Chapter 2
THIS OLD HOUSE (KANE)
What the fuck am I looking at?
No, more like who?
This strange woman folds her arms as she stares up at me in shock. Sophie’s still behind her on the floor, giving me that kicked puppy look I know too well.
There’s murder in my veins, even if the intruder looks harmless enough.
What the hell is she doing in my rental, grabbing my daughter?
The second I heard my little girl scream, I came running like any father tuned to his kid’s distress call.
Now, I’m ready for war to protect her, if that’s what it takes.
“Don’t move,” I bark at the stranger.
Her face tightens.
At least she listens, allowing me to storm past her and take Sophie’s hand. I get her off the floor and shield her behind me.
“What the hell are you doing here? What did you do to my daughter?” I demand, sizing the woman up, raking my gaze over her.
Her blue eyes flash with anger.
For a second, I realize she’s young, maybe double Sophie’s age.
She’s also effortlessly gorgeous, even without makeup. The oversized shades perched above her eyes push her bright blonde hair back from her face.
Her jeans are faded, clinging to shapely legs and hips designed for sin.
In another life, I might keep staring, drinking her in like the tall sip she is.
But in this one, where I’m a father, this prowler has hell to pay.
“Well? Talk,” I demand.
She clears her throat loudly.
“First off, I didn’t do anything to your daughter. Oh, besides break her fall when she came tumbling down the stairs. You’re welcome,” she adds, rolling a shoulder.
She winces, sucking in a sharp breath.
I don’t feel sorry for her.
For all I know, she’s playing it up for sympathy.
My eyes flick to her pockets, her hands, just to be sure she isn’t hiding a weapon. Old habits die hard.
She doesn’t look that threatening, no, but appearances can be deceiving.
You never know if Little Miss Indignation will morph into Little Miss Switchblade in the blink of an eye.
“You have five seconds before I call the cops,” I snarl.
Usually, people wilt at the ice in my voice when I get pissed.
I’m a big guy. I know how to throw my weight around, and my voice, too.
When you’re my size, people know you don’t back down from a fight. Animal instinct.
No matter how much we like to think we’re higher up the monkey tree from all the other creatures, humans still respond viscerally to beasts with size and attitude.
Not that I feel very beastly after years hacking spreadsheets down to size and trying to stay awake during long video meetings with investors.
Have I lost my edge?
Right now, this woman doesn’t seem to give a shit.
Interesting.
Her chin tilts up, high and sharp. She glares at me like she’s trying to decide if she can run or maybe go straight for my eyes with those long, manicured nails in pastel pink.
“Whatever,” she says finally. “Call them, dude. Then they can arrest you for trespassing on my property.”
“Trespassing?” I spit the word back. “You’re the one who barged in and tried to take my daughter!”
“Take your dau—” She hisses furiously and rips the shades off her head, freeing her gold-spun hair. “Are you serious right now? Like, is this some sort of fucking joke?” Her eyes flick to Soph and her face screws up. “Um. Sorry, kid.”
“It’s cool,” Sophie says, brushing my sleeve as she steps forward. “Dad, she was just—”
“Not cool, Soph. Let me handle her.”
The woman rolls her eyes, brazenly unafraid.
Fuck.
For someone who just shamelessly broke into my rental house, she’s bold as hell, and I feel a grudging twitch of respect.
Doesn’t change the fact that I can and will have her blonde ass arrested if she doesn’t give me one good reason why she’s here—and fast.
“Don’t hold back on my account.” She folds her arms, the sunglasses still dangling from her fingers. “What are you going to do? Pick a fight? Punch me through a wall? You don’t scare me, Dadzilla. And you’re not dialing the cops yet, either.”
“Dadzilla?” I stare through her, wondering if she’s mentally younger than my daughter. “Are you being funny right now?”
“No, actually. I’m being pretty serious, considering you’re treating me like I’m a criminal and I own this place.”
“You had your hands on my daughter,” I growl.
“I was catching her. How many times do I have to say it?” She gives Sophie another quick glance, her brows drawn together like she’s worried Soph will flip any second, trading her fear for my attitude.
“Have you tried being decent? Maybe thanking me instead of threatening to have me arrested? You’re welcome. ”
Sophie tugs my arm again, and I finally look down at her, reluctantly pulling my attention off the woman.
“Daaad,” she whispers. “It’s true. Everything she said. I was leaning over the railing to look down because I heard a noise, and it broke. The lady caught me.”
“You’re welcome, girlie. That’s better,” the woman says too brightly. “But I’ll admit it was lucky I broke her fall. We scared each other out of our wits. Either way, we’re both miraculously unharmed.”
For the first time, I notice the large splinters on the floor. When I glance up, there’s a gaping hole in the railing.
“You fell from up there?” I confirm quickly with Sophie, my eyes still fixed on the woman. “Are you okay?”
“I spun around too fast. But yeah, I’m fine, Dad.”
“See?” the woman prods. “Now, maybe you won’t mind explaining who you are and what you’re doing in my house?”
“Your house? Come on. Take the comedy act somewhere else.” I snort.
“Yes, my house. Why do you think I’m here? How do you think I got in?” She gestures around the entire room, turning a full 360. “You think I just go around breaking into people’s homes and scaring their children for fun?”
“How would I know, woman? No clue who you are.” I fold my arms right back, glaring at her. “I know for a fact you don’t own this place. I did my research before I booked it. It’s a Blackthorn property, and you don’t look like Leonidas Blackthorn.”
Her face changes, so fast I almost miss it.
A flicker, the flame dimming in her eyes.
A second later, it’s back, though, and dialed up in intensity.
“Obviously,” she clips. “I’m his granddaughter, Margot Blackthorn. He died months ago—didn’t you know?”
I was aware, but I didn’t think that she would be.
I just assumed—
Shit.
In New York, you’d have to live under a damn rock to avoid hearing the name Blackthorn. That goes double in New England, especially in this small town, Sully Bay.
The Blackthorns are one of the heavy hitters on the Eastern Seaboard, and easily the wealthiest family in Maine. Even national journals covered his death and the company’s aftermath for weeks.
Now I’m face-to-face with this woman, who’s claiming to be one?
Fucking doubtful.
Where’s her entourage? Her staffers and bodyguards?
I give her another stone-cold look of frosted skepticism.
Designer sunglasses.
Blonde streaks in her hair, almost certainly from a high-end salon.
Black leather jacket, molded to her body, and jeans.
Casual enough, but the way it sits on her frame tells me that she chose this outfit deliberately. And that leather isn’t some cheap knockoff material. It’s the very expensive real deal.
Before I can grill her, she’s moving.
“You know what, screw it,” she mutters, brushing past me and stalking to the back door where apparently she’s dumped a collection of her stuff. There’s an oversized rollaway parked next to a green leather bag resting on a chair, and she starts rifling through it.
That’s probably designer, too.
I don’t have a problem with luxury goods, even if Daria killed the shine.
Then again, Daria wouldn’t be here with a dust-covered ass and a bare face, moving like she doesn’t give a shit about how she looks.
That’s more appealing than my ex-wife’s carefully contrived appearances and public freakouts whenever she lost a single fake eyelash.
The supposed Blackthorn woman retrieves a small wallet from her purse and stalks back to me, yanking out a card and handing it to me.
“My license,” she announces. “Happy now?”
Happy isn’t the right word for this fuckery, but yes. A quick scan tells me she wasn’t lying about her name.
Margot Blackthorn.
The picture matches, too—and she’s somehow just as damnably pretty in that awful ID photo as she is in the flesh.
Just a few years younger.
Rounder face, the same sultry hooded eyes she has now, but without the same tiredness. I wonder if the past few years have been hard.
According to the license, I wasn’t far off with her age.
She’s only twenty-five.
Still not a reason to roll out the sympathy train.
“Margot,” I say, looking back at her like I’m a bouncer checking her ID.
“Awesome. You can read,” she says impatiently. “So do you believe me now?”
My jaw clenches.
Unless this is an excellent fake, I have no grounds not to believe her. And if she’s a Blackthorn, then chances are she really does own the place.
Which means—
Nothing fucking good.
I scratch my head, processing.
I’m stumped.
Mrs. Griffith assured me this place was vacant since it needed a little ‘fixin’’ in her words. Even so, it was still pricey for a vacation rental at the edge of the offseason.
I blamed that on its size and location, just steps from an awesome lake, the whole reason we’re here.
“Satisfied?” she clips again.
“Yeah,” I say. She looks ready to slash my throat with the license I’ve just passed back to her.
“Uh-huh.” She shrugs and returns her wallet to her bag. “So, now it’s my turn. Why are you here?” she asks over her shoulder.
“We have a reservation,” I say.
She turns, frowning until her pretty pink lips turn down.
It’s a normal expression I shouldn’t notice so much, but dammit, I do.
The lushness of her lips, the way they make her face more sensual than sharp, balancing out the point of her nose and slight point of her chin.
Blackthorn or not, she rocks supermodel good looks.
Not at all the type of woman I expected to find in this sorry, beat-up house.