It was still good, the food, even though it spent a decent amount of time on the floor while Saint and I spent a decent amount of time fucking in my bed. Emily’s bed. It was wrong, that he’d done this same thing to a different woman in the same bed.
I liked it.
A lot.
And I definitely built up an appetite doing so. Which Saint sated with some kind of creamy chicken dish I never would’ve eaten before this, and I all but licked the plate. He didn’t give much away, but I could tell he was satisfied.
Again, I didn’t help him with the dishes. He didn’t complain. He knew where everything went. I just watched him, observed how familiar he was with the space, with where the pots went.
He turned around, sipping the last of his wine.
“It bothers me,” I said, looking around the room, “that I’m here, in her house, among her things, fucking the same man she used to.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he said without hesitation. “You know it’s something that should bother you, that other people would be bothered by it. You want me to think it bothers you because you want me to think of you in a certain way. You want to lie to me in a certain way. Just like you lie to the rest of the world.”
He snatched my chin in his hands. A firm grip, to catch my attention. Show me he wasn’t fucking around. Wasn’t going to handle me with care.
“Newsflash, buttercup, I’m not gonna let you lie to me. And even if you try, I can see right through you.”
I blinked rapidly. Because he did. Saw right threw me.
“I’m going to talk a bath,” I said in response to his words.
He nodded.
I didn’t invite him.
He didn’t invite himself. Just poured himself and me more wine, handed me my glass, sat down on the sofa, and picked up the book I’d been reading.
Apparently, he was staying.
I made sure not to stare at him sitting there, comfortable. Wine, book, fire roaring, warmth radiating through the room, cold everywhere else.
Yes, I didn’t stare.
And I did a good job pretending I didn’t like it.
He wasn’t in the living room when I emerged from the bathroom.
He wouldn’t have left, not without saying anything. We weren’t playing that game anymore. Something had changed, and I wasn’t stupid enough to deny that, to continuing pushing him away.
Not yet at least.
My writing was the best it had ever been. I might have a book in me yet. And it was to do with him. The entire soak in the bath, I’d been tapping at my phone, with near mania. I didn’t notice when my wine glass emptied, or when the water turned cold. I even forgot Saint was in the living room, reading, drinking wine.
Everything was gone. Nothing mattered beyond the story.
Until I couldn’t deny just how cold I was getting. So, I got out, slipped on a silk robe, and looked for Saint.
The book was face down on the coffee table, wine glass empty.
I picked up the glass of whisky he’d obviously poured for me and walked toward the only place in the house he could be. My stomach clenched and churned the time it took to walk to my office.
It couldn’t have been more than a handful of seconds. This was a small house. But I dragged my feet when I should’ve been rushing. Because it was already too late.
He was in my office.
Staring at my wall.
My murder wall.
The graphic crime scene images I definitely shouldn’t have had access to. Records, clippings.
My laptop was closed.
Thankfully.
I would’ve kicked him out of my house and out of my life if he’d opened it. If he’d read the book that wasn’t even halfway done.
That was a violation of the worst kind in my eyes. I’d met many authors who wanted to read their first drafts on live TV if they could. Who sent me snippets of their WIP as if they weren’t sharing an unpolished shred of their soul with me.
Not a single person even glanced at my manuscript until I’d written, revised, rewrote multiple times. My editors didn’t get snippets or teasers, though they’d demanded them many times. I always won because I was their top author and I was the one in charge.
It did piss them off.
And any boyfriend I’d ever had. They had always wanted that added intimacy notoriety they could read what I was writing. For some of them, it was better than fucking me.
But they never caught a glimpse.
I didn’t write in coffee shops, in libraries, where some stranger could catch a sentence. The thought of people watching me write was like someone watching me masturbate. Except I’d prefer that.
So, it was a good thing Saint hadn’t opened the laptop.
Though it wasn’t a good thing Saint was standing here at all.
He was holding a glass of whisky, face blank, posture rigid.
“You’re investigating Emily’s murder.” The words were sharp. Punctuated. But they were even.
“I’m not investigating it,” I said, making sure my words were just as sharp and not at all even. I wasn’t about to apologize for what he found while he was snooping in my house. “I’m using it as inspiration for my next book. And in order to use it, I need as much information as I can get.”
“Oh, and that’s better,” he clipped. This time, fury leeched into his words. Real fury. Something I hadn’t truly heard in his voice before now.
“It’s none of your business,” I said, not letting myself admit his fury rattled me.
“Don’t insult either of us by even pretending you think that,” he replied. “You’re a smart woman, Magnolia. You know you’re playing with fire here.”
“I do,” I replied. “But I don’t care.”
He stepped forward, eyes glittering with a threat, a promise. I’d seen a hint of this side of him before. Because this dark, dangerous, menace was the only side he had to him. He’d muted it. I saw that now.
“I want you to stop.”
“I want you to get back in touch with reality and realize what you want will never factor into my decisions,” I replied.
“You don’t know what I’m capable of,” he growled.
I swallowed the fear he wanted me to feel. “Oh, I do.”
He blinked. I’d surprised him. Satisfaction warmed me. I figured that might be a hard thing to do. “You do?”
I guessed he thought I’d Googled him and found out all his horrible secrets. I had. Googled him, that was. But I hadn’t found anything. Not a damn thing. Which told me he surely had a lot of horrible secrets. Everyone had a presence on the internet, even if some of them weren’t as elaborate as my own. Even if they were borderline recluses living in the woods in Washington. It was inescapable in this age.
Unless you had a lot of bad shit to hide.
Taking one look at Saint, you knew that.
But yeah, having nothing online, that meant he had the really bad shit.
Of course, I’d never thought Saint was his real name, but I was thinking his real name might’ve been attached to a few warrants.
That in itself should’ve scared me off.
Yet here I was.
“I do,” I agreed with him.
Watching him pale even in the slightest gave me total satisfaction. Which lasted about two point five seconds because satisfaction dissipated and pure fear replaced it.