Chapter 2 #2
“And you didn’t know before nursing school that that would happen?” Rhys says.
The man is highly suspicious of me.
Not surprising.
If Cyril’s info is correct—and Cyril’s info is nearly always correct—then Rhys is in the same line of business as Cyril, who would also be questioning my story. And I’m sure the military time didn’t help the paranoia.
Good thing Lucky prepped me fairly well with what to say about dropping out of nursing school.
And that I love research. “Did you know there’s this thing where you can do all of the normal things like get your shots and give blood at blood drives and have it taken for medical tests, but you have a panic attack when you have to stick someone else with a needle? ”
He twists his neck so that he can peer at me again, the water rushing over his forehead now.
Doubt that solves the dye problem though.
His face will have purple streaks and smears for days. The dye’s been on too long for it to completely wash off on the first try.
I gesture to my hair, once again fighting an urge, this time to offer to help him. Now that the adrenaline has fully left my body, the guilt is seeping in harder. “You probably want to rinse your entire head. The dye’s permanent, and the longer you leave it in, the darker it’ll get.”
“The—fuck.”
It could be a question.
Or a statement.
I shrug one shoulder. “My mom always told me to make sure intruders could be identified later. And Lucky told me—well, he said no one else was using the cabin, which I interpreted to mean no one else would be showing up. Logically. And especially when we’re talking about someone arriving at one in the morning. ”
Say sorry, Margot. Say the words. Say you’re sorry.
I grimace while I swallow the urge.
I am sorry, and also, I was justified in setting up a warning system, and I’ve also been working hard for the past few years to be the type of person who apologizes, despite the way I was raised.
But I don’t know if this is an I’m sorry situation.
Exactly.
What if he’d been a real intruder?
His face is granite as he fishes his phone out of his pocket.
He lifts it, but I’m certain he’s not taking a photo of me, which suddenly has me freaking out a little as I realize I forgot to put on my glasses, which are part of my Margie Johnson disguise.
His growl confirms for me, though, that he’s using his phone’s camera as a mirror to check himself out.
He’s a mess.
He really is.
His face will be streaked purple. His hair will be streaked purple.
I did a good job of defending my castle all on my own.
My father stripped Daphne of her security detail when he disinherited her over four years ago.
I wondered while I was setting this up tonight if she ever did the same.
She refused my offer to keep paying for security for her—actually, she refused every offer of any kind of assistance I made—out of sheer spite.
Not against me, but to prove she could make it on her own despite having absolutely zero preparation on how to live life without a trust fund.
I’ve always loved her, but my level of admiration has hit peak levels these past four years, and she’s the reason I decided to learn to be someone who apologizes when I’m wrong.
“Fuck on a waffle.” Rhys’s voice is still rough, but it has a strangled quality to it now too.
I make myself set the cast-iron skillet on the Formica countertop as I realize I’m still gripping it hard enough that my hand is aching, and I push this conversation with Rhys just a little further. “So now that you know why I’m here, why are you here?”
He lowers his phone and glares at me, then buries his whole head under the faucet for a long time, scrubbing his face and his beard and his hair.
Is it brown, or is it a deep copper red? I can’t tell.
I need to see him in the sunlight.
No, correction—I need to not see him at all.
Margot Merriweather-Brown, future CEO of the Aurora Gardens international hotel conglomerate, would have already seen him out the door.
Actually, Margot Merriweather-Brown would’ve bought a house to serve her needs while here and wouldn’t have to set up Christmas-movie style booby traps because she has a security team that would’ve stopped him long before he got to the front door, and I might not have even heard it happened.
But Margie Johnson, the current role I’m playing as a daughter of a deceased single mother from Des Moines who’s looking to connect with half brothers that she never knew she had while working a temporary job in housekeeping at a new local retreat center, wouldn’t have the same poise and command of any given situation.
The crashing adrenaline is probably helping me play the role as I ask questions that Margie Johnson would definitely ask. I don’t feel badass and in control right now.
I feel tired.
Ready to go back to bed, where I hope I can fall asleep, but where I’m worried my brain might keep me up.
Rhys finishes scrubbing his head and grabs a towel hanging off the dishwasher handle beside the sink.
He doesn’t ask me if he’s gotten it all—he hasn’t—but instead rubs the towel all over his face and head.
Then he straightens and looks at me.
Really looks at me.
His eyes are still bloodshot, and he’s squinting like he’s still dealing with the effects of the dye in his eyes, but the man’s staring me down as if he thinks he’s in charge here.
Like he got here first, which he clearly did not.
Daphne and I used to play that game when we’d go to the Hamptons. Our parents let us pick which bedrooms we wanted, and inevitably, Daphne would always beat me to the room with the balcony overlooking the water.
I’d play the older sister card and demand that she hand it over to me because I was an asshole.
She’d relent, and I’d wake up with seaweed in my bed because she’s Daphne and I deserved it.
All of the best stories about my life involve Daphne.
I wish she were here to see this. She’d be laughing her ass off.
Instead, she’s in upstate New York, living her best life as a normal person, newly madly in love with my ex-fiancé.
It’s fine.
Really, it is.
At some point in the past four years since he broke up with me—it happened around the same time Daph was disinherited—he both grew a spine and decided he hated CEO life, which really wouldn’t have worked for us long-term.
Plus, after Daph was disinherited, I started taking a long, hard look at who I am.
How many of my values were formed at the hands of parents whose values suck if they’re willing to disinherit someone they viewed as embarrassing instead of helping her find more constructive ways to channel her energy toward saving the world.
How many of my life choices were my own, and how many I’d been manipulated into by my parents.
Who I want to be and what I want to do with my life.
How completely inadequate I am at loving people.
“Why are you here?” Rhys asks me.
“I told you. Lucky said I could stay here. And I’m not the one breaking in in the middle of the night.”
Margie Johnson has pluck, even if she’s not attempting to command the room.
“Had the door code,” he reminds me.
“But no one knew you were coming.”
“Decker told me to come.”
“He told you to come?”
“Said I could stay here until I find my own place.”
Good. This should be temporary. A few days at most. A few very awkward days if the way we’ve met is any indication. “You’re moving here from somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“None of your business. I’m leaving this room, getting my bag, and going to the bedroom. Don’t hit me again, or I’ll defend myself this time.”
“I’m in the bedroom.”
“Of fucking course you are,” he mutters to the ceiling.
I channel my inner Margie Johnson, the housekeeper. “But if they’d told me you were coming, I would’ve left a blanket on the couch for you. Lucky told me the pull-out sofa is surprisingly comfortable.”
He doesn’t ask me again why I’m here.
Doesn’t ask me to repeat my story about how I know Lucky so he can find holes in it, which is what I’d expect of any halfway adequate executive protection specialist.
Instead, he does exactly as he said he’d do, and he moves intentionally toward me.
A behemoth of a man, moving like a glacier, with streaks of hair dye running down his forehead and disappearing into the beard on his cheeks, but still so large and poised that he’s probably intimidating the paint on the walls in here.
And I like it.
Deep, deep down, somewhere way inside me, a bone-deep respect and appreciation for this beast blossoms.
He’s unknown. He’s danger. He’s a challenge.
Large enough that he could’ve hurt me when I attacked him, but he didn’t fight back.
He’s your brothers’ friend, and this is already too messy, I remind myself.
He gets closer, and ohhhh shit.
His eyes are gonna be dyed too.
I step gracefully out of the way, remember Margie would be less composed, make myself scramble, and I slip on the flour on the wood floor behind me.
“I’m not cleaning that up,” Rhys informs me as I right myself without any assistance from him.
Cyril would’ve helped me even if he was mad at me, even if I told him not to, that I’d clean up my own mess. But Cyril can’t be spotted. Especially by a guy who’s apparently done security too. “I’m a housekeeper. I’ve got it.”
He slides another look at me as he grabs his green duffel bag from where he dropped it beside the door.
I don’t like it.
The look he’s giving me, I mean.
I don’t care what luggage he chooses to use.
I care that the man’s obviously suspicious of me.
“I’m booby-trapping the living room,” he informs me.
“I—I won’t be in the living room while you’re sleeping unless it’s to get to the kitchen.”
More side eye.
I’m torn between wanting to offer to help him dye his hair back to its normal color and puffing my chest up and glaring at him like I’d glare at any of the usual men who walk into my office thinking they can order me around.
Ultimately, I decide on a sigh. “I thought I’d be here by myself, and a woman can’t be too careful. Especially in new places. If I’d known you were coming, I really wouldn’t have…done all of this.”
He grunts, then disappears down the short hallway to the bathroom.
Which has one door into the hallway, and one door into the bedroom.
Just like you’d expect of a cabin built for one. Or for one happy couple.
Which, clearly, Rhys O’Malley and I are not.
And that’s when I let myself look at the carnage.
The axe that he dropped by the dining room table, at this end of the living room near the front door and kitchen.
The boot prints in the flour and then across the room and down the hallway.
The rug that I’ll need to replace since it’s splattered with hair dye.
Daphne gave me the rundown on using thrift stores. She’s become an expert since our father left her broke. I’ll find a new rug at a thrift store.
Play the part of the penny-pinching housekeeper until I’m ready to confess my real identity and replace the rug with something better.
A door clicks shut down the hallway.
I sag against the wall between the living room and the kitchen and quickly text Cyril back.
All is well. I think.
His response is immediate. I’ll be outside.
I make a mental note to give Cyril a raise for all of the extra tasks I’m assigning him while it’s just him as my security detail here.
And then I get to work practicing my new day job since I won’t be getting back to sleep easily anytime soon. I won’t get it all done before Rhys is out of the bathroom, but I can tackle the worst of it.
While I don’t think about how nice it is that there’ll be a mountain of a man sleeping on the couch.
Being the security I’m used to.
He might be a stranger, but he’s a stranger who’s passed all of the tests.
So long as you consider not murdering me immediately for what my intruder prevention and tagging system did to him passing all of the tests.
Guess we’ll see if I survive until morning.