Page 9 of To Hate Adam Connor

“Oh my God, I hate you!” she seethed when she had calmed down enough to speak. “Why would you even say that?”

Giving her a hurt look, I rubbed the spot she’d hit. “What? The guy almost took off his shirt, loosened his tie, and then rolled up his sleeves. I just think the whole thing was sexy. There is something called forearm porn. You know that, right? Besides, it’s not my fault my body reacted to the guy.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Thank you, I try to stand out. And relax, I was just messing with you. If I were closer to him, I might have creamed, but nope, the distance between us and the fact that I couldn’t hear his breathing ruined it. I still wanna jump him, though.”

“His breathing? You think you would learn—”

We heard a click and then a sliding sound. Olive stopped talking and grabbed my arm. Both of us had that ‘oh shit’ look on our faces, and if you were wondering, we wore it pretty damn well.

“Dan? Is that you out there?”

Olive squeaked and then slapped her own hand over her mouth to muffle the noise before we were completely screwed. Our only saving grace was that our side of the wall was pitch-dark and there was no way in hell Adam Connor could see us. I motioned for Olive to lower her head, and she obeyed without argument.

“You better be a goddamn raccoon because I’m not in the mood to invite the cops into my home,” the voice said from the other side of the wall.

Olive looked at me in alarm, but I shook my head and pressed my index finger to my lips so she wouldn’t speak. We knew there was no way Adam could know there were two girls hanging off a wall on the other side of his property, but the fact that we could hear his footsteps coming closer toward us didn’t help me relax at all.

Silence fell again. Another few seconds ticked by, then the footsteps started retreating. After we heard the telltale sound of his sliding door, Olive released the breath she was holding.

“We are not doing this again,” she whispered, taking a step down on the ladder.

When I didn’t agree with her immediately, she tugged at my shirt to get my attention. “Did you hear what I just said?”

“Yes. Yes. We’re not doing this again.”

“I’m being serious, Lucy.”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Thorn, but weren’t you the one who first mentioned we could take a peek over the wall?”

“I didn’t hear you say no—the opposite, actually. I remember you congratulating me on my great idea. Come on, get down.”

I felt another tug on my ankle as she kept descending.

I slowly raised my head up to see if the fine specimen was gone, and to my dismay there was no sight of him. Lights were still on, but no eye candy. I looked down to see a frowning Olive looking up at me.

“What?”

“You remember the girl who hid in our hotel room in London, right?”

“Don’t worry, my green Olive, I’m not planning on breaking into his house.”

Not that it hadn’t crossed my mind, but I drew the line at breaking and entering; I wasn’t that crazy. I had thought about taking a peek through one of those gigantic windows, but like I said, the line had to be drawn somewhere, and looking over the wall was where I drew it.

Don’t judge me. Tell me, what would you do if you ended up being the neighbor of one of your favorite actors? Of course you’d spy on the guy…or at least you’d attempt to. Don’t even try to deny it.

Despite his legendary parents, Adam Connor was a closed book. Of course, everybody knew about him—even before he landed his first movie—but he was still somewhat of a mystery. Who doesn’t love a mysterious guy? Certainly not me.

He was a quiet guy, one of those actors who smiles at the cameras when he doesn’t want to answer a question, one of those hot guys who only talks when he has something good to say, wildly successful at his job, married at twenty-three, a seemingly good dad, possessor of an out-of-this world body…and those were just a few of Adam Connor’s attributes. Of course, how much can you really know a public figure just from stalking them online every now and then…

“Lucy, you can’t break into his house.”

“Didn’t I just say I had no plans to do such thing?” I asked Olive in a quiet voice as I took a step down.

“You even mentioning it scares me. It means it crossed your mind at some point.”

When I was finally standing on solid ground, I gave all my attention to Olive. “I’m not stepping foot on the other side of this wall, cross my heart. Okay?”

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