Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 135300 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 541(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135300 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 541(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
“Good thing you checked. It’s nice knowing the walls won’t erupt with rats who’ll eat me in my sleep.”
She laughs too hard at that.
Her shoulders are still stiff, but she offers me a smile. “Well, I’ll get out of your hair.”
I don’t move from blocking the doorway.
“Not until you tell me what you were really doing.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“I sure as hell don’t think you’re being real.”
For a second, the corner of her mouth twitches before she wrestles it back under control. “I guess you got me there.”
“Guess I did. So what are you really up to, Margot?”
Her nose wrinkles as she sends a wry glance at me. “It’s embarrassing…”
“Try me.”
“It’s like you said… mice.”
“Mice?” I turn the word over like tasteless chewing gum.
“Yep. Big dumb mice. I haven’t been here in a while, but years ago there used to be some issues—not just this room, most of this floor sometimes. I had to make sure they didn’t come back.”
I blink at her, wary.
There might be some truth to it.
I can believe this old house has had mice over the years, and there’s an edge of sincerity in her voice that her last pathetic excuse lacked. That also explains the tapping on the walls—but not everything.
The way she holds herself gives away the half-truth.
The prolonged eye contact.
The self-deprecation that’s supposed to be shame and worry but feels like another way she’s covering.
No, I don’t trust this Blackthorn brat.
And if she’s going to be any kind of role model to Sophie, however temporary—whether I like it or not—then I need her to knock it off.
Just like I need to know how much I can trust her while she’s sharing a roof with my kids.
Right now, the only thing she’s done that screams good faith was allowing us to stay, and she could have any number of reasons for that.
Not all of them pure.
Everyone’s allowed their little secrets, fine. Hell, it’s not like I don’t have them falling out of my ears.
Only, the second you start compromising my privacy and acting sly about it, you cross a red line.
Margot hasn’t just crossed it.
She’s trying to erase it with both feet.
“If any pest issues turn up, tell me right away,” I demand.
Her eyes widen.
It’s like someone hooked a live wire straight into my gut.
Everything tenses.
I want to see it in her eyes when she realizes what messing with me could cost her.
I’m not a man you dick around with, and I don’t care if it’s a pretty face doing the dicking.
Instead of backing down, her chin tilts up as I step forward, and a shadow crosses her eyes.
Awareness, maybe. A frosted hint of defiance.
“Kane,” she whispers, moistening her lower lip with her tongue. I stare at it for a fraction of a second that’s already too long.
Goddamn.
“I mean it, woman. If there’s a mouse problem big enough to send you knocking around my room, I deserve to know. They carry diseases. I can help get rid of them.”
“Okay, yeah. And again, I didn’t touch any of your stuff,” she says quietly.
“Not the point.”
She’s hiding shit, acting suspicious as hell in my private space and in a house my kids are staying in.
She holds up her hands, trying to look harmless.
For a second, it looks like she wants to put them on my shoulders, trying to be reassuring. One good look at my face makes her think better of it, though, and she lowers her arms.
“Look,” she says, and I start getting flashbacks of my call with Mallory from OptiSynth. “You’re already working for free playing handyman. Chasing around rodents should be the least of your worries when you’re on vacation and—”
“No. If I can’t handle my worries, you’ll know. I’m not getting spooked by a few fucking mice.”
I roll up my sleeve for proof and she shuts the hell up.
Her eyes dart to the tattoo across my bicep.
Yes, it’s a power play.
A message of fearlessness that goes beyond vermin.
I’m not afraid of them, and I’m in no mood for your bullshit.
From the way she sucks in a breath before we lock eyes again, she knows it.
Her face glazes over as she looks back down at my arm.
The tattoo is a skull with a US Airborne unit insignia. The eye sockets are wide and dark and staring, the shadows intricately inked.
A fucking cool piece of art, heavy with meaning, and something I’m proud to wear on my skin.
A reminder that no matter what life throws at me, I’m equipped to handle it.
And considering everything that came after I returned to civilian life, I’m damn lucky I know how to handle myself.
“Listen, Margot,” I say, my voice low.
She flinches. Her lips part as she waits for me to finish, and—
Shit.
I tear my gaze away from her mouth, riveting it back to her eyes.
It doesn’t help that I’m both pissed at her and very aware of her proximity.