Pretty Perfect Toy -- A Temptation Court Novel (Temptation Court, Book 2) by Angel Payne Page B

best at that above all, remember ? In this moment, I just need to get this shit spilled—before survival instinct blasts in and shuts me down.
    Because this feels a little like dying.
    Maybe a lot like it.
    “Cassian.”
    “ What ?”
    Yeah…my voice is now the husk, and hers the command. I ignore the recognition. And the new hammer in my blood. And the dread coiling into my grip, seeking more of her warmth.
    “Just start at the beginning.”
    A scrape of a laugh. “Sure, favori. I’ll get right on that.” This shit has been a part of me for so long, I have no damn idea where “the start” is.
    She folds herself tighter around me. Yeah, she knows that too.
    “Tell me how you and Lily met.”
    Remarkably, I exhale. Unbelievably, layers of tension leave my body, too. Unreal . Is this woman actually turning my giant slab of difficult into a friendly conversation? As I breathe back in, I am suffused with her jasmine and vanilla scent. The memories start to come easier.
    “I was…young. Really young.” The qualifier feels necessary. “Nash Quinn recruited me for Quantumm Corp before I finished my junior year at Fordham. He had a huge project starting with Eurail, and wanted me to be a co-project director on it.”
    “Project director?” Her stare bulges. “For all of Europe?”
    I shrug. Her reply lands me in more familiar territory. While it’s not new to compare an ambitious college student with a decent brain to a genius superhero, I’ve still heard every dazed gush composed on the subject. “I was very close to dropping out and accepting.”
    She gives my hair a reproving tug. “Always in such a hurry.”
    “Hurrying had nothing to do with it.”
    “No?”
    “No. The zeroes he kept adding to the offer, on the other hand…”
    “Zeroes don’t help everything, Cassian.”
    “No. But they get attention—and that helps everything.”
    Her face tightens. I want to feel shitty for dumping the brutality of it like that, but I don’t. Isn’t the truth what we’re in this room for? Wasn’t it what defined us from the start—when the zeroes I threw at her father earned me the attention needed to get her here? Zeroes I would’ve increased in a second, if that was what it took.
    Voicing it crosses my mind, until I see the recognition take quiet—and troubling—hold in her eyes. In her world, wealth has done nothing but corrupt people. In mine, it has been the door to supporting them. Her way isn’t totally right, but neither is mine. Maybe it’s another reason fate has pulled a few favors with the universe to rope us together—and why I hope, beyond logic or sanity, that the knots just keep adding up.
    “So.” She neutralizes her expression once more. “You were young…”
    “And right out of college. Yes, ” I assure, answering the approval in her gaze, “that did happen, in every sense of the word. Wore the cap and gown, shook all the necessary hands…”
    Her head tilts. “Your maimanne stepped in with some ‘tactful’ prodding?”
    I snort. “Prodding’s one way of saying it.”
    “She went for the castration angle?”
    “Worse.”
    “ Worse ?”
    “Threatened never to make my favorite lemon bars again.” Though I almost break a grin with the knowledge that my castration would be that troubling to her.
    “That must have all been before Prim.”
    Sarcasm etches her words—on the surface. Nothing about them is tossed casually. I wonder how long she’s waited to utter them—and guess it was nearly from the moment she and Prim met. That was nearly two months ago but I remember that walking-on-cacti moment as if it were yesterday. Prim, so suspicious she looked jealous. Ella, so uncomfortable she looked guilty. They’ve tiptoed into friendlier airspace since, but I could be doing more to de-ice the waters.
    “For the record, Prim’s lemon bars don’t approach Mom’s.” Now I do insert a chuckle. “And Prim will be the first to admit that to you.” Wrap my hands around