Page 73 of Bad Girl
It wasn’t until I placed the bags on the kitchen counter that a few things occurred to me. My arms were no longer weak—the bags that would have had me making two trips before Croatia barely registered now.
I wanted to see how someone like Conrí would react to my simple home, full of the knick-knacks and collected odds and ends of a life lived in small, deliberate increments.
I opened the bags, found the chilled items and began ferrying them to the fridge. Such a mundane task. One I’d done countless times at my parents’house and now here, in my own kitchen, in my own flat.
Today was different.
I had a wolf coming for tea.
I chuckled as I tucked the fresh parsley into the salad drawer.
An actual wolf.
I had absolutely no idea what he was going to do with his legs trying to eat dinner on the couch.
Bad Girl sniggered.
Chapter 35
Conrí
One must learn from their mistakes. This time I told no one about my date with Nika.
One must also proceed with caution when one’s brother resides on the same floor.
I pushed the handle down slowly, easing my door shut with the careful precision of a man who had lived with wolves his entire life and knew exactly how much sound carried. The latch clicked. I released the handle by degrees.
I was almost clear of the floor when Cuán’s door burst open.
“Why, good evening, dear brother. Where are you sneaking off to?”
“You’re not our mother,” I said, allowing my heels to find the marble floor properly.
“Yet they had to call me for an update,” he said, leaning on the doorframe with the ease of a man who considered his own curiosity entirely reasonable.
“Do you know why they didn’t call me?” I asked, pressing the button for the lift.
His bewildered look was entirely expected.
“Because they know how to respect my privacy.”
He waved his hand as if privacy were a concept invented specifically to inconvenience him.
The lift arrived. I stepped in as he opened his mouth.
“I can’t hear you. Bye,” I said, stabbing the button for the ground floor and letting the doors close on whatever he’d been about to say.
The ride down and the drive to Nika’s flat had me running through my list—everything I’d need to have in place should her heat arrive faster than she could anticipate. It also kept returning me, unhelpfully, to my favourite moment of the day.
My girl’s reaction to her colleague trying to insert herself into our proximity.
Natural. Immediate. Entirely unprompted.
We didn’t want anyone else’s scent between us.
Human or wolf.
“Oh, shit. We can’t go to dinner empty-handed,” I muttered.
