Page 51 of Cruel Kiss

But when it's done, she doesn't look particularly pleased.

She just sits there, staring at the paper.

"You okay?" I ask.

"Yeah." She sets the pen down. "It's mine again."

"Every piece of it."

She nods, but still, she doesn't smile.

"You don't seem happy," I observe.

"I got what I wanted." She slides the folder to the middle of the table. "I'm just not sure what wanting it was supposed to feel like."

I know that feeling. I've had it my whole life. You want a thing. You claw and scheme and bleed for it. Then you get it, and it just sits there, and you wait for the good feeling to arrive, but it never does.

"It'll feel like something later," I tell her. "Maybe not today. But later, when Mercer's gone and Lev's handled, when you're back at your desk doing the work you love. It'll hit you then."

"Maybe." She wraps both hands around the coffee mug. "Or maybe I'll just want the next thing."

"That's how it goes."

She looks up at me. "Is that how it is for you?"

I don't answer right away. I think about the yachts I named as a joke. The penthouse that looks like a magazine. The firm, the foundation, the money.

"Yes," I say. "For a long time, it was."

"And now?"

"Now, I want things I'm not supposed to have," I tell her. "Which is worse, I think. At least the old wanting was simple."

She holds my eyes for a second too long. Then she looks back down at the paper with her name on it.

"Okay," she says, and her voice changes, going brisk and all-business. "The wedding."

That's not the change of topic I expected her to reach for. "What about it?"

"I've been thinking about it." She scoots her chair in closer. The shutters in her eyes close down as she pins back her feelingsout of sight. "We have to sell it. If Mercer thinks it's fake, it's worthless. Worse than worthless."

"Agreed."

"So we can't just show up and mumble our way through it. It has to look real."

"It will."

"How do you know?"

I look at her. "Because I'm going to make sure it does."

"See, that's not good enough." She points a wary finger at me. "That's you deciding it'll be fine and expecting me to trust you. We've established how that goes."

"Fair."

"So." She takes a breath. "We need to practice."

I set my mug down. "Practice?"