Chapter 2 #3
Her eyes narrowed, and he saw the fuck you in her eyes, the you maggot-infested son-of-a-bitch about to fall from her lips.
What he didn’t see, surprisingly, was any measure of betrayal, heartbreak, or remorse for running out on her society wedding.
What was all that about? And what, exactly, had happened?
Curiosity, something he thought he’d lost, bubbled again.
“I am not going anywhere until I see a deed of sale.”
He had a copy, but in her current mood, Thom knew she wasn’t prepared to believe anything he said or showed her.
Poppy swiped the bottle of water out of his hands, opened it, and chugged. She swallowed it down in record time, and Thom walked over to the fridge and pulled another from the door. He cracked it and handed it to her. Maybe she’d be more reasonable once she was properly hydrated.
He rubbed the back of his neck and ran through his options.
The only properly furnished room in this multi-roomed house was his bedroom.
He’d brought in a California King—he was a big guy and needed a decent bed after spending the day breaking his back—and a comfortable sofa, a bar fridge, and a desk.
The en-suite bathroom had a working shower, toilet, and basin, and basically nothing else.
To say it was functional was stretching the word.
Renovating the bedrooms and bathrooms was way down his priority list. He was starting at the bottom and working his way up.
Basically, Poppy staying here was out of the question. Unfortunately, so was her staying anywhere else in H-Town. Because it was the opening weekend of the month-long Halloween festival, the town was full to overflowing and an utter nightmare.
The queues at his favorite coffee shop—Spirited Grounds—were twenty deep at any time of the day, and ordering a pizza from Il Fantasma now took forever.
At least The Bar—the only non-Halloween themed bar in H-Town—was a safe haven from the craziness, and the hardware store was, mostly, a tourist-free zone.
H-Town during October was madness, and Thom tried to avoid it as much as possible.
But crucially, all accommodation in town and in the surrounding towns had been booked out for months.
There wasn’t a room, tent, or stable for rent within fifty miles.
Since Thom was restoring the inn and planned on providing upmarket accommodation in time for next year’s bumper tourism season, he was pleased.
Having Poppy in his kitchen right now? Not thrilled.
He had an inn to renovate, he was considering taking a consulting job with an old client, and he had a dog to keep him company. Talking of, where was his dog? He whistled, then heard the click of dog nails on wooden floors.
Felony, his three-year-old golden retriever, looking like he had absolutely no fucks to give, gave him a “what do you want now?” glare.
Thom patted his thigh. “Here, Fel.”
The dog yawned, bored, and dragged his ass over to where Poppy stood. Sniffing her gown, he lifted his leg and peed on the fabric that was brushing the floor.
Okay, the dress was hideous, but Felony didn’t need to be such a shit. Actually, given his dog’s bad attitude, Thom was glad that peeing was all he did.
He grabbed his dog’s collar, shoved his nose into the small puddle of pee on the fabric, and dragged him over to the kitchen door, and opened it.
He pointed to his outside kennel and, in his most authoritative voice, told Felony to go there.
Felony simply lifted his nose in the air, turned his back to Thom, and farted.
Yeah, he wasn’t remotely in charge here.
When he walked back into the kitchen, his eyes watering, he looked at Poppy and couldn’t tell if she was about to laugh or cry.
Her nose was scrunched up, and she stared down at the yellow stain on her dust-streaked dress.
“Perfect. Honestly, I can’t blame him; it’s horrible. If I could, I’d pee on it, too.”
Thom’s eyes widened. “You don’t like your wedding dress?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “No, I have taste.”
“Then why would—” He pulled his question and shook his head.
He didn’t care why she’d chosen to wear a dress she didn’t like or why she’d chosen to marry his brother or why she was here.
He simply wanted her gone. He wanted his quiet life back, where his biggest problem was stripping the windowsills and dealing with his psychotic dog and dismissing the sound of footsteps coming from the floors above as the old house settling.
“I also need to get out of it, right damn now.”
Thom watched as Poppy placed the water bottle on the dining table and reached under her left arm, fiddling with the material on her dress.
His eyes widened as the tight-fitting material slowly parted, revealing heavily embroidered lace.
She kept pulling the zip down, and more of the lacy bra was revealed.
No, it couldn’t be called a bra, it was more complicated than that.
Strapless, its cups nestled her breasts, and the material covered her ribs and dipped into her waist. Did it reach her hips?
Judging by the way she pulled it down her waist, he was destined to find out.
Completely entranced by the impromptu strip-show happening at 5.
50 on a late Saturday afternoon, he watched as the heavy dress fell into a frothy pile of fabric and pooled around her feet.
Thom swallowed, wondering what had happened to the moisture in his mouth.
It turned out that her corset-thingy did reach her hips, stopping just a half-inch from her boy panties.
They shouldn’t be sexy, but, damn, they were, and somehow made her smooth, slim legs look more feminine …
if that was at all possible. Clipped onto the hem of her panties were tiny hooks, and on one he saw the remnants of a stocking she’d obviously, at some point, ripped off.
He wondered whether they were with her shoes. Or had she lost them later?
Coming back to himself, he was about to ask what the hell she thought she was doing stripping off in his kitchen—to be honest, it would be a memory that would live with him forever—when she shoved her hand into the left cup of her bra-thing.
What now? He waited, hardly breathing, as she pulled her hand out, her fingers tightly clasping a pearl necklace…
He watched, fascinated, as one end of the string fell out of her hand.
Then, in slow motion, the pearls slid down the string and—oh, shit—dropped into fresh air.
As the pearls gained momentum, they flew off the string, bouncing on the slate tiles and skittering away.
Looking down, Poppy let out a frustrated yell, tried to gather the rest of the necklace, but, somehow, simply made the situation worse, and the rest of the pearls fell and bounced.
Then she let out an ear-piercing scream and dropped to her knees and sobbed.
Thom, in turn, reached for an ibuprofen and a bottle of Scotch.