Page 126 of Love Me

While I smile at you, Grandmother, Mia just snuck out of your window with a set of your pearls.

Grandmother stands up. “I’m tired.”

With that, we’re dismissed. When we’re at a safe distance, I stop the car and open the trunk.

“You don’t even like pearls.”

“I do now.”

“Whatever.”

Mia’s playing with the necklace when she asks, “Have you ever been inside her room?”

“Only once and I don’t remember much.”

“It’s like a mausoleum. Pictures of your mother everywhere.”

“Must be the guilt.” But it could also be grief. I’d rather take that than her daring to mourn the daughter she might have killed. That’s pouring alcohol on a festering wound.

“I didn’t see guilt. I saw grief,” she says.

“While you were in there did you see Kaden’s necklace? Like mine, but without the stones?”

“I know you want it back, but that would have been too obvious.”

“You stole her damn pearls. You’re sorely mistaken if you think she doesn’t keep track of every set.”

Mia shrugs. “Good luck proving that. And don’t worry about Kaden’s necklace. We’ll get it back,” she says, smiling at me in reassurance.

I arch a brow. “So… Blake?”

She folds her arms across her chest and looks outside the window. “He’s a damn fortress. Unconquerable.”

“You like him.”

“He intrigues me.”

“He’s not book-boyfriend material.”

“You do not know the book boyfriends I’m into.” Her cheeks redden. “By the way, I heard the conversation at dinner. You did good.”

“I hated it.”

“Well, you can fuck him behind our backs tonight.”

I groan and she goes on. “Kaden came in, full of sunshine. You appeared a few minutes later, looking freshly fucked. Without the Abi situation, we would have called you out on your bullshit.”

“You like them.”

“We have a lot in common.”

“I’m worried about Abi.”

“She’s tough, but whatever she went through… I have never seen that level of fear and panic on someone before. She was terrified.”

Kaden hasn’t even scratched the surface of telling me what exactly he went through. I am sure Abi went through the same. So why doesn’t Blake have the same fear?

“I have something to do,” I tell Mia when I bring her home.

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