Page 112 of Feed Your Fiends

He shakes his head. “Not to whom it concerns.” He tosses the award into the box and heads for the bar for another shot.

Rie Rie picks it up carefully. “You should hang these in your new room.”

“I can’t. Not yet. The roof’s getting repaired. Today.”

“Today?” I ask. “How? I came here to offer you another investment—”

He throws up his hands. “I don’t know how you got more money, and I don’t want to get involved. Besides, it’s already paid for. Gant sent me a check by carrier pigeon with no explanation other than ‘roof’ scribbled on it.”

I gawk. “That’s it, he sends you a check and all is forgiven?”

“It’s not just a check.”

“Really? Because it sounds like he’s throwing money at the problem.”

“It’s his way of….”

“Apologizing?”

Hale shakes his head. “Everything Gant does is purposeful, calculated.”

Calculated…The scholarship to Beaulieu. Jarrett’s return. Luring me back into his arms. What’s next? I shiver at the thought.

“He’s already weighed the risk and the reward, already anticipated the consequences. The money is an amendment, not an apology, because he’s unrepentant even if it acknowledges it was wrong. The only person I think he’d ever apologise to would be his mother, even though he has nothing to be sorry about.” He eyes me. “And maybe he’s say it to the only person left on earth that he loves, and that’s not his father, Bart.”

I swallow the butterflies trying to escape my throat because Gant had told me sorry.Twice.

Elle

“It’s about time you got back,” Rin says, snatching the key card from me the second I step out of the lift, but of course, she doesn’t return it to its hiding place. Instead, she slips it into the pocket of her pyjama top as leverage. Not that it matters. “Gant will be home any minute.”

“You care about that far more than I do,” I say. Gant’s creeping around, too. How could he have the nerve to get mad at me for doing the same? For keeping secrets too.

Still, I don’t want to fight. Not with Gant or Rin. Not now.

My journey tonight drained me far more than just physically.

Gant had Jarett all along, and I don’t know how to feel about it.

He set him free just to trap me instead.

I’ll do anything to keep you.

How should I feel about that?

Terrified? Relieved?

Manipulated? Wanted?

Loved?

The lengths that man is willing to go to for me…And against me.

I slip off my boots with a wince and slide them into the precise position they’d been in when Gant must’ve left. Then, I ease off Gant’s heavy coat and hang it on the hook. I’m about to slip out of the foyer when I notice Rin fiddling with the sleeves, cuffing one, and pulling the sash at the waist so that it hangs unevenly.

“You’ve been that observant?” I ask in surprise.

“You have to be if you don’t want to get caught.”

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