“Is that a threat?”
He bends his face toward me. “It’s a promise.” His mouth is so close to mine he could bite me or kiss me.
Holding onto me still, he leans back, his eyes running the length of my body. “You know,” he says, “you shouldn’t sleep dressed like this. Might give people the wrong idea.”
“This might surprise you, but usually when people come over, they give a little notice so I can get dressed first.” “What if there’s a fire in the middle of the night?” he says.
“I guess the rescue team will get a show.”
He raises one eyebrow. “Makes it hard for them to concentrate on saving you.”
I lock my eyes into his. “I can save myself.”
“I bet you can,” he says. “Since I can only assume you got all the brains in the family, when you tell your brother I came by to get my money—because I always get my money—make sure you speak slowly so he understands.” He pushes away from me.
“Leaving so soon?” I say sarcastically. “But we were just getting to know each other.” I fold my arms over my chest and glare at him. Sure I’m putting up a tough front with this guy, returning every hit he sends my way in this stupid verbal sparring match, but the reality is, regardless of what he thinks he can do, I’ll never give up this house. No matter what it takes.
“It’s late,” he says, crossing to the bed and smoothing out the sheets, pulling them to the side like he’s waiting for me to crawl in. “I don’t want to wear you out.”
I cross my arms and cock my head. “You couldn’t if you tried,” I say, making sure he doesn’t for one second think he has the upper hand.
“Is that a threat?” he says.
I sit at the edge of the bed and cross my legs toward him, leaning back on my hands, as if I’m relaxed. “It’s a promise.” I put all the intimidation and menace I can muster into my words, but he remains unfazed.
He approaches, bends toward me, putting his hands on either side of my hips. “Promise me one more thing,” he says. His lips almost brush my ear, the proximity a tease, like a ghost of a kiss. “That the next time you try to suffocate me, you’ll use your thighs instead of a pillow. It’d be a much more pleasant experience for us both.”
He exits and I exhale. I hadn’t even realized I was holding my breath.
I fall back on the bed, seething, listening for the end of Ryder’s footsteps or the close of a door—if a door is even how he got in here. I was careful to lock up everything before I went to bed, but something tells me this man isn’t deterred by something as temporary as a little lock. He strikes me as the kind of guy who finds his way into anyplace or anything or anybody he wants.
I don’t know what time it is. I don’t know where the hell Jamie’s hiding out. And I don’t know why on earth he’s borrowing thousands of dollars from a hot thug in an expensive suit.
Damn it, Jamie.
A hot thug in an expensive suit with sexy, broad shoulders and big, strong hands and the most perfect jawline I’ve ever seen.
Those are the things I do know.
Welcome home, Cassie.
CASSIE
CH. 4
Home Depot must sell about a thousand doors, so finding a replacement for the one Ryder and his minion kicked in last night should only take me a year or so. At least the sales guy in this department is kind of cute. It’s the little things.
While sorting through all these twenty-first century doors feels kinda like trying to pick the best grain of sand at the beach, our house is thirty years old, so I guess on the bright side, I’m giving the place an upgrade. Our mom deeded the house over to Jamie and me about four years ago, a couple years after our dad died of a heart attack. They had bought the house not long after they got married, right after it was built. Our parents were the first people ever to live in it, and I think without Dad there, Mom didn’t really recognize the place, or herself in it.
She stayed with Jamie while he finished high school, and then the summer before he started college, the same summer I finished college, Mom finagled a job transfer to Florida and started over. She married a man named Bill last year. They bought a little place within walking distance of the Atlantic Ocean, and she sounds pretty happy these days when I talk to her. I wish I’d been able to fly home for the wedding, but getting away from England was never easy.
Not even yesterday, when I left for good.
The cute sales guy, whose nametag says Danny, has dark hair styled into a fauxhawk and the standard-issue orange Home Depot apron clings to his barrel chest over his white V-neck t-shirt. “Are you looking for something prehung?” says