Page 31 of Cruel Revenge

“You’re not going to kill me.” I lean forward and look at the books on her coffee table.

Most of them are about old architecture, but there are a couple of names of clothing designers on the spines as well.

I take her in, slowly. “You know, if you wanted to be a model, you could.”

She scrapes her hair back into a messy bun at the base of her neck, tendrils of hair falling around her face. “I’m not going to do that. I like what I do.”

“A criminal after my own heart.”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Skyla, it’s that she’s far easier to deal with when she’s in a good mood. If that means dancing back and forth, teasing and taunting her until she can’t help but smile, then that’s what I’m going to do.

“I think we need to think about moving in together today. I have a meeting with Grady in a couple of days, and I’m sure by then, he’s going to have someone watching me, if he doesn’t already.”

“And you think this is the only way he’s going to believe we’re together? What if we just rotate between whose house we stay at?”

“Why don’t you want to move in with me?” I get comfortable on her couch, leaning back into the cushions and kicking my feet up on the wooden coffee table. “I think I’m a joy to live with, and you liked my cooking well enough the last time.”

Playing nice with her isn’t always the way to deal with Skyla, but right now it is. If this partnership is going to work—if she’s not going to make my life hell with Grady—then I need to give her room to feel like she’s the one in control.

Even when she’s not.

She sighs and strides over to me, dropping down to the couch. “I spent most of my life living with my siblings. My dad died when most of them were still little. I had to step in and be the mother because mine was gone too. I’ve spent too much time living with other people. And for other people.”

“It’s only temporary, and I travel a lot for work. You don’t have to worry about losing your independence.”

Her feet rest on the edge of the table. “I’m going to lose some of it. There’s no way around that.”

“How so?”

“You live with another person and suddenly you have to answer to them. They want to know when you’re leaving and when youplan on being home. They want to do things with you and spend time with you when all you want to do is be alone.”

Everything about her is tense when she speaks. There’s a hardness to her voice and a touch of disgust, like having to answer to another person gets in the way of how she lives her life.

Like she wants everything I have to offer—drugs and help with the war—without giving anything in return.

She gets up and goes back to the front hall, pulling her heels back on and scooping up her keys from the bowl.

I get up and follow her, hurrying to get in front of her and standing in the way of the door. “You don’t get to just run away because we have a disagreement.”

“I’m not running away. I have things that I need to get done, and you think it’s better to sit here and have a conversation about our living situation. You stated your opinion, I stated mine. We’re at an impasse, so sounds like we’ll get nowhere soon, and I need to get back to all the other things I have to do.”

“You’re always so pleasant.” I open the door for her before stepping into my own shoes and following her out.

Skyla gives me an icy glare over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“I have nothing else to do today, and I would like to see how my wife’s business runs.”

“How is it that you deal in billions of dollars, but you have nothing to do?”

“Andrew runs things for me. He’s overseas right now, meeting with an importer.”

“Who the hell is Andrew?”

“You’ll meet him later, but chances are he would try to steal you from me, and we can’t have that.” I smirk and jog past her to her car, opening the door for her.

She glowers at me before sliding in.

I shut the door and rush around the back of the car, preventing her from throwing it in reverse and leaving. I’m banking on her not having the time to clean blood off her bumper today.

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