Page 34 of Her Purr-fect Christmas Mate

She raised her chin. “It’s the day before Christmas,” she declared. “And I have a job to do.”

Of course, the job had to wait on a few things. Like clothes. Her phone conversation with Mordecai’s personal shopper Alessio ranked among the most embarrassing of her life. She was sure the poor guy almost fainted when she told him where she usually shopped. And thenshealmost fainted from embarrassment trying to explain why she couldn’t turn on video or send a photo to give him an idea of what she looked like, because no way was she sending a photo of her bra-less, sleep-headed self, wrapped in one of Mordecai’s robes, to some poor random guy.

Then there was breakfast.

Mordecai offered to make food, which was the biggest surprise of the morning so far. She’d imagined he would have a personal chef or ordered all his food in or just glared evilly at the kitchen counter until the universe got so scared it made food magically appear there. But no. Apparently, he cooked.

He headed to the kitchen; she headed straight for the shower. The en suite was less intimidatingly huge and glaring white than it had seemed in her cat form, but it was still as grimly bland as the rest of the apartment. Even the shower pressure was absolutely unexceptional.

What is the point of being so rich if you can’t even scald yourself alive under a pressure hose?

Her hair was a mess, and she briefly regretted not asking Mordecai’s shopper to pick her up some product. Mordecai’s bathroom cabinet was stocked, but with the sort of expensive stuff that barely had labels. No way was she going to risk her curls with any of those.

She stood and rotated under the water until it became clear that showering wasn’t going to help her thoughts become any clearer, then wrapped herself in one of Mordecai’s robes—colorless, austere, possibly stolen from some sort of ascetic monastery that specialized in not-quite-soft-enough linen—and headed for the kitchen.

Mordecai’s eyes went inky black when he saw her.

“Did you find everything you needed?” There was a rich burr beneath the polite question that made her shiver with delight.

“Yeah. Just waiting on the clothes, now.”

“So I see.” He made a vague gesture as though he meant to get back to what he was doing, but his eyes stayed fixed on her.

She rocked back on her heels, inordinately pleased. “Oh. Am I doing this wrong? You wanted me to wait for my clothes to arrive, not borrow one of your robes?” She slid the linen robe down over her shoulders.

Color lashed across Mordecai’s face. For one moment, hunger filled his eyes. “If you do that, I have serious concerns about whether we’ll ever make it through breakfast.” His eyes flicked to the food he was preparing. “Perhaps that would be a good thing.”

They both stared at the counter.

“Uh,” Peony said after a minute. “What is this I’m looking at, here?”

“A nutritionally balanced meal.”

Peony’s cat woke up enough to sniff suspiciously at the packets next to the blender.That isn’t food,it complained.It’s dirt.

“Balanced between what?” she blurted out. “Blandness and boredom?”

“Precisely.” His voice was dry. She looked at him, surprised, and found a spark of humor in his eyes. “I’m a busy man. I don’t have time to worry about what I eat.” He sighed. “But this isn’t good enough for you.”

“Oh, no, I can cope with a… a nutritionally balanced smoothie.” She sucked in her lips. “This is all going to be a smoothie, right? We’re not going to snort the protein powder straight off the counter?”

He made a frustrated noise. “Oat milk or almond?”

“Which would be more nutritionally efficient?” Her stomach growled, and she put her hand over it. “I’m not kidding. I’mstarving. I will literally hoover that calorie-dust off the ground if you don’t get it in a glass for me soon.”

“That’s not surprising. You barely ate yesterday, and you shifted for the first time. It takes a lot of energy.” He looked away from her, and his mouth twisted. “I’ll offer you something better next time.”

She blinked. He sounded almost… ashamed?

Mordecai Leith? Evil necromancer, sexy asshole, destroyer of bookstores? Ashamed?

No. I must have got that wrong.

“As a matter of fact, I ate plenty yesterday. Mostly cheese and those tiny sausages on sticks.”And one massive saus— No. Stop. Not appropriate over breakfast.

The smoothie he made was nutritionally dense and an efficient way to ingest calories. It took one minute to make, and two for them each to drain their glasses.

Afterwards, they both stared at the empty tumblers.

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