Chapter 8
IS IT HOT IN HERE, OR IS THAT THE FUMES?
Rhys
“There’s no cabin emergency,” I say as Margot gapes at me. “And you’re welcome.”
I start to turn away, but the woman grabs me by the front of my shirt and yanks me into the closet.
I let her.
The room descends into complete blackness for a split second before she switches the light on.
It’s a lone lightbulb hanging from a cable that swings in response to the cord being pulled.
The light beams bounce around us like the bulb is dusty, and I notice the whir of electronics and catch sight of a row of internet routers and cables on the shelves, along with far fewer cleaning supplies than I’d expect.
Must be a secondary closet for this level, since there’s a much larger storage area in the laundry room in the basement.
“Who do you think you are, and why are you calling me the wrong name?” Margot demands.
Yeah, this is Margot.
No Margie in sight.
She’s tall and confident and the set of her jaw and the flash of her eyes telegraph that she knows what to do with my body if I say the wrong thing, and she has me pushed against the shelf of cleaning supplies, making ammonia and lemon and a bit of dust tickle my nose.
I step forward until our bodies line up when she refuses to budge an inch. Doesn’t matter that I have her by at least eight inches and probably a hundred pounds.
She’s not backing down from staring at me, and she doesn’t retreat.
She also doesn’t shove me back when her hands land on my chest, though we’re both aware that she could.
Absolutely, undoubtedly, no questions, this woman thinks she runs the whole world.
But she’s fucking kind too.
And I don’t like that contradiction in her.
“Why are you pretending to be someone you’re not?” I reply.
“I don’t know who you think you are—”
“You were at the Hoteliers Association dinner. Saved Imogen Carter from your father’s drunk ass.”
“He wasn’t—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Victory. “You’re right. He wasn’t drunk. Just checking.”
Her pretty blue eyes narrow. “What do you want?”
“For my silence?”
“Yes.”
“The truth.”
“So that you can tell Decker because he asked you to come here and accidentally be my housemate so that you could spy on me and find out all of my secrets?”
“You’re very suspicious.”
She arches a brow and glares up at me. “What part of that was wrong?”
“Irrelevant. How long do we have before your security agent realizes you’re trapped in a closet?”
Her cheeks take on a subtle pink stain. “Two minutes at most.”
“He didn’t intervene Friday night. When you ambushed me.”
“He understands the delicate situation, and he knew I had things under control.”
“Why’s it delicate?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“You’re lying to a guy who saved my life once. I’m making it my business.”
“He saved your life,” she repeats.
No. Fuck, no. We were barely at the same duty station long enough for that to happen, even if we did make fast friends. Back when I could make fast friends. When I trusted the whole fucking world as much as a Marine can trust the whole world.
“Yes.”
Her gaze slides to the door. “By making you into a character in a book?”
“People can do more than one thing in their lives.”
Margot’s lush pink lips pinch together.
Voices drift through the door.
Theo Monroe and Jonas Rutherford.
From what Decker’s told me about Theo, I suspect he wouldn’t blink at two people being in a broom closet together unless he thought one was harming the other.
As for Jonas, I don’t know how he’d react to two people in a broom closet, though I do know who’s renting out the retreat center next week, and the bits of the conversation I overheard just now suggest he’s okay with that, so he probably wouldn’t blink either.
Margot’s gaze shifts to the door again. Her hands are still resting on my chest, and if I were a betting man, I’d bet she’s calculating the odds she’ll feel the need to fling herself at me, climb me like a tree, and kiss me to put on the show that we’re secretly fucking around while we’re working.
My damn dick decides he likes that idea and lifts to half-mast.
I could make noise.
Rattle a shelf.
Something subtle enough that she’d have to throw herself at me, and I could see if she tastes like a shark, or if she tastes like a complicated, red-blooded woman who might want some stress relief between the sheets while she’s here.
Knock it off, dumbass, I tell my libido and the more Neanderthal half of my brain.
I’m not sleeping with Margot Merriweather-Brown.
I’m not sleeping with anyone.
Ever.
For the rest of my life.
Not after what Felice did to me.
The voices outside the closet fade.
I open my mouth, but Margot lifts a hand and holds up a single commanding finger.
Be quiet. Don’t talk yet.
I know that finger well.
Used to get it from my stepfather.
Two seconds pass.
Three.
Five.
Eventually, ten or so seconds later, she drops both of her hands and takes the smallest step back. “I won’t discuss this with you here.”
“Here in the broom closet, or here in the state of Colorado?”
“Don’t be obtuse.”
“Skillet, I’ve been around your type in one way or another most of my life. I know to be specific.”
“Skillet?”
“It’s that or Margot. Which one do you want me to call you?”
Her lip curls, flaring one nostril with it. “Skillet is fine. But don’t presume I’m a type. You know nothing about me.”
“I know you’re on a sabbatical from your life because your little sister’s shacking up with your ex-fiancé.”
That one’s annoying.
I don’t like having things in common with people like Margot.
And by people like Margot, I mean people who lie about who they are and claim to be related to people I care about.
The Margot who helps clean up spilled coffee in a café and makes friends with elderly novelists and has her fellow housekeeping staff talking about how nice she is—if it’s real, I could not dislike that about her.
Which isn’t the same as liking something about her.
It’s simply not disliking her.
She smirks right back at me. “They have my blessing. I’m actually happy for them.”
“Right.”
“Aren’t you happy for your ex and your stepbrother? Assuming they’re both happier now? Which I’m not saying was your fault. Sometimes people just don’t match. And sometimes people change. The world is rarely black-and-white, right-and-wrong, good-and-evil.”
“We’re talking about you. Are you actually related to the Sullivan triplets, or are you scamming them for something?”
“What the actual fuck would I scam them for?”
“You tell me.”
“We share DNA. There’s zero chance my mother would’ve given birth to triplets without the world knowing about it, and they insist their mother remembers giving birth to them, and that they accidentally found out their dad isn’t their biological dad, which means my father and their father must be where we get the common genetics. ”
“Maybe their existence is inconvenient for you and you need to learn the best way to take them out.”
“Oh my god, are you serious? No, stop. We are not discussing this here.”
“We’re discussing it somewhere if you want me to not tell Decker immediately who you are and what you’re doing.”
She’s a pacer. You can tell she wants to pace, but this room is approximately the size of one and a half of me.
There’s no room.
And the look she gives me suggests it’s my fault the room is this small.
She picked it.
She can deal.
“I’m going to tell him,” she grits out. “I’m going to tell all three of them. But not yet. There are things—”
“There are always things. When? What date and time are you telling them?”
“Three weeks from this Friday.”
She made that up on the spot. I don’t know how I know, but I know. “Why then?”
More voices drift in from the hallway. Can’t tell if it’s guests or staff, but it’s not Theo and Jonas again.
“I have to get back to work because I have a job I’ve committed to and I’m going to fucking do it,” she hisses.
“I’m off in thirty minutes. Think about what you want.
We’ll discuss it at the cabin. Also? If you tell a single soul who you think I am before we discuss exactly how we’re going to ride out this situation, you will regret it every single day for the rest of your life. ”
I swallow the ooh, so scary retort that’s at the tip of my tongue.
Because I, too, have to get back to work.
Decide what I want in exchange for my silence.
And I can think of two different things to ask for.
Two very, very different things.
One will get me closer to the future I want to live in, even if there won’t be any guarantees it will work.
One will give me satisfaction about the past, but possibly destroy part of my soul—the part of my soul that knows I’ve always behaved in a way that my mom would be proud of—to do it.
Question is, which strategy am I going to take?