“Forever, Kai.” Her blue eyes darken, and I can’t quite tell if she’s sad or happy or hopeful. “Let’s stay gone forever.”
Chapter 71
Haven
My nose twitches at the stink of burning meat wafting through the air. Arms crossed, I lean my side against the white marble countertop, waiting for Kai to realize I’m in the kitchen with him.
Apparently, he’s too preoccupied.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he mutters, his arm whiplashing back when he tries to lift the edge of a rib eye from the pan with his fingers.
The smoke detector blares as another column of gray smoke carries the cow’s soul to heaven.
“Need a hand?”
Kai twists to look at me, rolls his eyes, and goes back to staring at the pan. “I think I burned it.”
“Think?” I step closer, peering down into the pan at the blackened piece of meat inside. “Oh, babe, that’s not burned.”
“Yeah?” He jiggles the pan, trying to get the meat to slide around, but it just sits there, fused to the scalding hot surface.
“It’s a sacrificial offering to the God of Takeout.”
He groans as he picks up the pan and heads over to the basin, letting it fall inside with a heavythunk. “Well, dinner’s ruined.”
I wave a hand at the mess he’s made of the counter. “Your kitchen, too. This place had better come with a maid, because I’m not cleaning that up.”
He turns the knob, the blue flame on the range winking out. “Fuck it. Takeout it is. There’s a pizza place up the road?—“
His green eyes widen when he sees me limping up to him, then close into wary slits when I clap my hand over his mouth.
“You’re overcomplicating this,” I murmur, smiling as I peel away my fingers from his lips.
“I wanted it to be?—”
My hand is on his mouth again. “Special? Perfect?Domestic?We don’t need that crap.”
I can feel his eyes on me as I go into the pantry and grab some spaghetti. There’s an unopened bottle of ketchup on the shelf that I bring with me. He looks at the ingredients in my hands, and then shrugs.
“Fuck it. Why not?”
He fills a big pasta pot with water from the faucet above the range, then nods his head to the cellar door. “Can’t have pasta without wine.”
“Ooh, fancy. Red or white?”
“Dealer’s choice,” Kai calls after me as I open the door leading down into the wine cellar.
I pause at the top of the spiral staircase, waiting for the lights to flicker on below.
Any last doubt of the Jordans’s wealth evaporated the instant their beach house came into view.
Not only is itright on the beach,it has six bedrooms, all en-suite, two powder rooms, two living areas, a gigantic twelve-seat dining room table, three fireplaces…the list is as endless as the wine cellar.
All it took was Kai making a call, and by the time we got here, the fridge was stocked and the heating turned on. Vases brimming with fresh flowers stood in almost every room, and there was a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket waiting on the kitchen counter.
Knowing he’d been living like this when I’d been sleeping in the backseat of a car made me so jealous I felt ill.
Until I saw the ocean.
