Page 12 of Touch My Shelves

“You go first,” I offer. I can wait to give her the boot.

Her posture straightens and her chin tips. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry for what happened in the alleyway. Honestly, I thought I’d dreamed the whole thing. I don’t usually go around accosting strange, handsome men. I’d met the girls at Brewster’s and I’m afraid I had one drink too many. Okay, possibly two…”

She thinks I’m handsome?

My chest puffs as I lean back against a table and cross my feet. I’ll let her go on until she runs out of things to say.

“…which I don’t do either. I don’t want you thinking I overindulge often. I don’t. I mean, I’ve never been drunk. Ever. I wasn’t really drunk that night either. I was just…tipsy. If we could just forget it ever happened, that would be great.” Finally, her shoulders slump as she looks expectantly at me to say something.

It’s best to cut to the chase. “I don’t think this is going to work out. Please, stay for lunch.”

Her jaw begins to tremble, and I scrub my hand over my face and look away.

“Oh,” she says softly and nods. Her shoulders drop. “I guess I need to hurry then so I can make the next ferry.”

“That’s no problem. Wherever you want to go.” That’s an odd request from someone who was hoping to move in today and start a new job. Stupidly, I have to ask, “Going on a trip?”

“No. I just… Kimberly has been so kind, but I need to move on. She and the community have been very generous, but I can’t keep depending on them.”

What does that mean? “So… what, you’re going to stay with a friend on the mainland?”

Slowly she shakes her head. “No. I don’t really have many friends. Well, besides here. I do have Naudi. She lives in New York, but I don’t want to go there. I’ll find a cheap hotel to stay at until I can land a job. I haven’t waitressed in a while, but I remember how.” She finishes with a dejected smile and I feel about as large as an ant.

I lift my eyes to the ceiling as she walks by on her way back to the front door. Her life isn’t my concern. It’s not my responsibility to save her.

She pauses and turns back. “Don’t forget to order those books for Freeya. I think she’ll really enjoy them.”

Each footstep she makes on the stone hallway echoes in my head. I run my fingers through my hair and growl before running after her.

“Wait,” I call out and she turns, but not before I notice her wiping away tears.

Great. I know I’m going to regret saying, “You can stay. We’ll try it for a month and see how it works out.”

Her damp face brightens. “Really? I get to live here?”

Against my better judgement, I agree. “Yeah, at least for a month. Three tops. That’s when we move back to California.”

If she lasts that long.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, foreseeing my life being turned upside down.

CHAPTER 5

POPPY

“What do you know about this guy? You’re moving in with a stranger. Who, I might add, lives in a castle. How do you know he doesn’t have a dungeon and you could be his next spanky girl?” Naudi shouts hysterically, making me check the hallway outside my bedroom for little ears listening in. I take her off speakerphone just in case.

I roll my eyes at my friend’s craziness. Hmmm, but being spanked by Theo does sound…

Stop.

I take a breath and try to talk her down. “Mr. Sullivan comes highly recommended by my friends on the island. They wouldn’t allow me to live with a serial killer. Besides, I told you he has a daughter, remember? She’s the reason I’m here.”

“Right. And you also told me you felt him up in a dark alley and he pushed your special button,” she annoyingly points out.

I groan and flop back on my bed. Will that night forever haunt me? “That has nothing to do with why I’m here. If you saw the man, you’d know I haven’t got a chance. I’m only his nanny and a woman that groped him once in a drunken stupor.”

And asked politely if I could sit on his face. But that information isnotgoing to be shared. It was hard enough to look him in the eyes when I realized who he was.

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