Page 27 of Goldie and Her Bears (Dirty Paranormal Fairytale Haremlan 3)

He growled. “And you seem to have a habit of lying. I wonder why that is.”

“You tell me,” I said, gesturing toward him. “You’re the one who apparently has all the answers. What’s the point of me wasting my breath if you’re just going to assume everything that leaves my mouth is a lie?”

“I’m giving you the opportunity to come clean and prove me right?” he asked. “But I can tell that you are sticking to your lies. The second you are able you will leave here and never come back. Or so help me, you will regret breaking and entering my home. Got that? And leave Jasper and Chase out of this. They don’t deserve your filth.”

With each word he said, his voice grew louder until the walls shook. He stood from his chair, face red and hands clenched at his sides. His eyes were filled with rage, and I tried to scoot myself closer to the wall.

I sucked in a breath as I saw how unchecked his anger was and wished I hadn’t poked the proverbial bear. This time, no one was here to stop him from ripping me to shreds. I sucked in a breath and closed my eyes against Kai’s berating.

12

CHASE

Kai was in an unusual mood. I had rarely seen him in such a state before. He stormed into the kitchen with enough fish to feed an army, all the while whistling. Once he dumped the fish into the sink, he faced me and smiled. “Tonight, we feast!”

“Why?” I asked as I stared at the sheer amount of fish filling my freshly cleaned sinks. My intuition flared. This wasn’t something Kai did in the history of ever.

“Do I need a reason?” he asked.

I wasn’t an idiot. Regardless of how stupid he was playing. I leveled my gaze on him. “You’ve got another thing coming if you honestly want me to believe you had done all of this purely out of the kindness of your heart.”

“Well, like it or not. I did,” he said, still keeping his smile.

I narrowed my gaze on him. “I’m not buying it.”

“Why?” he asked, seemingly wounded.

“Because I know you better than you think I do,” I said. “You have never done this. Ever. Something brought this on, and I want to know what that is.”

“You worry too much,” he said.

I shook my head. “Nope. Still not buying it.”

“I only want to make a great meal,” he said, slathering on another smile.

“By you, you really mean me?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I’ll help.”

“No hidden agenda?” I asked.

“Yes! Now can we get started?” he asked.

“There is no way, on this world or another, that I’m going to clean that fish. I’ll cook them, but I’m not going to clean them.” I crossed my arms over my chest, hoping that my insistence and resistance would finally break him. Obstinance was one of his triggers.

“Fine. Now let’s get to work!” Kai said as he reached into the drawer for my filleting knife.

I glared at him, but there was something to be said about his insistence. Maybe I was being overly paranoid. Maybe my intuition that something was up was simply because something happened to Kai and he was being unusually generous for once in his life.

With a sigh, I let it go and pulled out a couple of frying pans, some oil, and the necessary ingredients needed to make a fish fry. If it was a feast he wanted, I was going to do so in the simplest way I knew how.

An hour and a half later, I placed the finishing touches on a plate for Cassie and set it on a tray. I smiled to myself because I imagined the look on her face when she would see the plating. She appreciated the efforts I put into food and that only made me want to continue to impress her.

I gripped the tray and started to take it to her when Kai stopped me.

He held out his hands to take the tray. “I’ll take it to her.”

That feeling of him being up to something increased exponentially. I narrowed my eyes on him once again. “You truly expect me to believe that you have nothing up your sleeve?”

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