Page 31 of Wrapped Up with the Three Scrooges

I stared at him, mouth agape. “Did you just make a joke? You? Mr. Serious-Business-Face?”

“I have been known to occasionally engage in humor.” His deadpan delivery only made it funnier. “But in all seriousness, Emery, we’re not axe murderers. The space you’d be staying inis basically a granny flat. It has its own entrance, kitchenette, and a door that locks from both sides between you and the main house. You’d have complete privacy.”

“A granny flat?” I raised an eyebrow. “Do any of you have a grandmother living there I should know about? Because after Gary’s conspiracy theories and the raid on the motel, I think I’ve hit my quota of surprises for the night.”

“No grandmothers.” He shook his head, looking amused. “Just three guys who value their space but also like having movie nights and someone to hang out with.”

The mental image of Ronan, Levi, and Max having movie nights in their pajamas was almost too much for my brain to process. “Do you wear matching onesies?”

“Only on alternate Tuesdays,” he said with such a straight face that it took me a moment to realize he was joking again.

I couldn’t help but laugh, the tension in my shoulders easing slightly. “Two jokes? Are you feeling okay? Should I check for a fever?”

His expression softened. “Look, just stay for a few nights until we can find you somewhere safe. No strings attached. If you hate it, we’ll help you find another place tomorrow.”

I glanced back at the motel, where police were still investigating, and Gary was now trying to explain something to an officer while pointing frantically at the ice machine.

“Fine, but only because I’m pretty sure Gary’s about to get himself arrested for harboring a rogue ice maker.”

“Smart choice.” Ronan’s relief was visible in the way his shoulders relaxed. “Let’s get your things.”

We retrieved my purse from his car and headed toward my room, carefully skirting around the cluster of law enforcement officials. The whole scene felt surreal, like I’d somehow stumbled into an episode of CSI: Budget Motel Edition.

“You know,” I said as I unlocked my door, “this isn’t exactly how I pictured my evening ending.”

“No?” Ronan followed me inside, his presence filling the small room. “And how did you picture it ending?”

The question hung in the air between us, loaded with possibilities I definitely shouldn’t be considering about my boss. Especially not when I was about to stay with him and his two equally attractive business partners.

What was I getting myself into?

“Well, for starters, I didn’t think there’d be quite so many police officers involved.” I grabbed my suitcase from the closet. “Or that Gary would finally get his government conspiracy theories validated. Sort of.”

“Speaking of Gary...” Ronan picked up one of the tinfoil hats sitting on my dresser, examining it with a mixture of confusion and amusement. “Do I want to know?”

“Protection from the ice maker rays, obviously.” I tried to keep a straight face.

He carefully set the tinfoil hat back down, his fingers lingering on the crinkled surface for a moment. I caught the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth that suggested he was fighting back a smile. “Well, I can promise our ice maker is completely ray-free. Though I make no guarantees about Levi’s cooking.”

The way he said it, with that dry undertone of someone who’d clearly suffered through more than one of Levi’s culinary experiments, made me wonder what horrors awaited me in their kitchen.

Not that I planned on staying for long to find out.

Chapter Fifteen

Emery

Istared open-mouthed as we pulled through ornate gates and up a long driveway right outside of the city. When Ronan had described his living situation as a house within a house, I’d pictured something like a fancy duplex or triplex. Not... whatever this was.

“This is where you live?” I practically pressed my face against the window like an excited kid at an aquarium. The property was massive, with perfectly manicured grounds that probably cost more to maintain monthly than I made in a year. But something was missing. “Where are all the Christmas decorations?”

Ronan’s jaw ticked. “We don’t really do Christmas here.”

“But you own a gift-wrapping business!”

“That’s different. That’s business.” He pulled around what looked like a small mansion to another equally impressive structure, then into a garage that could probably house a small aircraft collection.

“This is... a lot.” I was still trying to process the scale of everything. “When you said you had space, I didn’t think you meant an entire compound.”

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