4. Maeve
CHAPTER 4
MAEVE
“Sorry.” I step back, the reality of my disappointment stinging much worse than I feared.
My eyes go to the door number just to be sure. Maybe I didn’t see it properly in the dark, but no, it’s correct. She simply doesn’t live here anymore. She moved on, and for some reason, that hurts more than being betrayed. It’s always hard to realize people move on with their lives without us.
“What do you want, Girl Scout? Are you selling something?” the man holding the door asks, pulling me up short. I sputter for something to say, but everything about this interaction is wrong.
His raspy and dark voice brings chills to my exposed skin. The baritone draws my eyes off the numbers, and they land on his chest, incorrectly assuming he’s of average height. A sense of fear better than stealing cars courses through me as my gaze climbs the rest of the way to find his face. He’s tall enough to fit perfectly in the doorframe. One more inch and he’d need to bend over. The light pours from inside, creating a halo and obscuring his features.
“No, I just have the wrong house. I should go.”
His silhouette is enough to tell me he’s intimidating. My need for adrenaline and attention might be bordering on suicidal, but I’m smart enough to get off this porch.
“Maeve?” He steps out of the doorway, interrupting the excuses resting on the tip of my tongue. I take a quick step back, ready to make my escape, far more than my share of adrenaline rushing through me at hearing my name on this stranger’s lips. Is my luck so profoundly fucked that I wound up at my enemy’s door? Who other than the men following me would know my name? I reach for the taser in my pocket, but before I can light his ass up, he flicks on the porch light.
My eyes adjust, and my head spins as he’s lit from all directions. Now that I can see his face, I recognize the warm cognac eyes meeting mine. His hard face cracks a sleek and sexy smile, and my stomach fills with butterflies and lead, a sickening combination.
“Don’t you remember me?” And I do, but I can’t make the picture in front of me add up. He looks far too different.
“Diego,” he says with a cocky tilt to his brow. Fuck, he’s hot.
And then his name breaks open a thousand memories. Oh. Oh my god.
The man standing in front of me is a far cry from the lanky teen who moved into my house when our parents married. His height doesn’t surprise me. He was always tall, but so skinny that kids would tease him sometimes. The lean muscle lining his arms and the myriad of tattoos speak of someone who doesn’t get bullied anymore. Sweet would never be a word I’d use to describe him, but he’s something entirely different now.
Only three years separate us, but at the time, it may as well have been a century. My opinion of Diego was always that he was so mature and grown up even. As I look over the beard coating his chin, and the way his facial features have hardened, the thought seems silly. This is what a man looks like.
I avert my gaze, trying to hide my burning cheeks and my bloodied hand. Diego may look dangerous, but I’m the real trouble in this situation, and I don’t have any good way to explain an open, untreated wound.
“Can I talk to Miss Angie?” The name feels clumsy on my tongue. After they married, she told me just to call her Angie, but for years before that, she was my ballet teacher. She wasn’t happy as my stepmother, not that I can blame her, and in my heart, she’ll always be the woman who gave me my love of dance, but it still seems strange coming from an adult’s mouth.
Diego’s face falls, and I recognize grief all too clearly. I’ve felt it often enough, and that same fear creeps up my back as his eyes trace my features. The silence between us is thick. It screams for me to leave. For a heavy moment, I know what he’s about to tell me. I resent him for the truth written all over his face. He doesn’t need to spell it out for me. I can tell by the way he’s looking at me, and I very nearly beg him not to say it.
“Come inside, Maeve.” He steps back into the doorway, but I can clearly see his face with the light still on.
No. I don’t want to hear it. My hands wrap around my midsection, the cut one aching fiercely as I try to hold myself together and shake my head in denial. I didn’t come back to see her after she separated from my dad, but I always meant to.
The visceral reaction triggers an unwanted memory. The look on my nanny’s face right before she shattered the world and told me that my mom died. My dad was too busy organizing the funeral and running the world. He had other more important people to see than a young grieving girl.
“Come on, Maeve, just for a second. Let’s talk inside.”
The dread and pity blend into a unique tone that I’ll forever associate with death. Diego invites me to a morbid dance with him, and I refuse. My tears fight to overtake my vision, but how cruel would it be to make him, her real son, console me? I can cry in the car while I’m running for my life.
I look down at the porch beneath me instead of at him. There isn’t anything to talk about. I’m wasting time. The planks shake or maybe that’s my knees, but hell itself opens up in front of me. I’m going to die too. I need to get out of here.
The woody musk of cologne rolls over me, and my eyes flick to him, finding that he’s stepped way too close. Barely two inches separate us, and I have to crane my neck to look at him. The difference in our heights is especially startling this close together, and heat envelops me. With him looking down, shadows have embraced half of his face, giving him a mysterious quality. He smiles at me again, just a half twist of his cocky mouth, and it’s so pretty my stomach twists too.
In addition to how hot he is and how good he smells, he radiates power. That’s not an easy task for most men, let alone barefoot and in their sweats, but every inch of him screams it. His power forces my gaze back down, and this time, instead of staring at the planks of wood, I try to decipher the tattoos on his feet.
“Holy shit. Are you bleeding?” he spits, and I squeeze my aching hand tightly closed.
“No, I’m fine.” He grips my hand, squeezing sharply. The pain quickly forces me to yield, opening my fingers and showing him what I did to myself.
“Fuck, that looks deep. You need to come inside so I can take care of it.”
“I need to go.”
“You need to listen to me.” I remember how bossy he used to be. It’s nice to know that even though he’s physically changed in every way, something is still the same.
“I’ve never listened to you, Diego.” That’s true. I used to drive him crazy as his annoying little stepsister. I certainly don’t want to now that I think you’re going to rip my world to shreds.
“Don’t make me carry you, Maeve.” The words come out low, that same curl on his sinful mouth luring me straight into the hell I feared. “Let me bandage your hand at the very least.”
Flickers of intuition run up my spine. The danger isn’t just his physical appearance—there’s more. I thought I cured myself of my open-book expression, but he reads me in a moment. But my hand hurts, and I’m tired.
“Don’t let all the new houses fool you. This still isn’t a good neighborhood. Come inside.” He winks, knowing full well he’s got Good Girl Maeve. He can’t imagine who I actually am now, though. Maybe it’s better for me if he doesn’t. I have the innate sense that he’s not someone often bothered, so perhaps I’ll be safe here for a little while.