Page 193 of To Catch a Sub

“Tell me about yourself. What do you do? Who is your family? Where do you live?”

Colette froze.

Fuck. He should have pulled Nana aside and asked her not to interrogate Colette.

Time to step into the line of fire.

Landon cleared his throat. “I quit my job.”

FORTY-TWO

“How are you?” Colette asked, leaning over the bed to peer at Landon, who lay on his back, arm over his face.

“I’ll survive.”

“Was she yelling at you in multiple languages?”

“Yep.”

Colette picked up Landon’s arms to get a better look at his face. “How many languages does your grandmother speak?”

“At least seven. Or she did at one point. She worked as a translator, back in Pakistan.” He groaned and sat up. “They only moved here after my mother got sick.”

“You don’t have to answer this, but what was your mother ill from?”

“Heart disease. Rare, in a young woman. And they only discovered it when she was pregnant with me. She came to England for university, and that’s where she met my father. At Warwick University.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I only remember small things, and what I do remember isn’t the woman she was before she was ill. But I have these clips, built from stories my grandparents tell. While she was sick, my father built this house. Half for himself, my mother, and me, half for my grandparents, who left everything behind to come help take care of her and raise me.”

“That’s real love,” she said softly. “Both your father’s love for you and your mother, and your grandparents’ love for their daughter and grandchild.”

“Come here, Colette.” Landon scooted up to put his back against the headboard. She crawled onto the bed beside him, curling up. Being in his arms felt so good. Right.

He took a breath. “I love you, Colette.”

Colette jerked up, putting her fingers over his lips. “Non, Landon. You shouldn’t.”

He kissed her fingertips, then pulled her hand away from his mouth. “You aren’t surprised.”

“No,” she admitted. “You called me the woman you loved.”

“And you are.”

“You shouldn’t love me, surely you see that.” She was kneeling on the bed, both hands pressed to his chest. As if she could force reason and sense into him.

“Why not?”

“I’m a thief!”

“Hypothetically.”

“No, I am. You were never wrong about that. I took eight hundred and forty-nine items out of the British Museum.”

Landon’s eye twitched. “Eight hundred and forty-nine?”

She fought not to smile. “Yes. There’s at least thirty things the museum still doesn’t know are missing.”