AllFreeNovel
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~Dealer~
SHE’S IMPRESSED.
Big time.
I know that, because it’s the one time she goes quiet. Means she can’t wrap her head around it, that she’s in awe. Makes me real happy seeing it. Getting that reaction from her used to be a continuous goal of mine, one of my favorite things to witness. It’s been way too long.
She swallows another bite, then exclaims, “I can’t believe you made a whole chicken pot pie from scratch.”
Luckily for her tastebuds, I keep all my safehouses well-stocked, so there’s enough food and other creature comforts on hand for weeks on end at any given one of my secluded residences.
“Like I said, mad skills.”
“That doesn’t even cover it,” she admits, beaming at me, before going back to eating.
I lean back against the kitchen cupboards and watch her from across the breakfast bar, smiling to myself as she continues eating. I finished mine twenty minutes ago, but Char don’t scarf down her food like an animal as I do. She takes her time, savoring every bite. Just like she did that night I took her out to dinner, the first day we met.
“You’re staring.”
“Am I, kitten?”
“Yes. Absolutely.” She tucks a wayward strand of her vibrant-red hair behind her ear. “You also seemed deep in thought.”
“I was. Thinking about the day we met.”
She grins. “Me a twenty-four-year-old wannabe badass and you a thirty-six-year-old already established badass, but both of us arrogant to the point of being dangerous, believing we were invincible.”
“Yeah,” I say with a nod. “Reacting without thinking enough on it.”
“A whole let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may attitude for me and a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later approach for you. In fact, that day we met, you didn’t know whether to kill me or fuck me, right?”
“I figured it out quick,” I tell her, rounding the breakfast bar and pulling a stool up beside her. “I mean, it was touch and go for a while there. We’re talking about you in your Kingmaker prime, not an easy thing to work with.”
“You’re being a dick.”
“I’m screwing around. I knew right away that I didn’t want to kill you, Charlotte.”
“You did? How?”
“I saw something in you, something I never saw in nobody else before.”
“What was that?”
“Me.”
I see her get my meaning right away. Of course she does. We’re on the same wavelength. We always were. “We’re one in the same.”
“Yeah. You rarely get that with somebody once in a lifetime. I didn’t wanna walk away from that.”
“But you were forced to, nonetheless,” she says, finishing up her pie and pushing her plate to the side.
“Yeah,” I grunt, taking it from her and placing it over on the counter.
When I come back to the breakfast bar, she grasps my hand. “You left for the right reasons and taking action like that is all any of us can do. What happened can’t be undone. How about we stop focusing on things that we can’t change, Cal?” Her eyes burn into mine, her grip tightening with urgency. “Let’s focus on what’s right here and now.”
“You know, Ax told me second chances are real rare in the world we live in, said you coming back into my life, despite the way it happened, is ours.”
“That protégé of yours is a smart man.”
