Chapter Fifty-Seven #2
“Thank you so much,” I said, passing the driver a big tip from the basket that Cam had supplied as well, because people were less likely to talk crap about the psych hospital they’d picked you up from if you’d been good to them, grabbed my bags, and climbed out of the car.
“Miss Coulter. Been wondering where you’d been,” Frank, my doorman, said as he held open the door for me.
“Oh, just a little long-weekend getaway,” I lied, giving him the best smile I could given how crappy I felt.
“You needed it.”
With just a couple more pleasantries, I was finally in my private elevator and heading up to my floor.
I just wanted a shower to scrub off the institution. Then a bath to calm my frazzled nerves. Some real food. A glass of wine. And sleep that wasn’t interrupted by flashlights or some ranting and raving from fellow patients.
As soon as I got in the door, I dropped all my stuff on the floor, so intent on the shower that I couldn’t even be bothered to put them on the table I had just for my bag and packages.
I was so distracted by the thoughts of my shower, in fact, that I missed him until I was a solid five feet into my apartment.
But there he was.
With his back to me, standing there looking out at the city.
“Whoever you are, get out of my apartment before I call the police.”
There was force behind my words. Not because I was feeling particularly strong right then, but because fear made me angry. And every woman knew that a strange, uninvited man in her apartment was absolutely something to be afraid of.
He turned then.
Not quickly.
Not like my threat concerned him at all.
I don’t know what I’d been expecting. But the hottest guy I’d ever seen was certainly not it.
He was tall and a compact sort of fit. Something about that body and the way he was holding himself screamed “ex-military” to me. His hair was short and a medium-blond. From across the room, it was impossible to tell what color his eyes were, but I could tell that they were dark.
But, damn, yeah, that bone structure.
God certainly favored him.
“Miss Coulter,” he greeted me in a voice that had no right to be as smooth and sexy as it was coming from the lips of a man in my home without being invited. I mean, there was a little wobbling in my knees at the sound of my name in that voice.
“Who the hell are you?” I demanded, reaching over toward a table at my side, closing my hand around the only hard object I found there.
Was it a priceless antique statue of a war goddess?
Yes.
But if it was me or the statue, it was going to be me.
Besides, I had a feeling the war goddess would approve of using her to bash the skull in of a trespassing man.
“My name is Brock. I work at Sawyer Investigations.”
“You say that as if it should have some meaning to me. It doesn’t. And you need to get the ever-loving fuck out of my apartment.”
“Ever-loving fuck, huh?” he asked. And, damn him, that boyish smirk of his was really appealing.
It must be easier to be a criminal when you could make your marks blush and flutter with one smile.
“I don’t know if you are dense or what, but let me make this clear. This is a door,” I told him, gesturing toward it. “I want you on the other side of it before I call the police to do it for you.”
“Liking the image of me with handcuffs on, huh, honey?” he asked, smile even warmer as he took a step forward. “Go ahead and put that statue down. It probably costs more than I make in a year.”
“Ten,” I told him, and he just kept smiling at me, his eyes doing a crinkling thing around the edges that was far too appealing.
“If you’ll put that thing down, we can talk.”
“I don’t believe there is anything I wish to discuss with a man trespassing in my apartment.”
“That ice princess thing? It works for you, babe,” he told me as he took another step closer.
My fingers tightened around the statue, but my mind couldn’t help but think it would be a sin to bash in a face as pretty as his.
I was worse than the girls who went into basements in their panties to see where the weird noise came from in horror movies.
“Gee, I’m thrilled to impress a random criminal. Get out.”
Was it my imagination, or were my demands that he leave getting less and less forceful?
No, that was ridiculous.
Of course I wanted him to leave.
“Cam said you were a real ball-buster,” he told me.
And then it all fell into place.
Of course it came back to Cam.
I got a message out to him about the 5150. He immediately tried to look into it, likely found out about the faux suicide attempt, then went to a professional to try to figure out what the hell was going on.
“Oh,” I said on an exhale, feeling the weight fall from my shoulders, my muscles relaxing once again as I set down my statue. “Cam.”
“Yeah, he barged into our office and offered to pay our fee to help you out.”
“He will not be paying,” I insisted.
“I figured,” he agreed.
“Why are you in my apartment when I wasn’t here?” I asked.
“I was here a couple of days ago to look for clues. Today, I am here to talk to you. You got released later than we’d anticipated, so Cam had to get to the office and pretend to be you.”
“Pretend to be me?” I asked.
“Yeah, you’ve come down with a stomach bug, so you can’t be away from the can.”
“Oh, lovely,” I said, letting out a whimper at the idea of everyone in the office thinking that. Couldn’t they have come up with something with a little more dignity than that? Shingles? Pneumonia? A freaking flesh-eating virus?
“Sometimes the best covers are the ones everyone can relate to the most. Who hasn’t had a stomach bug?” he asked, shrugging it off. “So, yeah, Cam is working from the office, pretending to be you working from home, so no one thinks you’ve been missing.”
“Oh, good,” I said, exhaling hard. I guess I could survive the embarrassment of a stomach bug that kept me home. Did it fit the perfectly crafted public persona I’d worked so hard to cultivate? No. But it was better than everyone knowing the truth, that was for sure.
“I, ah,” I started, waving toward the hallway.
“Really need to wash the hospital off of you?” he asked, sounding almost like he completely understood the feeling. Which didn’t make sense.
“Yeah, actually,” I agreed, nodding.
“Go ahead. Lock the door if it makes you feel better, but you’re safe with me here,” he said.
I immediately believed him.
I was someone who only put a small amount of weight on things like gut feelings.
In my world, many of the people I was around had been groomed from the cradle to put on an ironclad persona that no one could see past. It was an old-money thing that took me years to truly understand, since I hadn’t come from that world.
And it had been a tough lesson to learn.
I’d lost money and friends along the way because of it.
But it was a valuable lesson to learn.
Now I knew that if someone gave me the ick immediately, then I could generally trust that.
But if someone made me feel comfortable and safe at first blush, then that was a sign to tread carefully, to look for cracks in the corners where you could peel back the mask and see what was truly underneath.
Jaded?
Yes.
But a solid defense mechanism.
“How many people have you killed?” I asked.
That was another trick I’d learned.
If you asked a shocking, somewhat invasive and unexpected question, you were both showing confidence and dominance as well as putting the other person in a position to scramble.
When people scrambled, they tended to show parts of their true selves.
“Sixty-three,” he answered immediately. No hesitation. No fumbling over his words. He didn’t even break eye contact. Though those stormy eyes of his went darker at the admission, and the smirk fell from his face.
“Okay then,” I said, nodding. “If you’re going to hang around, though, would you mind…”
“The coffee maker is set. And the food is ordered,” he informed me.
“Cam?” I asked.
“Cam,” he said, nodding. “Go on. Get that ick off of you. I’ll be here to talk when you’re done. Take your time.”
With that, I did exactly what he suggested.
And I absolutely did not think about his hands being the ones rubbing the soap all over me.
Nope.
Because that would have been wildly inappropriate since he was going to be working for me.
An abuse of power, even.
But, God, did that sound like fun…