Текст книги "Only Pleasure"

Автор книги: Lora Leigh

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

6

Khalid eased from the bed and came slowly to his feet as he glanced at the dark window of Kia’s bedroom. Dawn hadn’t yet come, was several hours away in fact. He never slept well outside of his own bed for some reason. Deliberate habit, he told himself as he searched for and found the articles of his clothing.

As he dressed, he stared back at the bed, his lips almost easing into a grin. Kia was curled against Chase like a tired little kitten, her head against his chest, her arms over his waist as he enclosed her in a very intimate embrace. His arms were wrapped about her, and her legs were tucked between his.

It was a surprisingly innocent picture, he thought, considering the sexual excesses that had been played out in that bed.

Long, champagne-blond hair flowed over Chase’s arm. Chase’s hair was mussed, lying over his forehead, giving him an almost boyish look. As though a Falladay could have a boyish look, he thought with a soundless snort as he sat down on a chair and pulled on his socks and shoes.

It was wickedly cold outside. Temperatures had fallen to the teens even before they left the party; it would be even colder now. If there was one thing Khalid hated, it was the late-night cold. It brewed around him, within him, reminding him too much of things best forgotten.

He shook his head and rose to his feet, sparing one last look for the couple before moving through the silent apartment.

He stopped at that couch, his eyes narrowing at the small gas fireplace on the other side of the room, the wall of windows beside it, and appraised the couch. There was a pillow, and along the back of the cushions a thick spread.

This was where Kia slept, she had said. Did she stare into the darkness and feel the pain it held? Did the warmth of the fire ease her ache for Chase as he held so stubbornly onto his heart?

Chase, it seemed, refused to acknowledge what even his friends knew. Kia Rutherford would not be easy to walk away from. He might wish she was. Khalid had no doubt Chase would try, but he would never let her go.

Khalid shook his head at that as he let himself out of her apartment and pulled his cell phone from his jacket.

“Abdul, I am ready to leave,” he stated as the chauffeur answered.

“Yes, sir, but I should inform you, I have company.”

Khalid’s brows lifted. “What company could you have, Abdul?”

Abdul sighed heavily. “It is her, sir.”

Khalid paused at the elevator, then stared back at the apartment as he smothered an oath. He didn’t have time for her.

“And she is with you why?”

“Because she brought with her a Thermos of excellent dark coffee and some rather fresh donuts.” Abdul cleared his throat. “But her ride left.”

“Then she can get a cab,” Khalid snarled.

Abdul cleared his throat again. “It’s very cold, Mr. Khalid. Her hotel is not far from here.”

Khalid stepped into the elevator, grinding his teeth.

“Does she not have a coat?”

“No, sir.” Abdul did the throat-clearing thing again. “Well, yes, sir, but it is very thin.”

He felt his nostrils flaring. “And I should care about this why?” he snapped.

“Mr. Khalid,” Abdul’s voice was shocked. “It is very cold tonight.”

“He’s being a bear again, isn’t he?” Martha’s voice sounded through the phone. Too damned cheerful and too fucking perky. “Tell him to get over it.”

“Get over it?” he snarled.

“Now, Mr. Khalid, her hotel, it is just down the street.”

“Go,” he said harshly. “Get her out of my limo, immediately. Take her to her hotel, give her her coffee and her donuts, and get your ass back here. Are we clear?”

“I drank the coffee and donuts,” Abdul said mournfully.

Khalid was forced to massage his temples as he heard Martha making compassionate sounds in the background.

“Abdul, ten minutes,” he said furiously. “You had best be back in front of this building within ten minutes, without her. Are we clear?”

“I am going now, Mr. Khalid,” Abdul promised nervously. “Ten minutes. Should I, umm, replace her coffee and donuts?”

Khalid swore he would have to make his first trip to the dentist ever if he didn’t stop grinding his teeth.

“Let her get her own,” he growled slowly, just to make certain Abdul understood. “Ten minutes, Abdul.”

Abdul cleared his throat. “Ten minutes, Mr. Khalid.”

And in the background, Martha, damn her hide, laughed.

Chase awakened as Khalid left the apartment. His eyes opened and he stared around the bedroom, feeling strangely content. And content wasn’t a feeling he should be experiencing in Kia’s bed. His arms wrapped around her. His legs encasing hers. Her head against his heart, her breathing deep and even, as though she belonged there.

He had to force himself not to jerk away from her, to jump away as though in fear. He didn’t fear anything. He hadn’t feared anything since he had stared down the woman whose finger was tightening on the trigger of a gun aimed at his brother, Cameron.

He forced the memory, the thought, back and closed his eyes, allowing himself to hold Kia just a few moments longer.

During the years when he had been his brother’s third in his relationships, sleeping with a woman hadn’t bothered him. It had been his responsibility to make certain more than their sexual needs were fulfilled.

Hell, now he knew why Cam had fought sleeping with Jaci, or in taking her without a third. Because there was this intimacy. He could feel it, working its way inside him, filling him with something so damned unfamiliar he couldn’t make sense of it.

The feeling that if he didn’t get the hell out of that bed now, then he might never make it out of her bed, and then he would never keep her out of his heart.

Like Khalid said, women were gentle creatures with fierce desires. And one of those desires was the need to be touched and held outside sex. It had never bothered Chase to be the one to supply that, until now. Now it frankly scared the shit out of him. Because the longer he held her, the more he felt her.

He turned and stared down at her in the darkness. Thick blond lashes lay against her cheeks; her lips were relaxed in sleep, though they were still swollen from his kisses, from the thrusts of his cock.

He swallowed, brushing his thumb over her cheekbone in the lightest caress.

Sometimes, he knew she saw into his soul. It was an uncomfortable feeling for a man who had learned to hide who and what he was. She knew parts of him that he knew other women could never guess. And though she hadn’t vocalized it, hell, he had given her a chance to, he wondered if perhaps she didn’t know more than he did about himself.

It was going to have to stop.

He touched her hair, let the soft strands caress his fingers, and felt his jaw clench at the thought of dragging himself from her warm bed and facing the cold outside. And he knew he had no choice.

This wasn’t a relationship, he reminded himself. It was just for the pleasure alone. Confidences weren’t exchanged; late-night pillow talk and waking to the same pillow the next morning weren’t condoned.

If he did that, he was admitting it was more, and admitting it was more held the power to weaken him. Chase had stared into the dark void of weakness six months before when he had to kill a woman he was more fond of than most, a woman who had somehow lost her grip on reality and attempted to kill his brother and his brother’s fiancée.

A woman Chase had desired. One he had thought was a friend. His judgment had been flawed to the extent that he had overlooked all the signs as he ran the investigation into Jaci’s and the Robertses’ pasts in an attempt to figure out why the Robertses had tried to destroy her.

And now, here he was, six months later, caught in the grip of some strange, unknown hunger for a woman who threatened to twine around his heart in ways Moriah Brockheim hadn’t had the chance to.

If he didn’t get away from her, then he was going to end up trying to keep her. And keeping her wasn’t possible. Keeping any woman wasn’t possible at this point. Because Chase had never been good at letting anyone get close to him. It was too much of a risk; the danger in it was too great.

He’d lost his parents at thirteen and lost his twin for nearly twenty years. He had allowed Cameron to be nearly destroyed when he was a child, and for years he had fought to survive without the bond he had grown up with.

He’d learned how to be alone. It was all he knew. He’d never wanted, never ached for anything more, but Kia made him wonder what more would be like. That curiosity was brewing inside him, and it was dangerous.

He didn’t want to hurt her. Breaking her heart, after what Drew did to her, was something he flinched at the thought of doing.

This wasn’t for the emotion, and he had to remind himself of that. It was never for the emotion.

He forced himself to untangle himself from her slowly, tucking the blankets around her as she moaned, a whispered “no” leaving her parted lips as he rolled to the edge of the bed and straightened up.

His fingers plowed through his hair as he fought to keep from turning back to her. Shaking his head, he pushed himself to his feet and stared back at her. There, in that ocean of a bed, she looked like a little doll, lost and alone.

Son of a bitch. No wonder she slept on that fucking couch. This bed was meant to be shared with a lover. Large and romantic, but it swallowed her small body. The couch, with its firm cushions against her back, would at least give her a measure of illusion. Maybe she could pretend there was someone to hold her through the night.

And he was leaving her to that.

He jerked his clothes from the floor and quickly dressed. If he didn’t hurry, then he would never be able to walk away from her.

What the hell had he managed to get himself into here? Falling in love wasn’t in his game plan, but if this didn’t stop here, then he or Kia, if not both, was going to end up stepping into something that could destroy both of them.

Tucking his shirt into his pants, he lifted his head to look at her one last time, and froze.

“At least you’re not gnawing your arm off in your attempt to leave without waking me,” she said quietly. “Can you dress any faster, Chase?”

Kia drew the silk sheet over her breasts, surrounded by the smell of Chase and of sex, and watched him solemnly. It wasn’t even daylight, and he was already leaving.

She glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was barely two, wickedly cold outside, she was certain, and he was rushing to dress and leave before she awoke. Now, wasn’t that good for a girl’s ego?

“I need to get back to the apartment,” he said as he fixed his slacks and adjusted his belt. He tossed his jacket on the end of the bed before moving to her.

“Of course you do.” She smiled, rather insincerely she knew, but it was hard to be sincere when she could feel the hurt rising inside her.

He couldn’t even spend the night with her, she realized.

“I’ll see you soon,” he promised.

She stared into his eyes, and read things there she didn’t want to see. His desperation to leave, his regret. Regret that he was leaving? Or regret that she had awakened before he could escape her?

“Of course you will.” She kept her arm tight over her cheek and refused to let him see the hurt that came with that particular state-merit. “You know, Marcy Stephens bragged quite horribly about the nights you and Cameron spent in her bed. She swears Cameron was the one who escaped moments after his release and you were the one who petted her through the night. She must have managed to get the two of you mixed up.”

There was that scar across Cameron’s cheek, though. That would have been hard to do.

A frown flitted across his brow.

“Go,” she told him softly. “Before it gets much later. I’m sure you have an early meeting or something in the morning.”

She could almost see him latching on to the excuse.

“Ian keeps us busy.” His voice was soft, not exactly latching on to it, but he wasn’t denying it either. “Call me if you need me.”

“I will.” She would never call him under these circumstances; she would make certain she didn’t need him.

She kept her lips from trembling as he leaned closer and gave her a quick kiss before jerking his jacket from the bed and leaving.

Silence filled the apartment after the latch of the door fell and the hollow beep signaling the security reengaged. She pushed the sheet aside and dragged herself from the bed, shivering in the chill of the room as she pulled her heavy robe from the chair on her side of the bed and shrugged it on.

She belted it tightly around her, the heavy material shrouding her from neck to wrists to ankles. It kept her warm when there was nothing else.

She stared around the bedroom and blinked back the tears quickly as her breathing hitched and she fought to hold back the pain.

He wouldn’t even spend the night with her.

She pushed her hands into the pockets of the robe before walking slowly into the living room.

The gas logs were still lit, their faint light guiding her way to the couch where she normally slept. She lifted her blanket from the back of the couch, placed her pillow against the arm of the couch, and curled against it.

Behind her, the overstuffed cushions gave her the illusion of warmth, of someone behind her. She stared into the wall of windows and watched the sky. Sometimes she watched the sun rise and pretended those golden rays were warming her as they warmed the earth.

For the past two years, she had only grown colder inside, and lonelier. She had lost something inside herself that she wasn’t certain how to find any longer. She had thought it was her courage, but after the past night, she knew it wasn’t courage.

It was her ability to trust, to care, until Chase held his hand out to her and told her he wasn’t playing games with her. That he wanted her. That he wanted to share her.

Perhaps one of them should have given this nonrelationship a bit more thought, because she could feel it slowly destroying her.

It wasn’t the sharing, it was the loss. When Chase walked away, it meant she would awaken alone, dreaming his arms were around her.

That knowledge that there was nothing to hold on to throbbed inside her like a vicious wound. There hadn’t been anything to hold on to in far longer than the past two years, and she hadn’t even realized it. Until tonight.

As she stared out the windows, she didn’t count the minutes or the hours. She stared, and remembered Chase. Touching her, holding her, his eyes locked with hers, her imagined feeling that he was touching not just her body, but her soul.

That she was touching him, that her touch went deeper than his flesh.

She was really quite good at fooling herself, she decided. Because for a few precious moments tonight, she had imagined he felt more for her than desire, more for her than the other women he had taken.

Those women he had spent the night with.

Those women he had taken to the opera, to dinner, to the clubs he frequented. Those women he was seen with in public without shame.

And the only time she was seen with him was when they were leaving. Disappearing.

She wiped the tears from her cheeks as the sun began to peek over the horizon. She sniffed back any sobs that might escape and reminded herself that she shouldn’t have expected more.

He hadn’t promised her emotion. He hadn’t promised to warm her.

He had just promised her the pleasure.

She had no right to complain, no right to feel slighted. But the woman he touched, the heart that beat inside her, felt very, very slighted.

7

Sleep came only in fits and spurts. Kia finally gave up and moved from the couch. Slipping on her house slippers she stepped out onto her balcony and let the brisk winter wind whip around her as she stared into the brilliant blue of the morning sky.

Where did it leave a woman when she realized how empty her life had become? When she looked in the cold, dark yawning recesses and realized how weak and lonely she has become? So lonely that she let herself believe that a few hours of pleasure would be enough. That she was courageous enough, immune enough to the needs other women had, that she was trading her heart for that pleasure.

Chase had only come to her twice. There had been no phone calls in between those times, no dinner, no lunch. There had been nothing to indicate that he wanted anything more than that pleasure.

Chase wasn’t a subtle man. He was dominant, forceful, quiet, and controlled, but he wasn’t subtle. If he had wanted more from her, he would have demanded it.

And really, could she blame him for not wanting more? Her anger and outrage two years before had risked his reputation as well as the reputations of the men and women it was his job to protect. And when she had retracted her statements, she had moved out of society as much as possible, disillusioned with the friends she had thought she had, suddenly left adrift and uncertain which way to turn.

So she had hidden. Here in this huge, lonely apartment, she had hidden and forced herself to be content with it. Because the wounds had gone so deep, had been so ragged, that she’d had no idea how to heal them.

The night Drew had come to her with champagne and flowers, wanting to repair the rift that had opened between them, she had wanted to believe him. She didn’t handle champagne well, or any alcohol, actually; her tolerance was very low. It hadn’t taken him long to get her drunk enough that she was dazed and confused.

When he had carried her into their bedroom, she had felt like a princess. When he undressed her, she had closed her eyes and imagined love. And then she had felt another man’s hands.

She shook the memory away. The horror of her husband and another man holding her in her bed. Drew holding her down as she fought, as she cried and begged them to let her go.

It had finally been the third who had stepped away, then tore her husband away from her long enough for her to escape into the bathroom, where she locked herself in, sobbing in fear. It had been that third, and she still didn’t know who he had been, who had argued in the bedroom with her husband, nearly fought, she believed, before he slammed out of the room. And it was only minutes later that her father had arrived, apartment security behind him, responding to a call that his daughter was in trouble.

Drew had never told her who that third person was. When her father arrived at the apartment, one of his security personnel from the company headquarters accompanying him, Drew had been enraged.

Her father had been coldly, dangerously furious. He had wrapped her in his jacket, wrapped his arms around her shaking body, and he had taken her back to the home she had been raised in.

Her parents had sheltered her for as long as they could. She had used her father’s lawyer, Lenore Zimmer, to file for divorce from Drew. Lenore had made certain Drew was out of the home before Kia returned, that he paid the bills until the divorce was final. She had been a godsend to Kia. But nothing, no amount of comforting, no settlement amount, could make up for the knowledge that her dearest friend, Rebecca, had been telling everyone she knew the information Kia had given her while she had been practically in shock and struggling to understand why her husband had attempted to hurt her as he had.

Everyone does it, Drew had screamed at the bathroom door. That bitch Tessa Andrews you think so highly of, her husband is one of the head members. That son of a bitch you eat with your eyes every chance you get, Chase Falladay, all our fucking friends, you stupid bitch. Why the hell do you think I’ve been encouraging those friendships?

And he had. There had been Tally Rafferty, Ella Wyman, so many others. People she knew but had never been friends with, people she couldn’t imagine living the lifestyle he had attempted to force her into.

As she rubbed at her cold arms and stepped back into the apartment, she admitted she couldn’t truly blame Chase for what she was feeling right now. Perhaps she expected too much from him, as Drew had accused her of expecting too much of him.

It wasn’t his place to fill her bed at night. To hold back the cold. He hadn’t made her any promises, she thought sadly, closing the doors behind her. He had promised her pleasure, and he had delivered well on that promise. She had no right to ask anything more of him.

So where did that leave her? At this rate, if she didn’t get her head straight and figure her own life out, then she was going to become old and bitter before her time. Twenty-six was much too young to give up on life or having friends entirely.

Chase had taught her that. Through the pleasure he gave her, the warmth that surrounded her when he gave it, and the cold that filled her when he left, he had shown her she couldn’t live in such isolation. And she was tired of being alone.

She could have friends. It just might take her a while to find the right friends, she thought. And those friends only needed to know the most basic information about her. Anything about her marriage or her divorce, she didn’t have to answer. She didn’t want to answer.

She had made a mistake two years before. She had hid, licked her wounds, and tried to make sense of what happened in her life. There was no making sense of it. She should have picked herself up, held her head high, and forced herself to remain a part of the world she and Drew had inhabited.

But now, how to fix the problem? Perhaps her mother could help. Wasn’t she forever inviting Kia to lunch or dinner with her and her friends? They were older, yes, but invitations were still invitations.

As she frowned at that thought, the doorbell chimed.

Kia’s head jerked to the door. Few people came to her apartment. Her parents always called first.

Chase?

She moved to the door, lifted herself to her tiptoes, and stared into the peephole before pulling back, biting her lip, and wondering why the hell they were out there.

The sound chimed again.

Disengaging the lock, Kia opened the door slowly and stood back, staring at the pair in confusion. Ella Wyman and Tessa Andrews were dressed for shopping. Shopping was a serious game in Alexandria. Flat-soled shoes for Ella, low-heeled pumps for Tess. They each wore slacks and stylish camp shirts and carried larger purses.

“Can I help you?” She was standing in her robe, her hair mussed, her feet pushed into ugly fuzzy mules, staring back at the two of them in confusion.

“Yes, darling, you can move back so we can come in.” Ella smiled at her gently, her gray eyes twinkling in a face that appeared much younger than what Kia knew her actual age was. Ella Wyman was forty-four years old, several years older than her handsome, charming second husband, James.

Kia moved back slowly.

“She looks like we’ve come to lynch her up, Mom,” Tessa’s low laughter passed Kia as they entered the apartment.

Ella stopped just inside the foyer. She stared at the couch, the low gas fire, and read much more into it than Kia would have appreciated her knowing.

The blanket on the couch, the pillow on the arm. The print of Kia’s slight body was still in the cushions, testifying that the young woman used it often to sleep in. It was more than likely her bed, and the knowledge of that was sad indeed.

Ella knew that kind of loneliness. The soul-deep, bottomless pit of cold that a large bed only intensified.

Kia closed the door and watched the two warily. “Are you certain you meant to come here?”

Ella Wyman was friends with her mother, and she knew Ella’s husband did quite a bit of business with her parents.

“Have you had coffee yet?” Ella turned to her, her soft auburn hair swinging around her shoulders as she stared back at her with the same expression her mother used when attempting to convince Kia to do something she didn’t want to do.

“Yes,” Kia answered her slowly. “Would you like some?”

“I’ll fix it.” Ella waved her hand dismissively and headed to the open kitchen. “You need to get a shower.”

“I do?” Kia watched her cautiously now, aware of Tessa standing back, her amused expression and sparkling gray eyes, so like her mother’s, filled with warmth and a little too much purpose.

Ella moved into the kitchen and began opening cabinet doors as she turned back to glance at Kia.

“We’re going shopping,” the older woman informed her. “Dress for comfort, because the sales are numerous and the crowds are horrendous.”

“Why are we going shopping?” Kia asked, carefully keeping her voice level despite the fear that a madwoman had invaded her home.

Her cabinet door slammed as Ella rounded on her, propping her hands on her slender hips and glaring back at Kia.

“Your mother should be ashamed of herself for allowing you to hide as she has. I had a very interesting discussion with her last night, and Tessa and I have decided to take you in hand. Now, get your shower, and get ready to shop. Consider yourself in our hands and don’t screw your face up like that. It isn’t becoming.”

Kia instantly smoothed the scowl from her expression, then frowned again when she did so.

“What does my mother have to do with this?”

“I love Celia like my own sister.” Ella shook her head. “But it’s obvious she had no idea what to do with you. I do.”

“Do you now?” Kia crossed her arms over her breasts and regarded the other woman with mock curiosity. “What is that?”

“By informing you that you have allowed your ex-husband to win, you’ve tucked your fluffy little tail between your legs and disappeared.”

Her fluffy little tail? Kia had an insane urge to reach back and see if she had somehow managed to add additional pounds there without meaning to.

Drew had dealt a blow to her pride that had been hard to overcome.

“So you care if Drew thinks he’s won, why?” Kia tilted her head to the side as Ella continued making coffee in a kitchen that was not her own.

Ella Wyman had balls. Kia’s mother had always made that statement accompanied by affectionate laughter.

“Sweetheart, if the only ones we care about are ourselves, then we’re no better than that trash that tried to destroy you. Now, take that shower. I’m fixing breakfast and coffee, and then we’re going shopping. It’s girls’ day out, so get prepared for it.”

How long had it been since she had had a girls’ day out? Years, in fact. She’d even refused her mothers invitations. But Kia and her mother disagreed on just about every article of clothing that Kia preferred for herself.

“You’re only allowing Rebecca to believe she’s won,” Tessa inserted at this point. “That’s a mistake in this town, Kia, and you know it. You never let them see you bleed. But even more, you never let them see you hide. And refusing to be seen in public with Chase Falladay after you were seen leaving a party with him is an even larger mistake. There were comments made when you weren’t at the dinner club with him and the friends he meets with there.”

Humiliation flared inside Kia.

“Perhaps I wasn’t invited.” She smiled coolly. “You’re under the impression Chase Falladay and I have a relationship, Tessa. It’s a mistaken impression.”

Surprise narrowed Tessa’s eyes as she glanced at her mother.

Ella was outraged, though she was careful to keep that knowledge from the young woman whose eyes flashed with pain and whose expression filled with quiet pride.

Tessa had unintentionally hurt her, but they had watched Chase carefully. He was cool to the women who approached him at that club, where he was rarely cool to any woman. Chase gave all the signs of a man involved. And even James had been smirking the night before the dinner that Chase was falling for the Rutherford girl. And James was rarely wrong.

“Well, we’re all prone to mistaken impressions,” Ella told Kia. “Go. Shower. Breakfast will be in an hour, and we’re leaving soon after. The sales won’t wait for us.”

“Perhaps this isn’t a good day.” Kia stared back at them, all that hurt pride hidden beneath that cool little voice.

“It’s the perfect day,” Ella informed her. “And I won’t be leaving without you. To get rid of us, I guess you’ll just have to go shopping with us.”

Kia felt as though her chest was going to erupt with the ache inside it. Already people were forming impressions, placing her with Chase. It was going to appear as though he had rejected her. As though she wasn’t enough woman to hold his attention any longer than it had taken him to fuck her.

Her fists clenched as she turned and strode from the kitchen. Shopping was the last thing she wanted to do. Especially with two women who were witnesses to the fact that she couldn’t even hold Chase’s attention long enough for dinner with friends.

Damn her own stubborn, stubborn need for a man who obviously had no need for her.

She showered because it was the only way to release the tears building inside her. Because she was furious with herself and with Chase and with the damned society she couldn’t seem to hide from, no matter how hard she tried.

Gossip had never bothered her. But her pride was always her downfall. It always had been. She would get ready, she would go shopping, and when it was over, she would decide for herself exactly how she would show Rebecca Harding how little her opinion mattered. And once she did that, then she would try to cure herself of this strange addiction to Chase Falladay. Before it destroyed her.

“Mom, are we the only ones under the impression that Chase Falladay has a thing for her?” Tessa asked after Kia was safely in the shower.

Ella gave her short sniff. “Not hardly. Cameron told James last week that Chase was so torn over the girl that he was walking backward.”

“He hasn’t even taken her to dinner?” Tessa whispered, shocked. “They aren’t involved?”

Ella shook her head, glancing back at the door as she frowned in concern.

“Courtney says Chase was yelling in Ian’s office over that stupid ex-husband of Kia’s, Drew. Chase never yells over anything.”

Ella glanced toward the bedroom. “It doesn’t matter. Whether she’s Chase’s or not, she’s hid long enough.” Then she smiled. “But I know how to find out if she is Chase’s.”

“Oh, Mom, what are you going to do?” Tessa’s eyes widened, but Ella was proud to see the amused trust in her gaze.

Ella shrugged. “There are ways, Tessa.” She made a shushing motion and pointed toward the sounds in Kia’s bedroom. “Trust me, there are many many ways.”