Chapter 6
NOLAN
“Are your sliders too dry?” Marielle asked. “Mine are too dry.”
There was nothing wrong with the damn sliders; Nolan just wasn’t hungry.
He hadn’t been planning to eat at all until Marielle showed up with a takeout bag from the Doodlebug and lectured him on the importance of good nutrition.
Not that chicken sliders were healthy, but she’d served them with a salad, which had to count for something, didn’t it?
Now they were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, with Nolan wishing he were anywhere else.
“The sliders are fine.”
“Did your little blonde friend manage to fix the laptop?”
“Not yet.”
Marielle swallowed her mouthful and pulled a face. “I figured.”
“What did you figure?”
“That she wouldn’t be able to fix it.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Well, she’s a bit strange, isn’t she? Rude, too. One of those people who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.”
“She needs some time, is all.”
Time to unravel the disaster Nolan had created.
After he’d shuffled back into the study a couple of hours after the true horror of the situation became clear, she was still sitting at the desk, surrounded by his laptop, two more of her own, a fresh mug of coffee she must have fetched herself, and a can of Lysol.
“Do you want me to make you dinner?” he’d offered.
“No need. Chase will take care of it.”
Chase. The boyfriend who’d blindsided Nolan with his arrival. Thank fuck he hadn’t been in the room when that video started playing, or Nolan would probably have a broken nose.
“I’m sorry about the…you know,” he said. “The video. It was inappropriate.”
“And I’m not a child, Nolan. Stop treating me like one.”
“Not a child anymore.”
The words came out before he could stop them, laced with bitterness, and he immediately wished he could take them back. Alexa looked up sharply.
“You really want to go there?”
“No.”
“Because by the time Ruby died, I’d spent three years fending for myself. I’d done more adulting than some adults ever do.”
“I realise that, but you were still…sixteen?”
She didn’t confirm or deny. “And you were super judgey.”
“Because you were a minor, and I didn’t want to end up on the sex offender registry.”
“As if I would have reported you.”
Nolan took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. Alexa was fascinating, yes, but she could also be really fucking annoying.
“That’s not the damn point. I was twenty years old, I was under suspicion of murder, and I wasn’t about to get involved with a child. Where did you get the fake passport from?”
She ignored the question. “I knew you didn’t hurt Ruby.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but that also isn’t the point.” Nolan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Look, if you want to leave tonight, I’ll understand.”
“I can’t leave. I’m busy getting your handjob removed from three different porn sites.”
“What?”
“For every day you don’t pay, the entity behind the ransomware posts it to another website.”
“Are you serious?”
“That’s why it’s such an elegant scheme. People can live with losing their data, but nobody wants to see their private moments splashed all over the internet. Quite literally, in your case,” she added under her breath.
“Fuck my life.”
“You should be more careful around electronics.”
That was her takeaway? “I’ll pay the ransom.”
“You won’t. I’ve already gotten one of the videos taken down. I’m working on the second, and my lawyer’s sent a cease-and-desist for the third. This isn’t my first rodeo, Nolan. Your new laptop is on the credenza.”
She nodded to the side, then focused on the screen again. When had she started wearing glasses? They suited her.
“You can’t spend the rest of your days chasing my dick around the internet.”
“It isn’t hard.”
“Well, actually…”
“They put your name in the caption—writing the code to search for it took me less than five minutes.”
Nolan’s breath hitched. “My name is there?”
“Look on the bright side—your face is barely visible. And you’re getting more upvotes than downvotes, just in case you needed an ego boost.” The corner of her mouth twitched. “Or a sideline that doesn’t involve renting out rooms on Couch2Castle.”
“You think this is funny?”
“Grey always told me I should lighten up, didn’t he?”
“That’s because Grey is a douche. Alexa, sending endless cease-and-desist letters is unsustainable.”
Not to mention expensive.
“Oh, that’s just a temporary thing while I get to the root of the problem.” Her gaze dropped, only for a second. “The other root, I mean.”
“Exactly how much time have you spent hanging around with Jerry?”
“Enough. Trust me, okay? I know what I’m doing.”
“Is there anything I can say or do to stop you?”
“Nope.”
That’s what Nolan was afraid of.
And now he was stuck eating dinner with Marielle while Alexa began waging war on a bunch of hackers.
He’d long since suspected that she was involved in the darker side of the internet—her online antics had been the subject of many conversations among the roommates of Blackstone House—but she’d generally avoided discussing what she was up to in her basement lair.
“She looks about fifteen,” Marielle said. “Has she even graduated high school?”
“She’s twenty-six.” Probably. “And she knows her way around computers better than most people twice her age.”
Marielle sucked in a breath and rolled her eyes. “Okay, if you say so. Once she’s gone, we can make a start on the study.”
What was it with the women in his life? First, he’d met Alexa, and he’d tried damn hard to look out for her the way a big brother would.
It was only when he’d seen that passport that he’d allowed himself to see her differently.
To flirt a little and enjoy the view. Then Ruby died, and one of the cops thought he recognised Alexa as a teenage runaway from California.
She’d denied it, but while Nolan and his other housemates hid out in a local hotel after their home turned into a crime scene, Alexa had been sent to stay with foster parents.
And today, she hadn’t corrected Nolan’s assumption about her true age, plus she’d acted evasive when he suggested her passport had been fake.
Twenty-five or twenty-six was his best guess.
After Alexa, Nolan had stayed more or less single until he met Lisanne on a trip to Sacramento.
Moving in together after dating for only three months hadn’t been part of the plan, but she was struggling to pay the rent after her ex left her for his personal trainer, and her background in marketing had made her an asset to Nolan’s growing business.
They’d both been starry-eyed over the possibilities.
But Lisanne soon got sick of the rural lifestyle, and when Nolan refused to sell Dionysus and move to the city, she’d packed her bags and left.
But not before she opened the sampling spigots on three tanks of Syrah and let a year’s worth of profits trickle away.
Now there was Marielle. Also valuable to the business, and the folks in town seemed to think she was a great catch.
More than once, a neighbour at the grocery store or a patron at the Doodlebug had told Nolan how lucky he was to have her.
But he just couldn’t convince himself to like her in that way, no matter how compatible they might be on paper, and tonight, she was getting on his nerves.
“The study’s staying as it is.”
“Obviously we’ll have to finish the cottages first, I understand that, but we can at least start planning ahead. There’s not much natural light—all those dark shelves will have to go, and how do you feel about switching out the rear window for a set of French doors?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Like Alexa said, the study has character. I’m not changing it.”
At least until the rest of the place had been decorated and Marielle had moved on to another project. Nolan would tackle the study himself. True, he didn’t have the same eye for interior design, but rehabbing Blackstone House had taught him plenty about DIY.
“But—”
“Marielle, I’m the customer here, and the study is not my priority.”
She didn’t give up. No, she reached across the table and squeezed his hand.
“You’re also a friend, and I just love creating spaces that spark happiness in those who use them.
I hate to tell you this, but that room sparks nothing but horror.
So I’m going to do you a huge favour and redesign the study for free. ”
Nolan opened his mouth to say, “Forget it,” then stopped. There was no point in cutting off his nose to spite his face. The study was a horror story, and the red lines on his bank account said he couldn’t afford to turn down Marielle’s offer.
“The cottages are more important.”
She beamed at him. “Oh, I know, and I have wonderful ideas for the others. Each should have its own theme—uniformity is so passé. I can email some of— Never mind, Alexa hasn’t managed to fix your computer.”
“She brought me a new one to use.”
“That’s mighty generous of her.” Marielle’s tone was laced with suspicion.
“It is.”
“Make sure you have a contract in place. You don’t want her trying to take the thing back when you need it most.”
“She won’t.”
“Well, nobody gives an expensive gift without expecting something in return. Did she put any conditions on your using it?”
Yeah, don’t watch porn, but Nolan wasn’t about to tell Marielle that little detail.
“Let’s continue this tomorrow, okay? It’s been a long day, and I need to get some rest.”
“Sure. You want me to clean up the dishes?”
“I can do it.”
And then he needed to take a cold shower.
No more porn, Alexa had ordered. But he didn’t need it.
The sick, sick part of his psyche knew what he’d be picturing the next time he touched himself.
Who he’d be picturing. Alexa, standing behind his desk with her hands on her hips, giving him a lecture on the danger of pretty blondes.
Fuck.
She was older now, but her spiky personality hadn’t changed. And he had no doubt she still lied as easily as she breathed. Then there was Chase… Yes, Alexa was still off-limits, and Nolan knew sleep was a pipe dream too.