Page 45 of Ballrooms & Blackmail

I wrinkle my nose and he chuckles again…right before the heroine puts down the blaster. “Just saying,” I mutter. “She should have shot him.”

Then again, if she had, the two sequels would have been shit.

His eyes slide toward me slowly. “That’s…concerning.”

“Well”—I shrug—“sometimes a laser blast to the junk will do a man good.”

He freezes…then the most wonderful thing happens?—

He laughs.

Loud enough and long enough that Violet rouses herself and climbs onto his chest, batting at his face like it’s the most wonderful sound she’s ever heard too.

Gah. This man is dangerous. To my heart. To my soul. To all the risks I promised myself I’d never take again.

“Meow,” Violet says as he strokes a hand down her back. She takes her rightful affection for a second before abandoning him and walking over, curls up in my lap.

“She likes you more than me now,” Thorn says quietly.

I glance toward him, lips curving. “It’s the gourmet salmon treats.” I’d gone a little crazy with them this afternoon.

He chuckles. “Probably.”

My laugh escapes before I can stop it and I feel Thorn’s gaze on me. It’s somehow both soft and not, as though phantom fingers are tracing the edges of my smile.

Clearing my throat, I glance back at the movie, watch as the heroine escapes, as the bad guy does bad guy things. “Can I ask you something?”

His attention sharpens instantly. “Anything.”

The simple certainty in the word catches me off guard.

I swallow once, look back over at him. “What was Scotland like?”

For a second, real surprise flickers across his face. “What do you know about Scotland?”

“I mean, nothing really. I’ve never been. But you grew up there, right?” A shadow passes through his expression. “Your accent?—”

He leans back against the couch, stare pointed out the windows. “Yeah. I grew up there. For part of my childhood, anyway.”

I wonder what he means by part but I don’t push him on it. “Did you like it?”

“It rained a lot,” he says after a moment. “And it was so windy that sometimes I felt like I’d get blown over. And in the summer there were these bugs called midges…” He shakes his head and sighs, his eyes very far away. “And it was the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.”

“When was the last time you visited?”

Those green eyes come to mine, the shadows heavier than normal. “I haven’t been back since I was twelve.”

Something about the way he says it makes my chest ache unexpectedly.

“You miss it.”

A long silence.

“Yes.”

I study him carefully.

Weeks ago, it would have been hard to imagine him as anything but the man I thought I knew—the powerful and taciturn businessman. But with him sitting beside me, his hair mussed, his feet bare, cat hair on his sweats, and I find the image of a younger Thorn slides easily into my mind.