Page 118 of The Piece You Stole

CHAPTER 28

SAIGE

I’m sitting in Kade’s lap at the dining table, trying and failing to convince him he doesn’t need to keep feeding me because my hands have healed enough that I don’t need bandages on them anymore.

When Sam suddenly appears in the doorway, dressed in a sleeveless khaki dress and black sandals, her long dark hair in pigtails, clutching a bouquet of yellow roses, heat sweeps my cheeks, and I surge to my feet, only for Kade to drag me back into his lap.

“Oh, don’t get up on my account. If only I could be so lucky to have a guy feed me breakfast.” She grins.

I hadn’t expected to see her again after our few hours of working together at Cerberus. But since the club must still be a destroyed mess after Kade and Nathan fought each other, she’s out of a job for at least the next little while.

Because I didn’t hear her knock on the door, and Aden is sitting on the kitchen counter with a mug of coffee, I can only assume that Dariel must have seen her on the cameras that Kade has hooked up around the house and opened the door before she had to knock.

Kade’s hand tightens around my hip. When his gray eyes flash with humor, alarm bells start ringing in my head. “It isn’t eggs she prefers, but my—”

I clap my hand over his mouth.Hard. It makes my palms sting, but the alternative is much, much worse.

Aden chokes on his coffee, coughing and laughing so hard I glance at him in concern. Sam’s peal of laughter rings out, as Kade tugs my hand away from his mouth, dips his head, and kisses me hard on the lips before lifting me off his lap.

“Sam,” he says with a low growl in his voice, smokey gray eyes still locked on me. “Show Saige the garden, but I want her back on my lap in ten minutes.”

Suddenly, seeing the garden is the last thing I want. Crawling back into Kade’s lap and having him feed me things seems like a much more fun way to spend the morning. From the smile curving his lips, he seems to know exactly what I’m thinking.

But with Sam probably eyeing me and Kade and wondering whenthathappened, I force myself to turn away from temptation.

After I broke down and sobbed myself to sleep, I’d expected he would treat me differently. I thought I would treathimdifferently since he was the one who pushed me to talk. But he wasn’t trying to hurt me. I don’t know how I can be sure of that, but I am, so it feels wrong to be angry at him when I’ve slept better these last couple of nights than I have since I woke up in the hospital.

“Dariel is wandering around out there,” Aden adds as if it’s an afterthought as I cross over to Sam, waiting for me in the doorway. “So it’s safe.”

I turn to smile at him. “Thanks, Aden.”

He smiles back, and as always, when he does, it always makes me want to trust him.

I still don’t know if I can, but I intend to try. Iwantto try.

“I feed her breakfast and you’re the one who gets the thanks,” Kade snorts.

Shit, he’s right.

I’m already apologizing as I turn when Aden shakes his head. “Don’t humor him, Saige. He’s like a child. Just eats up any attention you give him and demands more.”

When I peer over my shoulder, Kade has his fork in his hand and a dark grin pointed right at me. He winks. “Nine minutes.”

Hiding a smile, I follow Sam out of the kitchen, through the entryway, and out into the backyard. A place that’s as safe as it can be with Rylan still somewhere out there.

I don’t know if he’s discovered where I am, but as someone with connections to attorneys who can get you off for murder, and likely other things as well, it’s only a matter of time before Rylan comes after me.

* * *

“Nothing was going on between us.” Sam darts me a glance before she looks away again, her attention on a violet, spiky plant. “Kade and me. Sometimes he’d flirt a little. That’s all.”

“You say that like we’re dating or something.” I eye the bunch of roses she handed me on our way outside before lowering my head to sniff their sweet fragrance. They’re beautiful, almost as beautiful as this wild garden that makes me feel like I’ve stepped into a fairytale.

Considering I’ve barely known Sam for a week, for her to have thought of me enough to buy me flowers and come to visit me makes me feel like I should say something more. But friends are…complicated. The last time I had a friend was so long ago I don’t know how to be a good one, or even if I can be. And what if I say something that makes her regret having come out of her way to see me?

Which reminds me, I need to ask Aden where we are.

“He kissed you,” Sam says.

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