Page 46 of Bear In A Boutique
But no one came.
What the hell? Hugging a blanket to her chest, she peeked into the hall and found the door wide open. Maybe it hadn’t been fully latched and the wind pushed it open. The back of her neck prickled as she moved around her desk and entered the hall. Her mind told her to shut the door, but her legs wouldn’t move.
It’s just a door. Shut it.
Something inside her said not to. It was Fox’s fault. He’d spooked her about the man from the bar. Feeling foolish, she took three steps into the hall and came to a dead halt. Cold chills doused the top of her head and ran down her spine as a man stepped out of the storage room and into the hallway. The delivery man had turned off the hallway light and the shadows masked the intruder's full features.
Sometimes customers got confused and knocked on the locked back door instead of coming around to the front. Maybe he’d just come in the wrong way.
“Good morning. Can I help you?”
The person walked forward into the light, and she was hit with sudden recognition. Short. Stocky. Wide shoulders. This wasn’t a customer. It was the man who’d tried to break in the other day and who wouldn’t stop harassing her. Kyle.
Olive walked backward to her desk with her eyes on him. Feeling for the scissors she’d just used, she silently cursed when she spied them sitting on the box across from her desk.
“Hey, Olive. Long time no see.”
Her stomach bottomed out. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t happening.
“What are you doing here?”
The smugness on his face and the lazy way he walked toward her sent her flight instinct into overdrive. He was close enough to grab her if she bolted and was between her and the back door.
Her phone lay next to the scissors. She’d dive across her desk to get to them if she had the chance. Cataloging anything around her to use as a weapon, she continued moving backward to keep distance between them. He followed.
“You didn’t answer my texts, so I decided to take a little road trip.”
This asshole had been harassing her for weeks. He made her life hell when she was younger. And now he was here, in her safe space.
“Get out of here.”
Kyle was stocky with wide shoulders and a big chest that suggested strength but moved like a man who hadn’t taken the stairs in a decade.
“Remember when your sister asked where you were living now, and you skirted the question? I might not have figured out how to find you if I hadn’t found that little notepad you keep in your car that says CARA ONE on the top.”
She grabbed a clothing rack with one hand to keep herself steady. “Look at you, invading people’s privacy. I’m not surprised.”
“All I had to do was internet search that name, plus yours, and wah-lah! Up comes a CARA ONE website with your photo on it.”
Shit.
The boutique’s website listed staff including her, Cara, and two of their jewelry designers. She’d never thought to take the information down, but to be fair, she didn’t expect this asshole to come looking for her.
“What do you want?”
“Megan was hoping you had a decent job by now. She was going to ask you to borrow some money. If we’d known you work in a fancy place like this, we would have doubled the amount.”
Of course, Megan was going to ask for money. That’s why she’d invited Olive to visit, not because she wanted to spend time with her. It wasn’t surprising, but it still hurt.
“I’m not giving you money.”
She was in the middle of the boutique now, with nothing around her but clothing racks. The closest thing she could use as a weapon was a bottle of perfume she could spray in his face, but they were in a locked case near the wall.
He stopped and she darted around a rack to keep it between them.
“I met you when you were what? Thirteen? Those were the good days. We had an apartment. Where did you live back then, Olive? That’s right. A different couch every night, the park, on the bus going round and round until it was time to wake up and get off or the driver had you removed.”
She didn’t respond.
