I hurry down the hall, my footsteps muffled by the thick rug running down the length of the passage.
Only a few of the rooms up here are used, including the suite Dad gave me when I first moved in.
It’s basically an entire apartment to myself, and I have to admit, I’ll miss it a little.
I’ve done everything I could to make it mine, to add little bits of myself to it.
It sort of intimidated me at first, but now it feels like home.
And I’m going to have to leave it in just a few days.
No warning, but then I didn’t get any warning about the way my life would change after Mom died, either.
I might as well be a leaf that fell from a tree and got carried by the wind, eventually landing on the water.
And now, all I can do is float, letting the current take me where it thinks I should be.
“Hey, princess.”
My blood turns to ice the instant I hear his voice.
There’s always a snicker to it now, like he’s barely managing not to laugh at me.
Even if he did laugh, I know there wouldn’t be any humor or kindness in it, more like bitterness and resentment.
I turn to face Zeke, reminding myself for the hundredth time that I can’t think of him the way I used to.
My eyes are in the habit of finding all his best features, though, and they never got the memo about us hating him now.
That’s why I can’t help but take in his chiseled jaw and slate gray eyes.
Right now, they’re almost stormy, swirling with dangerous energy.
His broad shoulders and firm chest.
The way his generous mouth ticks upward at the corner, his lips practically begging to be kissed or at least touched.
I wonder how soft they would be.
It takes a second for me to snap out of it.
This isn’t the sex god of my wildest fantasies-and no matter how much I used to want him, he’s not going to be my first.
He will never be anything to me but a jailkeeper.
And he hates me.
That alone is reason enough for me to fold my arms the way he does.
“I don’t see any princesses around here, so I don’t know who you’re talking to.”
He only rolls his eyes.
“Right.
Keep telling yourself that,princess.”
“What do you want?”
“I guess he told you.
We’re going to be roommates.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“So how would you put it?”
“We’ll be sharing a condo.
Separate rooms.”
“If you shared a two-bedroom place with anybody else, wouldn’t you call them your roommate?”
It’s obvious he thinks he’s really clever like he’s got me backed into a corner or something like that.
If there’s one thing he needs to learn about me, it’s that I’m never backed into a corner.
Not by somebody like him.
“You work for my father.
You’re an employee.
The live-in nanny.”
His only reaction is a twitch of an eyebrow, the slight tightening of his jaw.
“I hope you don’t think just because you’ll be away from him that security is going to loosen up any.”
“What did you have in mind?
Shackles?”
“Not a bad idea if you try pulling the sort of shit you’ve been pulling all summer.
Thinking you can sneak out when you have to know, I’ll be two steps ahead of you all the time.”
Now he does lift an eyebrow, his lips curving in a grin.
“And if you’re half as depressed about having to go away to school as you looked coming down the hall, I could tell him all about it, and your problems would be over.
He’d never let you out of the house again.”
He would do it, too.
All for the sake of getting rid of me.
If I was always in the house, he wouldn’t have to watch over me anymore.
“What are you trying to say?
You can’t handle your job?
Is that what this is about, you being afraid of how much harder I’ll make things for you when it’s just the two of us at school?”
“I know how your brain works,” he warns in a low voice that sends a shiver down my spine.
“I can practically read your thoughts.”
“You should know better than to talk to me the way you are right now.
Or else maybe I’ll have to ask my father to assign somebody else to me.
Somebody who can actually do the job without whining to me about it.”
“That’s what you think this is?
You think I’m whining?”
Before I know what’s happening, he backs me up against the open bedroom door.
There’s so much of him, all at once.
His size, the smell of his cologne, the warmth coming from his body.
The fine hairs on my arms stand straight up when his hot breath washes over my skin as he leans down.
“It’s a warning, princess.
The first sign of any of your shit, and he’s going to hear about it.”
My knees threaten to buckle, but I can’t let that happen.
The one thing I’ve had on my side all summer is knowing how much Zeke wants to keep this job with my father.
Not that I think there’s any affectionate feelings on either side or anything like that, but more like he doesn’t want to let Dad down.
He’s not a guy you disappoint.
Zeke can pretend all he wants, but we both know he would be blamed for anything my father found out about.
I might get a tiny slap on the wrist, but that’s it.
Which is why I’m able to lift my chin despite the way my body trembles.
“Go ahead and tell him.
We’ll see how much longer you have a job once you do.
I think we both know it’ll be better if you keep your mouth shut and let me do what I want.
I’m going to college.
I should be allowed to have my freedom.”
“That’s what you think.
But the guy who foots the bill has other ideas, and we both know it.”
His voice drops to something closer to a growl, one so deep it makes me wet.
“Behave yourself, princess.
Otherwise, I’ll have to deal with you myself.
And you won’t like that very much.”
I barely have time to catch my breath before he’s gone, disappearing as silently as he appeared in the first place.
And I’m supposed to live with this man with nobody around to keep him in check.
Or to keep me in check.
This can only spell trouble.
Chapter 3: Zeke
3
ZEKE
“T
urn on some music.”
My response is to stare straight ahead through the windshield.
The way I’ve been for the past hour.
I don’t even glance up at the rearview mirror, where I know I’d find Mia glaring daggers straight through me.
“Hello?
Did you go deaf?
Music.
It’s too quiet in here.”
Again, she gets nothing from me.
My hands tighten around the wheel, and I can’t help but imagine them tightening around her slender neck.
It’s bad enough I spend most of my waking moments reminding myself how dangerous it would be to give in to my craving for her.
Why does she have to make it so much more difficult?
Then again, maybe I should thank her.
Hating her is so much easier than wanting her.
Though the level of intensity is about the same.
She mutters something under her breath.
“Zeke.
I know you can hear me.
I’m only asking you to put some music on… please.”
She whispers the last part.
“Huh?
Sorry, I guess I couldn’t hear you.
It’s this funny problem I have.
My ears don’t pick up when people are being rude little assholes.”
“I didn’t know it made me an asshole to want music in the car while we’re on our way to school.”
“You know damn well what I mean.”
I finally take the chance of looking in the mirror, and I end up wishing I hadn’t.
She’s wearing a skirt just barely long enough that her father didn’t tell her to get changed the second he saw her in it.
But it was short enough for him to pull me aside.
“Make sure she doesn’t wear shit like that around school.”
Right.
Now I’m supposed to dress her in the morning.
Why not put me on diaper duty while I’m at it?
Ordinarily, back at the compound, it would have been bad enough trying to function with her looking the way she does.
Now it’s so much worse because there’s nobody nearby.
Nobody looking over my shoulder, nobody to report back to the boss that I spent a little too much time eyeing up his delicious little daughter.
Her long legs, so smooth and tempting.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.