Chapter 18
Standing at his front entryway, the silence stretched out. He glanced again at the empty driveway. His mouth tightened. "You should've called me."
"Yeah?" I said. "Well, maybe I didn't want to owe you a favor."
"You wouldn't have owed me anything."
"Yeah, right."
I knew exactly how these things went. He'd rescue me with a ride, and I'd feel obligated to be nice to him. I didn't want to be nice to him.
He looked toward the street. "So you walked here? Alone?"
"Why not?" I said. "I've done it before. Besides, I'm just on the other side of your fence."
He gave me a dubious look. "So you climbed it. That's what you're saying?" From the tone of his voice, it was pretty obvious he knew the answer to that.
"No. Of course not."
His so-called fence was twice my height and made of iron. It practically had spikes all along the top. I'd be stupid to go that way. Besides, I'd already tried that once. It didn't work out so well.
In front of me, he was still giving me that look. "So you took the long way. By sidewalk."
"Well, I didn't fly here," I said, "if that's what you're wondering."
"It's a fifteen-minute walk," he said.
"So?"
"So it's the middle of the night."
"No. It's early morning."
His jaw tightened. "So you want something bad to happen to you? Is that it?"
I forced out a laugh. "What do you consider bad? Because it seems to me that something bad can happen just about anywhere, anytime." I shrugged. "Driveways, parking lots—" I gave him a look. "Basements."
He briefly closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, there was a glassy quality that hadn't been there before. "You should've called me," he said. "Chloe, I'm serious. Don't do that again, alright?"
"Look," I said. "You were the one who forced me to come here."
"Forced you?"
"Cornered me. Whatever." I crossed my arms. "So here I am. How I got here isn't all that important."
"It is to me."
"Yeah? Well, from now on that's your problem, not mine."
My words hung in the air. His lips parted, but he said nothing. The look in his eyes made me feel about two inches tall.
I was hateful. I knew that. But I had to be hateful. It's what he deserved, and not only as retribution for what he'd done. He deserved to know where we stood. And honestly, I was too mad, too tired, and too torn up to tell him nicely.
I stiffened my spine and broke the silence. "Listen," I said, "I've had a long night, so can we skip the part where we debate why I wouldn't be calling you for favors?"
His expression froze somewhere between wariness and fatigue. "Alright," he said. "But there's something you deserve to hear. At least come inside, alright?"
"No. I don't think so." I glanced at his front door, still open. Apparently, billionaires didn't worry about little things like bloated utility bills or the furnace giving out. I couldn’t even imagine.
I tried not to think about it. If he was too stupid to close the thing, who was I to care? Besides, he had to be colder than I was. His T-shirt looked even thinner than mine, and he wasn't even wearing a hoodie.
I glanced at his arms, bare except for thick athletic tape, wrapped around his wrists. I'd seen the tape before, wrapped around his hands the few times I'd seen him beating the crap out of his punching bag. Had he been lifting weights? In the middle of the night?
I glanced again at his arms. Even relaxed, the powerful lines of his biceps and forearms were a stark reminder that he wasn't just some harmless neighbor guy. He was a brute, even if he'd always been beyond gentle with me.
Well, except for that one time. And even then, he hadn't hurt me. Not exactly.
Somewhere deep in the house, I heard the low hum of the furnace.
"Aren't you gonna close the door?" I blurted out.
Shit.
Pathetic. That's what I was. If I couldn't resist warning the guy about inefficient heat usage, how the hell would I resist the haunted look in his eyes? And how would I resist telling him that the past few weeks had been the happiest of my whole life? Or confessing that when he held me long into the night, I'd felt safe and warm for the first time in forever?
Lawton's attention never wavered. "Screw the door," he said. He leaned a fraction closer. Something about the way he moved reminded me of our first almost-kiss. My heart ached at the memory.
And then, I heard a sleepy female voice call out, "Lawton, who's at the door?"
I froze, too stunned to move, and not just for the obvious reasons.
I recognized that voice.