Chapter 3
Beast in the Bathroom
MITCHELL
On instinct, I leaned sideways when the woman let go of the wrench. And thank Christ, because she had an arm on her. The metal tool whirred in the air as it sailed past me, then cracked hard against the marble wall next to my head.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I shouted, my heart clapping. “You could have killed me!”
But the woman, who couldn’t have been much more than five feet, had gone pale. Her arms tensed at her sides. She lifted her tiny, balled fists.
“Stay away from me!” Her voice was surprisingly loud in the enclosed space.
My stomach dropped. I’d wanted to be alarming—it’s why I barged in here.
I’d been pissed to discover someone in my house when I’d specifically instructed Sal I was not to be disturbed before noon.
By anyone. Ever. Over the six months I’d been here, I’d learned it was the only way I could hope to eke out a few pages on this godforsaken novel.But I didn’t know it was a woman.
I didn’t have cameras in here, and I hadn’t bothered to play anything back. I’d just stormed in, pissed as hell.
Except when I opened the door, I’d been stunned to frozen.
This woman, who looked like a pin-up dipped in mechanical grease—Marilyn Monroe in coveralls—had been bopping her head to music I couldn’t hear.
I was so shocked to see someone so… pretty dancing around in my bathroom that for a moment I hadn’t been able to move.
Her hair had come loose, little curls falling around her face.
Her pointed chin and upturned, slightly crooked nose might have been awkward on someone else, but they only added to her appeal.
So did the pink in her cheeks and slight sweat on her forehead.
Still, she was in my house. And no matter how pretty she was, she was still not supposed to be in my house. No one was.
I’d reacted poorly.
Now, I couldn’t stop staring at the dark smear streaked across her collarbone, or the way she’d tied her baggy coveralls around her waist, so she wore only a filthy white tank top stretched over her generous chest.
I forced myself to look away from that, appalled at myself for noticing. But her eyes—her striking sapphire eyes—were so wide the whites were visible on all sides.
She was terrified.
My anger shifted to Sal for going against my direct orders.
And then boomeranged to myself, for being a fucking dick. As usual.
I held my hands out. But I was unable to keep the low anger out of my voice as I said, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Of course, she didn’t relax, not one bit. “You just back out slowly,” she said, her voice high and tight. Then, not taking her eyes off me, she fumbled around in that toolbox. She was scared, but not helpless.
“Don’t—” I began, but she’d already reared her arm back.
This time, I caught the thing she threw with a slap to my palm. I looked over to see it was a large metal flashlight.
“I live here,” I said, trying to keep the anger from my voice. Trying to be reasonable. “You’re in my home.” That bit came out in a snarl. Fuck. I lowered the flashlight onto the counter next to the sink. As I did, I caught my own reflection.
I knew I’d let myself go. I was here for a solitary artistic pursuit. What the fuck did it matter how I looked? But I hadn’t exactly examined myself in the mirror recently.
No wonder the woman was scared for her life.
When I looked back at her, that pointed little chin was trembling.
My chest squeezed painfully, my mind suddenly assaulted by an image of my mother keeping me and my older brothers behind her as our asshole father screamed in her face. Mom’s jaw was set, hands clenched.But even as young as I was, and brave as she was, I’d known what that wobbling chin meant.
My anger—now turned squarely on myself—choked me. Pissing people off was one thing. But to make a woman fear for her safety? To have my rage cause tears? It was a line I never crossed—and one I’d just squarely trampled.
“Anita.” I barked. “Who am I?”
“Mitchell William Franklin Harrington,” said Anita.
The woman blinked. It wasn’t enough.
“Who’s the owner of this house?”
“Mitchell William Franklin Harrington.”
Finally, the woman took a breath and closed her eyes. A tear ran down her face, but she fisted it away. “Just because you’re the owner, doesn’t mean you’re not a dangerous asshole.”
I bit down the grimace; the urge to insist I wasn’t dangerous. “You should go,” I said, my voice barely more than a rusty scratch.
“I was called to this house. I was invited inside. You called me!”
“Like hell I did. I don’t call people like you. That’s Sal’s job.”
I realized how it sounded the moment it came out.
People like you. But it was too late to take it back.
Besides, it was true. Sal, my assistant, took care of my whole damn life from the top of one of my office towers in Seattle, where I’d left her six months ago.
Where I had to return in a month, book or no book.
“No one’s supposed to be here,” I said. It was pathetic, and she knew it.
But at least my idiot words had nudged her back to pissed off instead of scared.
“Buddy. Your people called me. To help you. And Blake is nice, so I said yes. Clearly, he got the good personality in the family. But you know what? Forget it. I don’t need this job. Not by a long shot.”
My head reeled. “You know my brother? Did he send you?” I’d told Sal not to contact Blake for anything.
He knew I was here. Hell, he was the reason I was here.
Blake had carved out a happy life for himself.
He’d found his dream woman. Told Dad to fuck off.
I think I wanted to enjoy his happiness by proxy.
Or leech off it, or something. But Sal knew I only wanted contact on my terms.
The woman began tossing items into her toolbox, loud and hard. “I don’t know how your people found me, and I don’t care.”
Not Blake then. Probably Anita alerting Sal something was off.
I should have said nothing more. I had what I wanted—she was leaving.
I should have just let this mouthy, wrench-throwing firecracker pack up and get the hell out so I could go back to my blank fucking page in my bleak fucking pool house office.
To write the goddamned novel that wasn’t going to write itself.
The novel that was my last chance to prove… what, I still wasn’t sure.
Except I couldn’t stop staring at her face. At the way her jaw clenched. The stiffness of her cheek and tremble of that chin. That expression—that was humiliation. I remembered that look well. I could practically feel it. The way it burned so hot it hurt to exist.
“Stop,” I said.
She ignored me. She was nearly done.
She tossed a tool into her box. Clank.
“Stop!” I repeated, louder.
She strode angrily to the sink and reached for the flashlight I’d set on the counter, but she was apparently too flustered to grab it. Instead, she knocked it sideways. It skittered off the marble, clattering to the ground.
“Shit,” she cursed. She squatted down to pick it up.
But I was there first.
I bent down and gripped the long metal cylinder, pulling it out of reach. She narrowed her eyes once more, and for a moment, we were in a standoff.
At this angle, with me leaning over her and her poised like a runner on the starting line, I was struck once more by how attractive she was.
A little more curvy than the supermodels the magazines loved to matchmake me with.
A little plump in all the right places. I could see her squatted down in a lot less clothing, a skirt flipping up in the wind, her lips in an ‘o’ of surprise; her fingers brought up to them in an oopsies!
My dick, ever the obedient fuck, jumped.
I was reprehensible.
“Give me my goddamned flashlight,” she hissed, standing up to meet my eye. It didn’t work. She was still at least a foot shorter than I was. I had to tuck my chin to look at her properly.
“You swear too much,” I said. Hypocrite.
“You prefer your plumbers to be more ladylike?”
She reached for the flashlight, but I jerked it away.
I wanted, selfishly, to keep looking at her.
To take an inventory of everything I saw.
A loose bobby pin near her temple. The little bow above her top lip.
Something in cursive tattooed to the inside of her left wrist. A name patch, upside down on her tied-up coveralls. I could still make it out.
Winona.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Winona asked, starting to look alarmed again.
What the fuck was I doing? But the words came out before I could stop them. “Stay, Winona. Fix it.”
Her eyes flashed in surprise at me using her name. Then she glanced down at the still-visible name patch. She was sharp.
She narrowed her eyes. They moved to the flashlight still in my hand. “Lodge it down, b’y.”
I frowned. “What?”
Winona clenched her jaw, grabbing for the flashlight once more.
This time, I let her take it. What the hell was that? Lodge it down? Was that English?
She slammed the flashlight into her box.
I shouldn’t have said anything. I wanted her to go. Or I had, a moment ago. Still I heard myself say, “Bill me double whatever Sal offered you. Triple. Whatever.”
“She was already paying me triple my emergency rate.”
“Then triple that.”
Winona’s jaw dropped, but only for a moment. She swung a hand to the still-open cupboard. “You can get this fixed for a fraction of that. Especially since it’s almost done.”
“Does it look like I care about how much it will cost?” It was a dickish thing to say. But I had very likely made more money in the time we’d been in this room together than she did in a year. That was just an ugly fact.
Winona slammed her toolbox shut and stood, her eyes narrowed, fingers tight around the handle of her box. “I could not,” she said, “give a flying fuck what you care about, or what kind of money you have.”
There was venom in her words. She despised rich people. Good. So did I. I never set out to be one, but it made sense I’d turn into someone I loathed. Still, her attitude was impressive. I hadn’t had someone give me this kind of shit in eons.
“Sal would only have hired you if you were the best,” I said. “Why would I want anyone but the best?” Might as well lean into being an asshole. Having her leave here pissed was a win compared to the alternative.
Her jaw clenched, but the tiniest flash of something else showed through, too. Pride? Humility? I wasn’t sure, but it made me want to know more about how someone like her did what she did. How she’d gotten so tough.
But wanting was dangerous.
Finally, I shrugged. “Fine. Do it. Don’t do it. I don’t give a shit.”
She leaned in, and I had to work not to close my eyes at her scent. She smelled like sweat and grease and… flowers. It was the most incongruous thing.
“Assholes like you,” she said, “deserve to lose everything.”
Something inside of me split, like a stitch pulled out of a wound too soon. Not just at her words, but at seeing her look at me like that. Like she was staring the devil in the face.
I popped my jaw. Then I yanked open the door, leaving her there.
I had behaved like a goddamned brute. I knew that. She knew that.
So why the fuck did I suddenly care?
I stormed down the hall, the lights glowing for me as I passed. “Fuck off, Anita,” I growled.
The lights went off.
I grabbed a beer from the fridge, snapping the lid off and tossing it on the ground hard enough that it ricocheted. It hit the side of the island and slid into the hallway I’d just come down. I stared at it a moment, willing myself to let it stay there.
Then I pictured Winona stomping out of the bathroom, down the hall, and stepping on that thing. She’d slide sideways and smack her head against the floor and—
“Fuck.” I strode over and swiped the thing up, tossing it hard in the can.