Page 42 of Burned

But he’s pleased with himself in a way that makes my chest ache and my smile stretch wide.

“Everyone is accounted for. The team knows the room restrictions. Mack will remain at the door.”

“The team?” Cass’s eyebrows fly up. “Oh, God. It’s going to be big. Is it something big?”

Ryan gasps. “Like a helicopter?”

“No,” I say.

“Like a tiger?”

“No,” I say again.

Lucian’s expression barely changes. “No live animals.”

“Maybe it is a tiger,” Ryan whispers.

“It is not a tiger,” I say.

Cass tilts her head. “Could be several small tigers.”

Lucian’s mouth curves again.

Oh no.

He’s really gone over the top now.

A tiny voice asks me, “Is it because he feels guilty about wanting Isobel to be alive?”

I shake it off.

We reach our destination, obediently closing our eyes as we stand in the open doorway of the living room.

“Open them,” Lucian commands.

Cass’s eyebrows fly up. “Oh, God. It’s rich-people stuff.”

Cass’s face changes.

Not much.

But I see it.

The way her shoulders draw in. The way her fingers tighten around the chair’s arms. The way the idea of being given things—nice things, soft things, unnecessary things—feels as if it does not belong to her.

I know that feeling.

Luxury always belonged to other people. Women who had the right bodies, right names, right lives. Women who did not count their change at the register.

Women who were allowed to want without calculating what wanting would cost.

Lucian knows that.

Of course he does.

He knew it that first night I showed up at his house wearing what was probably a Target clearance dress, trying to pass it off as couture.

He knows every bruise the world left on me, even the ones I never showed him.