Page 97 of Shades of Grey & Gold

This is what she always says.

Tell me when I need to know something.Nottell me everything, notdon’t keep secrets, because she understands the shape of this life better now than she lets on. She just wants the things that matter.

And the guilt settles in my gut.

Because I didn’t tell her about the plan the Volkovs had to take her today.

But I was protecting her. Right?

“You need to know—” I swallow, but continue carefully, “that I’m handling something. And it will be handled soon. And until it is, your route to school might look a little different.”

She looks at me with confusion laced with concern. “Different how?”

“Different car. Different times. Nothing that will make you late.”

A pause. She reads my face.

“Okay.” She makes it sound nonchalant, but I can see the gears in her beautiful mind turning.

“That’s it? Okay?”

“You said you’re handling it.” She holds my eyes. “I believe you. Do I want to ask questions? Sure, you know that’s how I’m built. But I trust you. I believe you.”

I look at her for a moment that I will remember—the kitchen, the light, her face, the absolute straightforward trust of those words—and I file it in the place I keep the things I refuse to lose.

“Thank you,” I breathe the words into the space between us.

“Now.” She turns back toward the cabinet. “You said twenty minutes and I believe that too, so let’s go, chef, get to it.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Max

Calentersacodeat his mother’s door, and we step into the foyer.

“Hello?” Cal calls through the small space as we step into the open living area attached to the kitchen.

“In here!” Sophia comes into view, sitting sideways in a big, round black and white chair with a sizable pink book propped on her legs.

She looks up, her dark brown hair up in a messy bun and her feet dangling off the side of the oversized chair.

Across the kitchen, Maggie is drying a glass.

“It’s so weird watching you just walk in here every day,” Sophia, the youngest sister, who I learned when she joined us at the bar the other night is twenty-three, puts a bookmark in the page of her romance-looking novel while peering up at Cal. “Like you’re just… around now.”

“He is around now, Sophia, and if you keep being rude it’ll be even shorter than last time,” Maggie rolls her eyes at her little sister. “Plus, he brought Max,” Maggie wiggles her eyebrows at me. “Does that mean you’re allowing us to hang out with her, Cal? Or are you going to lock her in the basement until you’re done with your meetings or plotting or whatever it is you do all day?”

Cal forces out a sarcastic laugh. “Ha ha. She is welcome to do whatever she likes.” His eyes look over me. “I shouldn’t be too long today, maybe we can plan for a late lunch? Unless these two scare you off before then.”

A smile slides my lips apart. “I think I can probably survive till lunch, but dinnertime might be pushing the limits.”

“Oh, if you leave her here that long, she’ll have her hair permed, making lobster ravs with Mom in the kitchen in matching aprons and five-inch stilettos,” Maggie cackles as she finishes the sentence.

“With Frank Sinatra playing on repeat!” Sophia tosses the words into the air with her head thrown back in laughter against the armrest of the chair.

I’m grinning, leaning close to Cal’s ear to whisper, “What are ‘lobster ravs’?”

I can tell he’s trying not to smile as his lips roll together, meeting my eyes. “Lobster ravioli, and I will be back by one—can’t risk your hair, but wouldn’t mind the ravs.”