Page 35 of The Right Woman

Fifteen

ADON

“Rosy, it’s me.”

The little pixie tries to fly away, but I snag her waist. She spins around and glares at me, her coat flipping open in the wintry wind.

I pull it closed for her and tug her body closer to mine. “Fuck! You were walking too damn fast for me and I’m, like, twice your height.”

Her hands brush mine off, where I’ve got hold of her, with such brusqueness, I’m left annoyed and angry. I thought we were past her pushing me away.

She glares at me. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk with you.” Holding my palms out to my sides, I try to shake off the ire threatening to make me rage at her insolence.

Despite the puffiness of her coat, she crosses her arms and looks around the space I occupy, but won’t give me a glance. “What about?”

My jaw drops. How could she not know? “Uh, about your family. Seems like it’s a pretty intense situation you have.”

Unexpectedly, her chin trembles when her green eyes finally greet me. “Why didn’t you tell them we were together?”

What in the absolute fuck? The lines across my forehead deepen with bewilderment. “I’m confused. I thought you… I didn’t know we were together.”

One of her purple Converse kicks at the gravel repeatedly as she shakes her head. “We aren’t. I just thought thatyouthought we were.”

Her intense vulnerability makes me want to tuck her inside my pea coat and take her home with me. Knowledge that her words don’t match what she’s feeling inside makes me question her motives. Why is she like this? What happened to her? Reaching across the cold void between us, my palm grips her arm, but she shrugs me off.

“But wedefinitelyaren’t.” Softer, she mutters, “We aren’t together.”

The silence lingers so long that it becomes louder than the words she’s speaking. Maybe she’s too young to say exactly what’s on her mind or to ask for what she wants. I’m not sure I’m willing to wait around for this push-and-pull game she plays any longer.

As I take in the night sky and a deep, cleansing breath, I wonder if it’s time to head back to the club on Friday nights with reinforced rules. Breaking them seems to have caused us both unnecessary headaches. I should have stuck with them and avoided whatever thisdramais.

However, I’m worried about what her father and sister said in the restaurant about the dead woman, Meghan Martinez. Something is happening in the background, and it seems Piper is the center of the trouble, which is fitting for her. The rosy-cheeked girl needs someone looking out for her, because I fear that no one else will. Certainly not herself.

If she can’t ask me for help, then I don’t know how to.

She takes a step back while holding my gaze, and I let my hands drop to my sides in defeat. With a swallow, I manage to say, “I guess we’re not.”

Not even granting me a goodbye, she spins around and heads toward her red-bricked apartment building while I stand in the drizzling rain that’s quickly turning to sleet. The sparkles of ice catch the dimmed streetlamps and hit my cheeks like tears. It hurts to watch her slip away, especially thinking there may have been something between us. Perhaps we could have worked, if she’d only let me in.

Sex seems like a way to keep me from getting to know therealher. Instead of connecting, she’s using it like a weapon against me. It’s her way to keep me strung along, to keep me interested, but not completely satisfied. I hate that.

Piper is the first woman I’ve had some irrational sense of longing for. I think I’ve lost my mind if I’m still thinking we could try to make this work. She’s too young and impulsive. Obviously unstable.

After I see the light flick on in her apartment through the second-story window, I pull my coat up around my ears and start back toward Main Street, skirting through the nearby alley. If she doesn’t want me, that’s fine, but I still feel a need to look out for her while she’s in danger. I’m not buying that the purse incident and shooting were random. I think she’s being targeted, and I need to find outwhyand bywhom.

There’s a war going on inside of me as I slide inside the frigid cabin of my truck, waiting for her father to exit the restaurant. Ishouldwalk away from this mission. From her. Piper has pushed me away at every turn. She’s obviously struggling with something internally, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to break down her walls. Or even if I should.

The problem is, the heater blows as hot as the warmth in my soul when I’m in her presence, and my mind won’t let me stopthinking about her. Analyzing her. Hoping she’ll reach for me or call me.

One thing is clear. The reason she seemed so lost and begged me to be her daddy that first night is because hers is a complete piece of shit.

Piper’s father emerges from the entrance with her sister next to him, walking toward the street I’m parked near. The two hug before he gets in his sedan and takes off while I follow, trying to keep three car lengths behind.

He eventually drives to a suburban neighborhood and stops at a small one-story house, then gets out of his car and heads inside. The windows are dark, but in a few seconds, the first lamp glows yellow, the streams illuminating the snowflakes floating onto the sidewalk. Through the large Palladian window in the front, I have a clear view of him shirking off his suit coat, then grabbing some amber liquid in a double glass, and settling in a chair with a tablet. In a few minutes, he laughs at something on the screen.

Would Piper’s own father order a hit on her? He seems ruthless, but a murderer? I’m not sure.

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