Page 46 of Merciless Sinner

“You are. And the most academic of them all,” she replies in a hearty voice. “I’m the one who lagged behind because I was off partying with all the boys. Especially in college. Andnow.”

A saucy look enters her eyes, and she giggles.

I laugh, too, and it feels so good. “Partying is not a bad thing.”

“No. A least it sounds like you haven’t forgotten how to have fun.”

Fun. I wish I could agree with her, but I can’t. I actually don’t know what fun feels like.

“Did I go crazy at parties?”

She laughs harder, making me think I did until she shakes her head.

“Nope, you weren’t the crazy type at all. You’d be the responsible person at every party and the girl who would never have one too many or hook up with anyone. But you liked parties enough. They were breaks for you.”

“Oh, good.” It’s nice to hear that I wasn’t just a bookworm.

Amelia grabs a handful of the peanut M&M’s Eden brought out for us to eat and shoves the whole thing into her mouth. “Sorry, I have a massive sweet tooth, and these are my favorites.”

“I like those, too.”

“Oh my God, that reminds me. I get to tell you that joke we’ve had going for years, but it will be like the first time you’ve heard it.”

I’m already laughing. “What joke?”

“About Spencer Wainwright.” She straightens. “We went to high school with him, and we ran into him on a girls’ trip to Florida.”

A girls’ trip to Florida sounds great. “What happened?”

“Back in high school, he wanted to set up his own chocolate business that would rival and M&M.” Her face becomes animated, making me laugh even more. “He swore he was going to do it. Everyone believed him because he was one of those assholes who thought they own the world.”

“Did he do it?”

“No.” She tries to suppress a bout of laughter. “We ran into him on the beach selling honey roasted chicken feet.”

On hearing that, laughter pours out of me like air. “What? Honey roasted chicken feet? Whoever heard of such a thing?”

“Him, only him. He gave up on the chocolate dream and found a new calling. I didn’t know what was funnier, him with his chicken feet stall or you feeling so sorry for him you bought some.”

I laugh even more. “I didn’t. No way.”

“You did.”

“Oh my God.”

The two of us continue laughing so hard we’re in tears. I’ve never laughed this much before, and I can just imagine how we must have laughed when it happened.

“You just have a heart of gold,” Amelia says, her words barely forming over the laughter that takes her. “It’s a good quality, but damn, honey roasted chicken feet?”

“That is so crazy.”

“It definitely is.”

Our laughter subsides, but then I feel eyes on me. Intense eyes burning into me with desire, power, possession. Only one person looks at me like that.

I look to my left and spot Virgo standing on the third floor balcony watching me. Watching us—Amelia and me.

She notices him, too, and instantly schools herself as a look of caution enters her eyes.

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