Page 55 of The Love Destroyers

“Why, do you enjoy being bored?”

“Watching you, Emma Rosings Smith, would never be boring.”

And then he keeps walking, as if he didn’t just metaphorically pull the rug out from under me and leave me reeling.

I follow him to my own bedroom, self-conscious without fully understanding why. Only knowing that this man has a rare power to unmoor me.

When we get to the room, he falls back, as if giving me permission to be the first to enter my own childhood bedroom. I walk past him, and he speaks in my ear, his voice pitched just for me, as if there were any chance my mother would hear him in this enormous house. “Do you have a princess bed? Pink sheets?”

“Please,” I say with a snort. “I never did.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t. Were you a goth girl? Black eye shadow and sheets to match?”

“I wasmyself.” I turn toward him, meeting his eyes. “How about you? Did you have a racing car bed until you were a teenager?”

He gives me an easy smile. “Of course. It was a hatchback.”

I push his chest, grinning. “Are you ever serious about anything?”

“Yes,” he says, then turns toward the door. “Let’s see the kitten. But I’m warning you now, if you put a bow on her, it’s coming off.”

“Oh, so you’ve admitted she’s a girl.”

“I know better than to stand against you.”

He keeps saying things like that. I don’t know if he realizes how much I need to hear to them. How much I long to believe I’m still the strong woman I always wanted to be. Even if I don’t feel like her anymore.

I open the door and step inside, my throat tight with emotion. Shadow scurries over, and anxiety thrums inside of mefor a second—what if she gets lost in the house?—but she goes directly to him, circling his legs and then rubbing herself against his pants.

I get it. But don’t be stupid about him. He’ll find somewhere else to be.

But he laughs and gets down to give her a rub and then pick her up. I watch, frankly speechless, as he steps into my bedroom and shuts the door behind him, the kitten cradled in his arms.

“Well, well,” he says, taking a look at the space. The bed is as it was when I was eighteen—four poster, with a thick golden comforter and purple sheets. But I’ve done away with the study area, tucked next to the bathroom, and transformed it into a sitting area with a deep purple love seat with brass rivets and wooden feet. A flat-screen TV is mounted on the wall across from it, and there’s a small glass coffee table in front of the couch. There’s a soft carpet underfoot—a beautiful creamy color that is probably going to be absolutely devastated by Shadow’s soft black fur and claws.

I shrug. “It’s the first space I updated in the house. I wanted it to be comfortable. When I lived here, the only thing I could think about was getting out.”

“Yes, it must have been torture to live in this palace, with your own bathroom and television.”

“All I ever wanted was to be independent.”

Of course that’s when he spots the leash lying on the coffee table.

“You’ve got our cat on a leash?” he asks, his lips tipping up on one side.

“I want her to be independent, too,” I say with a shrug. “But not so independent that she disappears back into the wall.”

Giving me a smoldering look, he says, “No one would find a home with you and choose to climb back into a wall. No leash.”

I’m still reeling from it when he lowers onto the loveseat, sprawling out in the way men do, as if their dick requires at least a foot of space to exist between their legs. He lets the kitten wander on top of him, and she circles and then kneads his leg with her feet before settling in a little circle on his lap.

My heart feels something. I can’t help it.

Seamus watches me as I take the leash and throw it into the trash can.

“Good girl,” he says with a smirk.

I give him the finger. Part of me wants to sit next to him, but my body feels too revved up for me to risk it. So I stand while he sits, studying me.

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