“Kid!” he yelled as he grabbed a cushion from the couch and threw it over at his
brother, hitting him in the head.
Rocco abruptly sat up. “Yep, I’m up.” He looked around, running his hand through his crazed
hair—much like his brother had done a few seconds before him.
“You made her sleep on the couch?” Cameron accused.
“What!” Rocco answered on the defensive. “I didn’t know what to do with her.”
Cameron took a long breath. “Fine. Do what Spider told you to do and put the groceries away.”
Rocco immediately followed his brother’s orders and made his way to the massive kitchen that
was now swarming with an incredible amount of grocery bags, and, to Rocco’s dismay, more bags
and boxes were being walked in by the men. Meatball was busily investigating the contents of the
bags that had been left on the floor.
Cameron brought his attention back to me and offered his hand to help me up.
I quickly took it.
Realizing that I was breaking my promise to myself about not letting him have power over me, I
told him, “Just so you know, I can manage to get myself up without any help.” My cheeks
flushed as soon as I said this—the words had come out all wrong, as usual.
He cocked his head and then turned his face away. “Understood. I’ll try to remember that next
time.”
While we headed through the foyer and up the spiral staircase, I could still feel my skin
pulsating where his hand had touched mine—it was extremely frustrating that my body was
refusing to respect my brain’s orders.
We got to the top of the stairs and turned down the hall to reach two heavy wooden doors.
Cameron held me back at the door, and we leaned against the wall while men walked in and out. I
kept my eyes on my feet, for fear of betraying myself again. I peeked through my eyelashes. He
was watching the to-and-fro ahead.
I laced my fingers behind my back. “Um, do you live in this house?”
His face turned to me. “Sometimes.”
There was an awkward silence.
“So, do you like this house?” he then asked me, his question oddly edged with apprehension.
With so much on my mind, I hadn’t really considered whether I liked the house. After spending a
few moments to think about it, I decided that I did like it, very much.
“It’s really nice. I like … the floors,” I mumbled. I thought I spied a curve of his lips as
I said this, but my eyes were still on the ground so I couldn’t be sure.
Cameron took a step forward.
“Is that the rest of it?” he asked. His voice was different—cold, commanding.
When I looked up, a beefy man had come through the doors.
“Yes, sir. That’s all of it,” the man answered with an even tone, avoiding looking my way
before he scurried away.
With a graze of my shoulder, Cameron led me ahead. We walked into a space that was either a
really large bedroom or a small apartment. There was a king-sized four-poster bed against the
wall nearest to the door and a small living room on the other side of the room. With its floor-
to-ceiling windows, it had that same openness as the main floor, but the walls here were much
darker, with mahogany-stained wood panels up to my shoulders and dark gray paint up to the high
ceiling. This room definitely had a masculine touch.
“You can stay in here,” Cameron said, glancing over the features of my face.
“This is your room?” I asked wide-eyed.
He nodded almost nervously, but then I thought maybe his cheeks had flushed, though his
expression remained unreadable. “But I won’t be here, with you, of course. You can have this
room to yourself.”
He watched me while I took a few steps in to assess my new prison. It was nice, cozy—no metal
bars.
The familiar sight of the blue Rubbermaid bins stacked against the wall immediately caught my
eye. When I turned back to Cameron, I realized that he was waiting for me to notice them.
He stuck his hands in his pockets. “I picked up your stuff so that you’d be more comfortable
while you stay here.”
I wasn’t crazy after all. They were my bins—the ones that should have still been tucked under
my bed, in my windowless room, in my locked house, back in Callister.
I blinked. “How did you—”
He was prepared for my question and pulled out a plastic card—my driver’s license. “I went to
the address listed on your ID.”
He handed me my ID, with the horrific picture that looked like I had just gotten arrested after
a bar brawl.
“Where did you get this from?”
“You had it in your pocket when … I found you,” he said with reluctance.
“No, I didn’t,” I quickly challenged.
His face shadowed. “Yes, you did.”
I was racking my brain, trying to remember the last time I had left the house. I knew that the
safe thing to do was to keep my ID on me when I ran alone—so that police could more easily
identify the dead body in the ditch—but I usually forgot to bring it. I couldn’t remember if I
had brought it the last time.
“How did you get into my house? It was locked,” I probed.
He rolled his eyes. “Key under the front mat—real original.”