Page 52 of Her Purr-fect Christmas Mate

No wonder Mordecai’s place is so empty,Peony thought, wide-eyed as she took in his grandmother’s living space.If this is where he grew up.

The apartment was dim and cramped with old, heavy furniture. Every available surface was crammed with mementoes: photo frames showing smiling people with Mordecai’s eyes or jaw or nose, colored and black-and-white. There was even a wedding photo that must have been his grandmother’s.

But no pictures of him. Nothing from the last thirty years.

Her heart burned with rage and hurt for him.

“Well. Congratulations to you both. I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.” Mrs. Leith’s eyes passed through Peony briefly again as though she wasn’t there, then fixed on her grandson again. “I hope you’re not expecting a meal. It isn’t Christmas yet. Another year gone. Another year closer to the grave, and that place is still there, mocking me. How many more years until—”

“The current owners signed over the title to me yesterday.”

Grandmother went completely still. The stillness of a predator who’s just sighted its prey. Except… not quite. “Good. Good! At last. How shall we celebrate? The 1928 Krug. Or… after so long… we could go… No. Not tonight. Tomorrow, maybe. Tonight… the champagne. Mordecai, you do the honors.”

She waved Mordecai ahead of her, towards a crypt-like drinks cabinet half hidden among the other furniture. He stalked off, obediently cryptkeeper-like, leaving Peony staring.

But not at him.

Well, notonlyat him.

She doesn’t want to go back to the Hypatia. Even to destroy it. All that hatred, and she’s… afraid?

Mordecai filled three flutes with gently bubbling wine and handed one to his grandmother, then one to Peony. She accepted it with a brief glare, to remind him that he was meant to be shoving the papers at his grandmother and getting the hell out of here, not punishing himself by extending their stay. Or whatever it was he was doing.

He raised his glass. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” Peony made sure his grandmother wasn’t watching, and glared some more. His lips twitched.

Mrs. Leith snorted. “Merry Christmas indeed. How did you manage it, Mordecai? Finding your mate and taking back the Hypatia in the same week?”

“A great deal of scheming. And a great deal of blind luck.” Mordecai’s eyes flickered to Peony’s, and she was struck by equal parts appreciation for his eyes and suspicion of them. “Peony works for the bookstore in the lower floors of the building.”

“The—” Grandmother’s eyes flared. “It’s still there? Of course. Of course they ruined everything else and keptthat. The bastards. Well, you’re part of the family now, aren’t you? Mordecai’s mate.” Her voice wasn’t just venomous, it was death itself. And anger. Old, old anger. “Our dreams, ourvengeance, is yours. Together, we will watch the Hypatia crumble into dust. Everything those treacherous vipers took from me. I’ll snatch it out from under them. Let them see their life’s work destroyed like it means nothing. I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces—”

“The Hypatia isn’t going to be destroyed.”

What?

Mordecai’s voice was calm. His mind, though—his mind kept almost brushing up against hers. It reminded her of her senior prom. The guy who’d invited her had been so nervous about being her date that he’d neveractuallytouched her. Not even for photos. His hand had always hovered an excruciating inch and a half away from her. No matter that she was up for some touching. She’d been very determined about sorting the frogs from the princes as efficiently as possible back then.

But every time she’d tried to close the gap between them, he’d shimmied away like a sweaty mirage. Later, he’d admitted he was afraid that if he did, she would be so repelled that she would ditch him so fast it broke the sound barrier.

Was that why Mordecai never touched her?

Was heafraid?

How could he be afraid that I would leave HIM?She was a cat shifter, and he was—well, she had her suspicions what he was. He’d dropped a few hints, on purpose or not. Something big. Something that could fly. Something that had a grandmother who looked like she was half a second from breathing fire.

Whatever he was, he was strong and ferocious and rich and handsome, and she was…

“What do you mean, the Hypatia isn’t going to be destroyed?” Mrs. Leith’s acid tones seared through her distraction. “This is what we’ve been working towards for years! Decades of my life! Now that it’s finally ours—”

“It’s not ours. It’s Peony’s.”

“What?”

For a moment, Peony was back in the bookstore during his speech. Had that only been two nights ago? But instead of staring at him from across the room as he tore her life apart, she was next to him, the backs of their hands touching.

And he was giving her everything she’d never dared ask him for.

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