My eyes got big.
Then I busted out laughing.
I pushed up, and through my hilarity, said, “Oh please, tell me you’re serious.”
“I was emotional at the time, Vivienne. It wasn’t my finest hour.”
“Oh, you are so wrong, my overprotective duke, it soooooooo was. Seriously? The whole hog?”
“It was very costly,” he muttered.
“Did he press charges?”
“No, considering they told him it would keep happening if he uttered a fucking word.”
“They?”
“I sent three.”
This just got better and better.
“Did they all…?” I let that trail off.
“I didn’t ask for specifics. Just confirmation it was done.”
“Oh my God, this is magnificent.”
He rolled on top of me and warned, “Chassie and Prue don’t know.”
I pretended to lock my lips with a key, then said, “Let me guess, it was Tempie’s idea.”
“No. But she sanctioned it.”
“I bet she did,” I mumbled. Man, I dug that woman. “This is priceless. I love it.”
“It doesn’t erase what was done to my sister.”
That made me pull my shit together and soothe him with my hands.
Oh yeah, that muscled back was amazing.
“No, honey,” I agreed. “But even if she was his first crime, she might not have been his last. But I bet that made it so it was.”
“Well, since they told him it would happen to him again if he did it to someone else, and they’d be paying attention, I would reckon so.”
“Have you been watching?”
“He hasn’t even been out on a date.”
I tried not to smile.
I failed.
He watched me and noted, “You’re rather bloodthirsty.”
“I’m actually all about rehabilitation and establishing hearty social programs to alleviate conditions that would lead to disenfranchisement, such as after-school activities, paying for school lunches, increasing minimum wage, redistribution of wealth through taxes?—”
I didn’t finish because he groaned.
