Page 62 of The Beauty's Beast
“Good.” I sat down at the table instead of going to the dog bed, getting comfortable so I could watch him cook. “Carry on.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “So demanding,” he said, but he got the pan out from the cabinet anyway. “Do you like sushi?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I figured you didn’t or something.”
“We should get it sometime.” He looked at me, still with that careful look on his features. “Together.”
I froze, staring at him. Did he mean…
“I mean, if you want to.”
I hadn’t left the house since I’d returned, and the idea of it was a little frightening. What if someone recognized me? I’d never given an explanation for the first time I’d vanished, and the second…
They’d probably never think the note I’d left was sufficient.
“I think I’d like that,” I said.
Every time I thought things had changed as much as they were going to, they caught me off guard again.
“I know this really good place,” he said, still watching me as though he thought I was going to refuse or panic or… whatever he thought.
“Then yeah. We should do it. But not tonight,” I told him. “Tonight, you’re fixing me tuna, and you’re going to feed it to me.”
He smiled at me, slow and relieved. “Good.”
I settled back in the chair, trying to come to terms with the idea of going into public with him. What if I saw someone I knew? They’d have so many questions for me, and they’d never understand why I’d disappear to be with him.
They didn’t know him like I did, and they never would.
Maybe I shouldn’t have completely vanished, but I knew they’d never stop asking me what had happened, why I was there, what I was doing. They’d want to know everything, and there were so many questions I was never going to be able to answer.
I didn’t even want to try. This was my life — truly my life — and it didn’t belong to anyone but me.
It belonged to him, too, to the man who had stolen me away from my old life and given me a new one.
The two of us had everything we needed — me, Toby, and him, Griffin Meyers.
And both of us left our old lives behind for each other.
Together, we would move forward.
Together.
THE END OF
THE BEAUTY’S BEAST
