Page 54 of The Love Destroyers

“How’d you summon the Uber?”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures. But Icanlisten, Emma,” he says, his voice pitched lower, almost sultry. “Courtesy helps.”

“So I guess you’ll continue to ignore me. How’d you know where my room is anyway?”

“I didn’t,” he says with a grin. “I tried two rooms before yours. There was a chance I’d wake up your mother, but I figured I’d toss the dice.”

I should probably send him away, but I don’t want him to leave. If he does, I’ll just lie in my bed, restless. So I open the door wider in a silent invitation. He steps inside and shuts it behind him.

“You’re wearing that sleep shirt from the other night,” he comments.

A hot shiver runs through me. “How can you tell? I have a sweatshirt over it.”

“I can tell.”

My gaze darts down, and I see the bottom dipping out of the sweatshirt. “Okay, Sherlock.”

His mouth hitches up. “You look cute. All fuzzy and shit. It’s a new look for you. I like it.”

I try not to smile back. “Want to tell me why you’re here?”

I want to ask him about lunch. About the “ladies.” But I don’t want him to think I’m interested. I’m not. I can’t be.

Even if he weren’t Rosie’s brother, he’s still a man with a self-admitted criminal history, and I’m a lawyer. Or at least I hope I’m still a lawyer.

He looks me up and down, his brown eyes amused and also hot. “I wanted to see our cat…”

“She’s up in my room. Resting. Like most people do at this hour.”

“Did you just invite me to your room, Emma?” he asks, wanting to get a rise out of me.

“No,” I say, “but I suppose you might as well come up.”

He looks surprised, which I savor. If I could get away with it, I’d find my phone and take a photo. Instead, I start heading up to my room, deeply aware of the sounds he makes as he starts to follow me, his boot-falls surprisingly soft.

“How’s your head?” I ask.

“Maybe we should ask your mother to hit me on the other side to make it even.”

“If you annoy me enough, I might.” I pause, turning to face him. “But how is it really?”

“I’ve spent the last two days sleeping, but sometimes it still feels like I got brained with a paperweight,” he says, making me flinch. “Up until this afternoon, I could only eat dry toast. But I’m still going on Friday. Nothing could convince me not to go.”

“Why?” I ask, studying him in the dim ambient light from one of the nightlights I installed. “Why do something like that for a woman you barely know, whose mother hit you over the head with a paperweight?”

I’m not sure what I want him to say, but I need…something.

He reaches out, his fingers finding a lock of my hair, and tucks it behind my ear, the skin tingling from the contact. I want him to bury his hands in my hair. I want him to kiss me the way he did on New Year’s—with his whole body behind it. He made me feel like the only thing he wanted to do was put his mouth on me, and I’d be lying if I didn’t feel the same way at this very moment.

A tremble works its way through me as I wait to see what he’ll say. What he’ll do.

More specifically: what he’ll do to me.

Finally, he says, “Maybe I want to see you fight someone other than me.”

My lips part, and a feeling of disappointment wells within me. “There’s a lot to go around,” I say at last, swallowing. “It’s why I became a lawyer. It needs to come out somehow.”

“I’d like to watch you in a courtroom someday,” he says with a half-smile.

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