Page 52 of Hero for the Holidays

Which she could understand. After all the years of Fia and Landry being generally heinous to each other, him being here was akin to Satan appearing at the pearly gates.

“Landry King, everybody,” she said dryly. “He’s joining us for dinner.”

“Wow,”said Rory.

Quinn raced to the window and looked out through the lace curtain. “I’m sure if I stand here long enough I’m going to see a pig fly by.”

“Adorable,” Fia shouted, clapping. “Just adorable. Congrats to you.”

“Thank you,” said Quinn. “Ithought that it was adorable. But then, I’m invariably adorable.”

Rory grabbed her oven mitts and retrieved the pie. Landry looked at it and then back at Fia.

“Why didn’t you just say a galette was a topless pie?” said Landry.

“Because I thought it was more fun to keep you in suspense.”

Their eyes caught and held, and maybe it was the inbuilt innuendo that made the eye contact feel heavy. Or maybe it was just the two of them.

Because more of that angry debris had been cleared away, and every time there was another sweep of it, she felt oldfeelingsbubbling up beneath.

Old attractions.

She really did not need that. Because they were just now managing civility. She still felt on edge.

They didn’t need to introduce that drama. It shouldn’t really be surprising that being in proximity to him reminded her of all that chemistry. It shouldn’t be surprising the chemistry hadn’t gone away. They were hot together. They had beenmultiorgasmictogether even as fumbling kids.

Really, they’d never been fumbling.

Landry had always been a master of her body in ways that she still couldn’t quite understand.

But they were toxic. Through and through. And the last thing they needed was to introduce any toxicity into this environment. Not now. Not when they were doing this well.

“Well. Let’s eat,” she said.

They had a big bottle of sparkling water at the center of the table, which Alaina wrinkled her nose at and went to the fridge and got a can of diet soda.

Then they all served themselves generous helpings of galette. Followed by extra pie and cake for dessert. Because they were always more interested in dessert.

“This is amazing,” said Lila.

“Yes, it is,” said Landry, his eyes settling a little bit too heavy on Fia.

“Well, I never thought we would have a King at our table,” said Alaina.

“That makes it sound like he’s royalty,” said Lila.

“Oh, we know he’s not,” said Rory, sounding sharp.

Fia grinned, and so did Quinn. Toothy, and a bit threatening. It made her love them even more than she already did. Part of the reason she’d decided to place Lila with another family had been her need to take care of her sisters.

It warmed her to have them take care of her now.

Even if she knew she had to call them off. Because Landry was Lila’s father and they werebeing nice.

“Damn,” said Landry. “I didn’t realize I was in trouble here.”

“Just on the naughty step,” said Quinn. “Until you prove that you ought to be off of it.”

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