I pull into Olive’s driveway and study the house. It’s dark and quiet, save for the soft porch light glowing beside the red front door. The front yard is immaculate, which shouldn’t surprise me. It looks just like the woman: pristine, cool, and put-together.

Exiting the Ram, I let the door slam behind me.

“Ronin?”

Olive’s voice calls out to me from the darkness, and I swing my gaze around the vicinity, looking for her. She approaches from the house next door. She’s still wearing her clothes from earlier, the shiny red blouse and black pencil skirt, but her hair, usually pulled back, now tumbles down around her shoulders in a cascade of auburn. My chest contracts at the sight of her, but not only because of her obvious beauty. It’s also because of the fear and apprehension apparent on her face.

“Hey.” I greet her when she stops a few feet in front of me, her arms hugging her chest like she’s cold.

I dip my head down so I can get a better look at her. “It’s okay, Olive. Do you want me to go inside and check things out, or do you want to wait for the police?”

I study her face as she considers. “Let’s go inside. It’s my house, Ronin. I can’t stand the fact that it’s been violated.”

An evident shiver rocks her thin frame, and instinctually I wrap my arm around her shoulder. I can’t remember the last time I felt the need to hold a woman close, feel her heart beating against me just so I know she’s safe.

I inhale the sweet scent of her hair. “Stay with me, then.”

She nods and we cross the yard, step onto her front walkway and up onto the porch. Reaching down to a holster on my ankle, I pull out my 9 mm. I open the door and push so it swings silently open. There’s a soft lamp shining on a table in the front hallway, and I suck in a quick breath.

The place is a perfect reflection of its owner, because it’s damn near spotless. Except for the thick carpet of rose petals scattered across the floor. Roses, in every single color, litter every surface. They’re everywhere; some are lying loose on tables or the floor, while petals cover absolutely everything. I can even fucking smell the thick, heavy sent as it settles in the air around us.

It’s not romantic, it’s over-the-top insane. Knowing Olive, seeing this when she walked in her front door must have crushed her. Turning from side to side with the gun out in front, I make my way down the hall. Entering the great room, open to the kitchen, I indicate to Olive that she should turn on the lights. She does, and her gasp echoes through my soul.

She’s horrified to see everything that she owns covered in petals, stems, and thorns. The room is in shambles. Her couch cushions have been covered in pink and white, trinkets and lamps coated with all kinds of floral debris. Whoever did this was clearly out of their mind. This was so far from normal I could hardly wrap my head around it, and it’s not even my house or my stuff. I circle the entire space, noting that none of Olive’s belongings have been messed with. Everything is still in its rightful place, just…embellished. With the goddamned flowers from hell. There isn’t anyplace to hide, so after a wide sweep of the room I nudge Olive behind me and head for the stairs.

Her closeness burns into my back as we climb, sending an awareness blazing through my blood just because she’s close. There’s no sound except for the rapid rush of her breathing. We clear the top of the stairs, and I turn this way and that, brandishing my weapon in case of an intruder attack. But the landing is empty. We comb the rooms one by one. Olive stays in the hallway while I enter a room, sweep it from top to bottom, and declare it empty. Her master bedroom is last.

When she flicks on the light, the first thing I notice isn’t the fact that the place is dripping in flowers. That’s been the case throughout the entire house. The first thing I notice is how cold the room is. There’s no sense of warmth, of belonging, of the love that a woman usually puts into a space. Her room is black and white, clinical with a single pop of red within a painting of a rose hanging over her bed.

Her king-size bed has a white upholstered headboard and a white down comforter.

But this room? It says nothing about the woman Olive is.

I’m quickly seeing that I’m going to have to peel back every layer of her one single piece at a time, because she’s giving nothing away, even in her personal space.

“Oh, God.” Olive’s voice sounds like an echo, tiny and scared.

When I whirl around to face her, I see that she’s crept closer to the bed and the naked look of desolation printed across her face has me eating up the distance between us in two strides and holstering my weapon.

“What is it?” I ask, trying to keep the hard edge out of my voice. But fuck if the fear in her eyes is making me want to hunt down whoever did this shit and make them feel every single ounce of terror they’ve put into her. And I’d enjoy it.

She lifts a finger, her hand shaking, and points toward the bed. I glance over my shoulder and notice the corsage sitting in the middle of her bed. Propped up against a small box and a bow, it reminds me of the flowers guy gave girls before prom.

I glance back at Olive, confusion riding me hard. “The corsage?”

She draws a shaky breath. “It’s…” She trails off. Her eyes close, her lower lip trembling, and it feels like someone’s heated up my blood past boiling as straight-up rage fills me.

“It’s the same one…exactly the same.” Her voice is a whisper, her eyes glazing over like she’s gone somewhere far away.

Her lids peel back open and the look in her gaze almost wrecks me. I grab her shoulders with both hands, leaning in so I can see her eyes. Those eyes, so big in her face, so deeply blue and perfectly gorgeous, stare into mine. She’s trembling, her entire body quaking so badly that I have to put my arms around her and pull her to my chest.

She stiffens for just a moment before relaxing into my embrace, and I rest my chin on top of her head. The feeling of her settling into my arms is indescribable. I take stock of the moment, summing up not just my body’s reaction to her, but also my mind’s. I’m about to ask her what she was talking about, what the corsage means, when the sound of sirens lifts from outside.

“You’re okay, Red.” I whisper the words, willing her to believe them. “There’s no one here, and the police are pulling up outside now.”

She pulls away slightly, and I feel her arms wind tentatively around my waist as she looks up at me. Damn, that feels…good. Really fucking good. “I’m not safe here, Ronin.”

I catch her drift, and I shake my head slowly. There’s no way I’m letting her stay here, not until we figure out exactly who broke into her place and why.

“You can stay at Jeremy’s. I’m sure they won’t mind.”

She shakes her head slowly. “They’re on their honeymoon and I don’t have a key. More than that, this is their first family vacation with the three of them. If I call them and tell them what happened and ask to stay there, they’ll come running back to check on me. I won’t do that to them.”

Blowing out a hard breath, I scrub a hand down my face and stare at her. She’s right, no doubt. Jeremy and Rayne would be on the next flight out if they thought Olive was in danger. His words to me at the wedding ring soundly in my mind.

“Then you’ll come home with me.”

The words are out of my mouth before my brain can catch up, and her eyes go wide once they register. She steps back from me, her forehead wrinkling in an adorable little frown.

“I’m not staying with you. I’ll call…Ken.”

Her voice drops slightly with discomfort as she says the words, and I know right then and there that she doesn’t want to call that prick any more than my name is Adam.

I step closer to her. Keeping my voice velvety soft, I focus all of my attention on her porcelain face. “You’ll stay with me. If that sounded like a request, I’m sorry. It wasn’t.”

Her body goes stiff and rigid as she raises herself to her full height and her arms snap to her hips. I’m pretty sure she means to be forceful and assertive but to me it just comes across as pure sex. I want to know if she’ll be that bossy and sure of herself when I lay her down on a bed.

Her defiance is addictive. The way she wants to call the shots even though she’s obviously scared is amazing. On some subliminal level, it makes me want to be the man she doesn’t see coming. The one who makes her want to listen to me.

With other women, when they find out that I’m ex-military, they can’t wait to submit to the obvious dominance I can’t help but display. Can’t wait to let me “protect” them. But not Olive…she wants to keep control of the situation even though I’m standing right here telling her otherwise.

Her eyes flash as she assesses me. “Excuse me? I’m a grown woman, and I’ll decide—”

She’s cut off by the thundering knock on the front door downstairs.

I eye her with interested amusement, gesturing toward the bedroom doorway. “After you.”

She spins and stalks out of the room and down the stairs, and I try really fucking hard not to chuckle as I follow. The disarray that meets us again on the way down sobers me enough to be completely serious by the time she opens the door and two officers from the WPD roll in.

Recognition flashes in one of their expressions. “Hey, Shaw. Got a call about a two-eleven.” He scrunches his forehead, trying to figure out the reason for my presence.

I indicate Olive. “She’s a friend of mine. This is Miss Alexander’s home. When she came home to find it…decorated, she called me first.”

The officer, a uniform named Briggs, nods in understanding. He turns kind eyes on Olive. “Miss? Can you give us a list of what was taken during the break-in?”

Olive leads the officers into the great room. “We’ve been through the entire house and I haven’t noticed anything missing at all.”

My mind flashes back to each room of the house. “Doesn’t seem like this was a robbery.”

She glances at me, murmuring her assent as Briggs begins jotting things down on his pad. We lead both officers through the home as they thoroughly check each room to assess what’s wrong and take note of everything they see. When they’re finished, we stand in the entryway once more.

“Miss Alexander.” Briggs glances at her. “This was obviously personal. You have no idea who would have broken in just to leave you flowers?”

Her face drains of color, a helpless expression crossing her face as she glances around at the disarray in her home. “I…no.”

Briggs nods. “Do you have another place to stay until we get this sorted out?”

Her reaction scares the shit out of me in a way I can’t explain. My heart pounds as I step closer, ready to catch her if her legs give out. She’s seconds away from crumbling, and I keep my gaze trained on her as I speak to Briggs. “She’s going to stay with me until this gets figured out. Keep me updated with your progress on the case, okay? Until then, contact Olive on her cell or through me. I’ll send you all of the numbers.”

I hear Olive take a deep, shuddering breath behind me, and it’s my cue to shove both police officers out the front door.

When I close it behind them, I turn to her, ready to take her into my arms. But Olive has straightened herself up and is striding down the hallway. She disappears for a moment, and when she returns she’s holding a box of large trash bags. Her face is a mask of determination, and she whips a bag from the box and shakes it open, starting to shove trash inside.

“Olive?” My voice is quiet.

She glances up at me but doesn’t pause in her task. “Yeah?”

I approach her the way I would a wounded, wild animal. The last thing I expected her to want to do is clean up this mess right now. “Are you sure you want to do this now? I mean, we can hire someone…or come back tomorrow after you’ve had a minute to process this.”

She stares at me, her expression so blank I know she had to wipe it deliberately clean. I have years of experience with doing just that. “I can’t leave my house like this, Ronin. I need to clean it up and I need to do it now.”

The strength of this woman…Jesus Christ.

The only clue that she’s not truly all the way okay is the very small tremor on the last couple of words. And I know that this is important to her; this is the way she’s going to process and heal and function. So I grab a bag from the box and help her work through the house room by room, setting everything right again and cleaning up the flower petals that have invaded her space.

She’s hyperfocused on the task, and sometimes I glance over at her to see her biting her lip while she concentrates on something especially tedious or her nose wrinkling as though the flowers disgust or disappoint her. As I’m tying up the last trash bag, she sighs and drops to the edge of the bed. Her expression is weary, her eyes slightly glazed.

Setting the bag down on the carpeted floor, I stride over to stand beside her. “Hey. It’s going to be okay.”

She nods mutely.

“You want to throw some things in a bag for my place?”

Finally, she slides her gaze to mine. Hers becomes steely and resolute, the expression that seems to represent the core of Olive’s personality. She and Rayne are so different. I got to know her sister while Jeremy and the rest of the team protected her from the psycho ex-employer who stalked her from Phoenix, and even though both Alexander women are tough as nails, Olive wears her strength in a much different way. She’s a little more subtle, more refined. She’s frostier, more aloof. The loosest I’ve ever seen her was when she danced and played with Decker at the wedding. It allowed me to know that there’s a softer side to the woman, maybe even a melted center, but it’s not something she shows to outsiders.

She stands, wrapping her arms around her stomach. “Yes. I’ll do that.”

It’s like she’s startled she didn’t think of it first.

I give her a nod. “I’ll take the last bag downstairs and you can join me when you’re ready to go.”

My last glance is of her staring into her closet with a determined expression just before I walk out her bedroom door.