Page 108 of By His Vow
All week, there have been photos floating around of us. Some are totally innocent, others much more intimate, showing us getting closer.
They’re perfect for the rush announcement we’re going to be making very soon.
The gossip-hungry city is already speculating about where our relationship is going to go. It only seems right to give them what they’re demanding.
After taking Lorelei home, Tatum and I make our way to my penthouse. Silence fills the car, and despite her allowing my hand on her thigh, there is no other contact between us. She’s barely said a word to me since returning from the bathroom, and I’m struggling to get a read on her.
It’s putting me on edge, not knowing what she’s thinking, how she’s feeling.
I hoped that getting her off might make her relax a little. I could tell she was tense from the first moment I saw her sitting at the table. I knew my presence was going to make it worse, but it was the perfect opportunity.
She’s still silent as Lewis pulls the car into the underground garage and opens the door for us.
The second we step into the elevator, the air is charged with chemistry, and it only gets worse the higher we get.
She stands tense beside me; any relief she may have found in that bathroom seems to have been forgotten.
She didn’t want to come back here last night, I understood that. But I’d hoped that today might have been a little different. Especially now that all her stuff is here.
She gets to the front door before me and marches inside.
“I wasn’t sure where you’d want everything, so I asked the movers to put your boxes in the guest room at the end of the hallway,” I explain.
She comes to a stop in the middle of the living room and looks around with a deep frown between her brows.
“Where’s Griz?” she asks before turning to me and staring as if I have a fucking clue what she’s talking about.
“Griz?” I ask. What the fuck is a Griz?
She sighs, disappointment coming off her in waves.
“Mrs. Grizabella Von Meowington,” she says seriously.
I blink, desperately trying not to laugh.
Who the fuck calls any animal a name like that? It’s got to be some kind of animal cruelty, I’m sure.
“What?” she snaps. “I’m not living here without my cat.”
“I’m not having a cat in my apartment,” I state, cringing at the thought of all the cat hair. The litter box…
And of course, there’s the small fact that the little fucker hates me.
“But you want me in your apartment,” she states, placing her hands on her hips.
“Yeah, you. I didn’t sign up to spend the next year of my life getting mauled by Satan.”
Her lips thin. “Griz is the sweetest. If you didn’t start the dishwasher, she’d have been lovely.”
One of my brows lifts.
“She can stay with Lorelei. In a home she knows. She doesn’t want to be here.” Fucking hell, I’m making excuses for a fucking cat.
Tatum fumes, glaring at me with nothing but hate in her eyes. “But she’s my cat.”
“And you’re going to be my wife,” I fire straight back.
Her lips purse and her face heats.