Page 86 of The Revenge Plan

He chuckled. His laugh reverberated against my cheek. “If your hand had strayed a little further up my thigh, you would have sensed the raging boner I had for you.”

My eyes widened. “Who would have thought. The ice king had a thing for me.”

“We all had a thing for you back then, Hailey. Now go to sleep.” His words made me feel even naughty. If he was spotting an erection back, then… I wonder if now—he swatted my hand away from his groin. “Sleep or I’ll banish you to the floor.”

I giggled and snuggled close to him. He pulled me even closer into his arms. We slept like that.

The following morning I woke up to an empty bed. His scent was still there, teasing my nostrils. It had been a while since I had slept so peacefully. I woke up with knots in my neck, probably from my position, but I also felt fully rested. I reached for my phone and checked the time. Fuck! I was late for work! Two hours late! I bolted out of the bed and rushed to the bathroom. I was about to open the bathroom door when I heard what sounded like arguments downstairs. Curious, I made my way there. In the kitchen were Julie and Caiden. I tried to make my presence known, but they were busy talking over each other.

Julie was standing behind Caiden, who was busy whipping something on the stove. “Can you at least have me make the breakfast, Mr. Scott? I want to do something for her.”

Without taking his gaze off the pot, he said, “No. I have to do this. I’m her husband.”

“But you’ve been cooking all this time!”

“She thinks it’s you.”

“You’ve been the one making my meals?” They both turned to face me. Julie’s face was filled with guilt. Caiden looked like he had been caught doing something illegal.

“Hailey.” Caiden’s spoon slipped from his grip. “You woke up.”

“You’ve been cooking for me the entire time.”

“It was not my decision,” Julie said, “He didn’t want you to know,” she clapped and opened her arms, “I don’t know why he didn’t want to, but I went along with it.”

Caiden stood transfixed, staring back at me. He glared until I was feeling a little self-conscious. Then a burning smell distracted me. I glanced past the two of them and saw smoke coming from the pot.

“It’s burning.”

“What?” he seemed to jolt out of a memory.

“The pot,” I pointed to the stove, “It’s burning.”

“Oh fuck,” Caiden said as he rushed to take it off the plate. He burned himself in the process. Julie rushed to do the same, and she too burned herself. By the time they had successfully got the pot off the plate, I was laughing hard.

“This is the first time in a looong time I’ve burned anything I must tell you,” he said.

“I believe you. I must go to work now.”

“Not today. They called to ask if you were doing okay and if you wanted a few days off,” he came to where I was standing and took my hand in his hands, “Your brother’s arrest is all over the news. There are reporters camped outside.”

“It was tough for me to get in,” Julie said.

“And you shouldn’t have since you were on your day off.”

“Miss Hailey was threatened with a gun. What was I supposed to do? Not come?”

“Thank you for coming, anyway.”

“So is it settled now? I’ll make breakfast?”

“Since I haven’t had your food in a while, I think it’s only fair.” She made a slight nod to Caiden as if to say, ‘I won this round’ which I thought was cute. She made the food while Caiden and I went to the living room. I noticed he hadn’t taken his hand out of mine. I didn’t mind. It felt good.

“I didn’t know she cared for me that much,” I said sitting down, “I actually thought she didn’t like me.”

Caiden sighed, “I don’t know when or how you gained the loyalty of my staff.”

I frowned. Caiden whipped out his phone, “This is Bailey,” he showed me a row of text messages, “He’s been calling me non-stop since the news came out. He wanted to know if you were doing alright and which jail your brother is being held. He wants to exert justice of his own.”

---