Page 16 of Ruthless Claim

Right now, my singular focus is caffeine.

“Thank fuck,” I mutter as I find the espresso machine.

Rifling through the cabinets, I find a mug, and, after a few moments of deliberation, figure out how to work this goddamn thing.

Whatever happened to a regular coffee pot?

Who the fuck needs to drink cappuccinos or lattes or whatever the fuck else they’re called.

My phone buzzes with a message and I don’t even bother looking because I know it’s Connor.

The man does not sleep, or if he does it’s the light, watchful sleep of someone with a lot of enemies, which he has, because he’s spent forty years accumulating them.

Once I get my coffee, I glance at my phone.

Report at noon. We need to discuss Queens.

I type back a confirmation and put my phone face-down on the counter because I have maybe three hours before I need to be anywhere and I’m going to drink my damn coffee in peace.

I’m on my second cup when I hear the bedroom door.

Valentina appears in a silk robe over her pajamas, her dark hair tangled around her shoulders.

She stops when she sees me like she forgot I was going to be here, which is fair.

I forgot I was going to be here too, in the cosmic sense.

We stare at each other across the kitchen.

“Coffee?” I ask, because I can be civil when it serves no particular purpose to be otherwise.

“I can make my own coffee, thank you,” she says stiffly.

I shrug, settling myself in to watch the show. “Suit yourself.”

Valentina approaches the espresso machine, and I notice pretty quickly that she has absolutely no idea how to use this machine.

And I don’t mean unfamiliar-with-the-model no idea.

I mean never-stood-in-front-of-a-coffee-machine-in-her-life no idea, because it’s clear there’s always been someone else to handle it.

She’s staring at the machine like it’s a puzzle she has to figure out. Her face is perfectly composed because it’s obvious she would rather chew glass than let me see her struggle.

But I’ve been reading people for decades and it’s clear as day to me that she doesn’t know which button does what.

She closes her eyes briefly before she heads to the fridge and opens it.

Looking for milk, I assume.

She stands there for a moment staring into its depths, but then her mouth twitches.

It’s not quite a frown, but from her scrunched up nose she’s clearly found something beneath her princess standards.

“There’s no almond milk,” she announces to no one in particular.

I raise a brow. “Sorry?”

“Almond milk.” She turns to look at me like this is somehow my fault. “There’s none. There’s just—” She gestures at the fridge and shudders. “Regular milk.”