Page 71 of Sweet Deception
“Both.”
“So what happened?”
“I served my friends drinks instead and told them the cake was for visitors.”
I gasped in mock horror. “So you’re not just a criminal, you were a liar, too?”
I pinched his nose lightly, and for once, he didn’t react with cold indifference. He just... looked at me.
“That’s not the end,” he continued.
I waited, intrigued.
“I walked my friends out, then came back late at night. When I finally went to get the cake...” He paused.
I leaned in. “What happened? Was it spoiled?”
He shook his head. “No. But there was a rat feasting on it.”
I burst out laughing.
Not a polite chuckle. Not a restrained laugh.
A real, full-bodied, gasping-for-breath laugh. The first one I’d had in months.
“So let me get this straight,” I said between giggles. “Your mom baked a cake for you and your friends, but because you were greedy, you lied and kept it all for yourself only to come back and find a rat had already claimed it?”
“Ironically, I grabbed the cake anyway, thinking I could cut off the rat-eaten part. But the moment I took a bite... I gagged. The rat hadn’t just eaten it, it had pissed on it.”
I howled with laughter. “Serves you right, you greedy little brat!”
His eyes glimmered with something unreadable. Maybe amusement. Maybe something else.
I fell back on the bed, still laughing.
Then, out of nowhere, he reached out and cupped my
His thumb brushed my cheek absentmindedly. “You should laugh more.”
My chest tightened. Coming from him, that almost felt like a confession.
I froze.
“Really?”
He nodded.
And for the first time since we met...
I saw something new in his gaze.
Something I couldn’t name.
Something that terrified me.
Because I knew, if I let myself keep looking, if I let myself believe it...
I’d fall.
