Page 73 of Bought

“Bad news,” he says.

“What?” I say back.

Reading my face, he figures he’s safe enough to put a hand on my shoulder. “You got a hundred on this test.”

I shrug him off. “Isn’t that supposed to be good?”

“Not if the thing you don’t do is Erin Croft. Because 100%” He locks eyes with me. “You are in over your head with that girl.”

Maybe I am. But I don’t give him the satisfaction of saying so.

Instead, I shift the subject. I nod toward the smaller, yet equally grand, home with cedar shakes. It’s located on the third lot atthe back of the property, hidden in the shadows of an overgrown garden. “Have you had any work done on the guest house?”

He ignores my question, turning the conversation to the reason we came out here to ruin our lungs in the first place. “What do you think about the Moretti Spaghetti mess the kid gave up at dinner?”

“I have no idea.”

I think a million things about it. There has to be an explanation. She didn’t even know who I was when she came to my apartment that night.

She might not know who the Morettis are or our connection to them. She’s foreign, technically, with no ties to the city, at least that she’s mentioned.

Hearing that last name come out of her nephew’s mouth, I was faced with how foolish it was to respond to that message from her, to see her again, to track her down at her apartment.

To invite her here.

“I don’t know what she’s doing with Bambi Moretti.” The confession is both relief and dread.

He knows how badly I want an explanation. We both understand there might not be one.

He nods. “You’d better find out. And quick.”

“I know,” I say. And I do. “I will.”

“Good,” he responds. One thing I love about Blaze is that he can go from joking around to battling a war in the blink of an eye. He does so now, his green eyes turning ice cold. “Lucian, no matter how cute that little kid might be, how desperate her sisteris, or how beautiful you find Erin, if they are tied up with those devils, then we’re going to need to find a way to use that to our advantage.”

I want to hit him. Hard. But I don’t.

Because he’s right.

About everything.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Erin

I’m terrified. How did I think we would get through this night without them discovering? As nervous as I was about this dinner, I wanted it to be a success.

I wanted to come here, meet his loved ones, and play happy family.

My desire betrayed me. My uterus betrayed me.

I’ve been thinking with my reproductive organs, my girlish daydreams of white dresses.

And I was the one who warned Cass that there are no happily ever afters for us.

I don’t know what to tell him.

I can’t come clean.