Page 549 of Lessons in Cruelty

I shove Kai away, my face heating a thousand degrees. He gives me a lusty smile, but when he registers my expression, his face goes slack.

“What—”

A hissing sizzle reaches us from the kitchen.

The spaghetti is boiling over.

Because of course the pasta chooses now to scream for attention. Even our fucking dinner knows this will never work.

“Go.”

He just stares at me, wine tilting at a dangerous angle from the glass he seems to have forgotten he’s holding. “Haven⁠—”

“You wanna burn the spaghetti too?” I snap, furiously blinking back the tears waiting to spill.

He shakes his head, muttering something too low for me to hear as he turns on his heel and strides toward the kitchen.

I watch him go, feeling the last vestiges of my rage dissipate, replaced by a hollow ache that matches the sullen throb in my foot. We were so close. So fucking close to…something.

Then my beautiful, broken brain had to shove Bastian in there.

I’m my own worst enemy.

I walk back to the window, staring out at the ocean, now fully dark, the waves crashing relentlessly. The wine in my glass tastes like nothing, but I drain it anyway.

There’s a clang and a scrape as Kai cleans up the mess in the kitchen.

A few minutes later, he walks back holding a plate stacked with sandwiches. So that’s what he was doing when I heard the fridge open and close a hundred times.

“Dinner is served, m’lady,” he says dryly, one side of his mouth tilted up in a fake smile.

I lean past him and give the messy counter a hard stare. “I’m definitely not cleaning that.”

He shrugs. “I’m sure someone will take care of it.”

Maybe he’s hoping someone else will clean the mess he made of my heart, because he sure as shit doesn’t seem capable.

I laugh hollowly.

He laughs too, and it sounds just as empty.

It’s obvious we’re both pretending that this is normal.

That this is fine.

That we’re not both still bleeding from the claw marks we left in each other’s hearts all those years ago.

Chapter 72

Kai

The bonfire I built isn’t doing all that much to ward off the cold. But fuck, I’m still loving it. Its flames are so hypnotic, neither of us has said a word for at least half an hour. But Haven isn’t dressed as warmly as I am, and when I see her shiver, I realize we’ll have to go inside soon.

Don’t wanna.

Inside is where shit unravels.

We ate the sandwiches in charged silence as we worked our way through the rest of the wine. But then it just sat in my stomach like a congealed mass, and I wanted to throw up just to be rid of it.