may never get the feeling back in my arm after the last time.”

It was Vee’s idea to put me in the K9 tactical bite suit. I knew it was her payback for me acting like such a dick last night after our dance video. So I took my punishment like the good team player I am. Besides, I don’t want to piss her off too much. Otherwise, she might decide she doesn’t give a fuck about this competition and go save the frogs with Vance.

Vance and I are friends, somewhat. We don’t hang out or anything, but he’s connected to the mayor, therefore Maverick likes to keep him in his pocket, meaning I can’t be too much of an asshole and scare him off.

But I can tell you that Vance cannot handle the likes of Valentina Lambros. She has way too much personality for him. Vance seems like he could use a soft-spoken woman who will rub his shoulders after a long day and then finish him off with a delicate hand job.

Valentina will push a shot of moonshine across the island and force you to down a couple, before tagging along while you blackmail a guy for Maverick and sneak into the girl’s locker room to get the footage you needed to do it. I don’t know if she would have offered me a hand job because we didn’t get that far, but I’m thinking she would have been a lot more exciting than Vance’s hope for a sweet, under the cover tug.

“Have you heard from Brick?” she calls, tugging the frisbee from the same dog’s mouth. I forgot his name. Seems like she said it was something like Turner, but maybe that’s the tan one.

“Yeah,” I tell her, stroking Scarlett’s back. "He’s in the driveway. I told him to stay put until we’re ready for him.” The fucker can sit in the heat with his piece of shit car that broke down a couple of days ago when he was supposed to be filming mine and Vee’s date.

She cocks her head to the side. “Why wouldn’t you just let him come on back?”

Uh, because I didn’t want him to think he needed to have a seat and talk or interrupt my time with Scarlett. Okay, and with Vee, but more so Scarlett. And bad employees deserve to be punished.

“He’s fine.”

She levels me with a look. “Text him to come back.”

Ugh. Reluctantly, I pull out my phone. Scarlett looks at me with half-open eyes.

“I know,” I tell her. “He’s going to make things awkward.” And annoying.

“No, he won’t.” Vee laughs, coming to sit with me and Scarlett on the grass. “We need to shoot anyway. My uncle said he and his wife would be home in a couple of hours. They were meeting a new dog.”

I rub Scarlett again and her eyes close. “The dogs seem really happy here,” I muse.

“They are.”

Vee nuzzles one of the dogs who comes up and flops down in her lap. “It’s good therapy, right?”

I cock my head to the side. “Therapy?”

“Yeah.” She kisses the top of the dog’s head. “When my mind is messed up and all chaotic, I can come here and somehow everything just becomes so still.”

She looks up and her mouth tips down into a frown. “After… you know, what happened between us, this was the only place I felt…welcome.”

Her eyes flick up at me, and I feel this ache in my chest that spreads out, weaving its pain around my ribs.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel like you didn’t belong at your own home,” I admit.

“You didn’t,” she clarifies. “I mean, sure, the hateful looks you gave me when I passed you in the parking lot were tense, but I did it to myself. I think I was ashamed.”

She was ashamed.

Wow.

“Why would you feel ashamed? We were playing a game.” I shrug like her last prank was no big deal. “We had a prank war. You won. There’s no reason to feel ashamed.”

She lowers her gaze back to the dog in her lap. “I took it too far.”

Heaven help me. “I deserved it.”

It’s the truth. I did deserve it. I forced her into one-upping me over and over again. I challenged her wits every day until she showed me just how brilliant she was. Even if she pissed me off and shit all over our entire relationship, she has no reason to be ashamed.

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