“I’m telling you now.”
“Are you?” She tilts her head, that wicked spark waking in her eyes. “Or are you just…thinking about it?”
I step in close enough that the counter hits my hips. Her chin tips up; I can feel the heat pouring off her even through the cool room.
“You really don’t know when to stop, do you?”
“Make me stop, then.” She doesn’t blink.
Something snaps in half inside me.
I lean in, my voice a rasp. “I don’t fuck little girls.”
The color rises up her throat; she still smiles. “Good thing I’m not.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” I straighten and put the bottle down, slow and controlled. “You want the truth? You are chaos. I don’t invite chaos into my bed. Or my life.”
“Ah.” She nods like she’s just solved a murder. “So that’s what’s stopping you. A line you pretend is real.” She drags the cloth along the kitten’s back slowly. “You could cross it.”
“I won’t.”
She looks almost pleased, like my refusal is proof of some private theory. “Because you can’t.”
“Because I don’t,” I snap. Then, before she can turn that into something else, I add, “Keep the cat out of my office. And my rooms.”
Her blinks. “So…she can stay.”
“She can stay, preferably somewhere I’m not.”
Her smile turns bright, victorious in a way that puts heat under my skin. “Deal.”
I should take the win and leave. I don’t move. She brushes a smear of dirt off the kitten’s nose and whispers something I can’t hear. The small, miserable thing tucks itself under her palm like it trusts her with its life.
Of course it does.
“Can I take her to a vet?” she asks without looking at me. “Shots. Checkup. Whatever she needs.”
“No.”
Her head jerks up. “Why not?”
“Because you don’t leave the Castello without me.” I hold her gaze. “I’ll take you later.”
She gapes. “You’ll?—”
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
The smile she fights drops, then returns, smaller and less smug. “Okay.”
I push off the counter and turn away before I do something I can’t take back. “Clean the counter when you’re done. Keep her out of the staff’s way.”
“She has a name.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will,” she sings under her breath.
I pause in the doorway. “Keep her claws off the leather chairs. If she scratches anything in this house, I’ll mount her to the wall.”
