Evangeline

 

I was never going to forgive Sebastian for this.

I suppose I might have had a privileged, overindulged life, but I tried every day to be nice and not take advantage of the people around me. I sometimes spent too much money, and I’d had a few wild times in the past, but I was never one of the tabloid-princess celebrities who are always pouring money away or belittling the people around them. I don’t think I’d done anything to deserve the way Cole was treating me, and at present there wasn’t anything I could do to change it—except fire Sebastian and his whole company, which I was on the edge of doing all week.

I liked Sebastian, and I trusted him, and I was in a bad situation with the stalker. After I cooled down that first day, I’d determined to give it a week and then decide if I was going to get rid of the asshole.

Fortunately, Cole seemed to be not quite so offensive after the first day. He was cold and gruff and irrationally grumpy, but I figured that was his normal attitude. If he’d continued to act as horribly as he had the first day, I never would have made it through the week with him.

I was scared of the stalker, but there were other security firms out there—with men who would act like professionals—and it was only my faith in Sebastian that was keeping me from switching to one of them.

Sebastian said Cole was a good guy. So far, I hadn’t seen any evidence of that.

The week was spent reading and blocking for the most part, although they filmed a few exterior scenes I wasn’t a part of near the end of the week. Filming my scenes wouldn’t begin until next week, and on Saturday I was looking forward to some time at home—mostly for some free time from the obnoxiousness of Cole Langham.

It wasn’t really my home, of course. It was a rented, furnished apartment on the top floor of a downtown high-rise. It was going to be my home for the next month or so though, and what mattered was Cole wouldn’t be anywhere around.

So it was a very unpleasant surprise when I came out from my bedroom at about nine o’clock on Saturday morning to find Cole sitting on a stool at the kitchen bar.

I was wearing a camisole and soft pajama shorts. I was barefoot, and my hair was a mess.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded after a moment of shocked paralysis.

“My job.” He arched one dark, annoying eyebrow at me.

“Who let you into my place?”

“Malcolm.”

“Why are you here?” I did my best to moderate my tone out of general civility, but I wanted to scream and push him out of here. How dare he think he could invade my privacy for no good reason?

“There was a call last night.”

“What?” I’d been about to put a mug under the high-class, one-cup brewer, but I paused and stared at him instead. “What call?”

“You had a call. It was concerning.”

I felt a familiar drop to my stomach and a chill of fear. “What did it say?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It damn well does matter. Tell me what the call said.”

“It was nasty, and there was mention of something else happening today, so that’s why I’m here. It’s sure as hell not because I wanted to get cozy with you or anything.”

He didn’t have to sound so offensive all the time. He made it sound like I’d actually thought he was interested in me, but there was no way in the world I could be that stupid.

He clearly disliked me as much as I disliked him.

I wasn’t used to people disliking me. Sure, maybe some of them faked it since I had money and a certain degree of power—although not nearly as much power as people thought. But I don’t think most people held me in aversion the way Cole seemed to do from the first moment he had met me.

Actually, he seemed to hate me before he’d even met me, and I had no idea why.

He wouldn’t even say my name, which was petty and immature as far as I was concerned. It wasn’t my real name—my real name was Eve, but my mother had decided it wasn’t distinct enough to work for an up-and-coming actress, so I’d adopted the stage name that everyone used when talking to me now. But Cole wouldn’t even use that.

I rolled my eyes as I waited for the coffee to brew, telling myself that on Monday I could make the decision about whether to go in a different direction with security. I could handle Cole for the weekend, and I could get rid of him Monday if I wanted.

Then something occurred to me. I whirled around. “Are you intercepting my phone calls?” I demanded.

He arched his eyebrow at me again. “I said I’m doing my job.”

“But what right do you have to intercept my calls without even clearing it with me first?”

“My job is to protect you and to find out who this stalker is.” His voice was rough and edgy in a familiar way. He always sounded that way when he was angry with me. “I do anything I need to do to make sure that happens. No one forced you to hire us, so don’t give me that poor-little-rich-girl-victim routine.”

I turned back around, mostly so I didn’t slap that arrogant look off his face, and I breathed deeply to control my anger.

Only until Monday. I just had to put up with him until Monday.

When I’d felt mostly under control, I turned back around, sipping my coffee. “So you’re just going to hang around here all day?”

“I’m going to stay close to you. What are you plans?”

“I was just going to take it easy. I’ve got some work I can do here, and then I might visit a day spa this afternoon.”

I should have expected the faint sneer that showed up on his face at the words. Naturally, he would think I was some sort of diva for visiting a day spa, even though my appearance was vitally important for my work, and without semiregular massages, tension would make my neck unbearably painful.

No use trying to explain any of that to Cole though.

Without another word, I took my coffee out onto the large terrace. It was beautifully furnished with outdoor seating and a table and some potted trees. There probably would have been more plants, but February wasn’t an ideal time of the year for making things grow in Baltimore.

I might have hoped for something different, but I wasn’t surprised when Cole followed me out onto the terrace.

“It’s freezing out here,” he muttered. “Get back inside.”

It was chilly—probably in the forties—and I was just wearing the little pajamas I’d slept in. I would have gone back inside immediately, but some sort of contrariness sprung up inside me at his bossiness. “I’ll go back inside in a minute.”

“What the hell, princess?” He reached out to take my arm. “You’ll freeze your tight little ass off. Get inside.”

I jerked my arm out of his grip. “I’ll go inside when I want. I might have to suffer having you around all the time, but you don’t get to control my every step. If you’re too much of a wuss to stay outside when it’s nippy, you can go inside and curl up under a blanket.”

He made a throaty sound but didn’t articulate any words. He just stood right next to me, glaring at me.

I did my best to ignore him as I walked close to the railing, still drinking my coffee. What the hell had I been thinking coming out here without any shoes? And now I was stuck for at least a few minutes, or I’d have to admit that Cole was right.

“It’s just Baltimore,” Cole said, still sounding bad-tempered. “Not much of anything to stand and gawk at.”

“I’ve never been to Baltimore before,” I told him. “I grew up around DC, but I never had any reason to come out this way.”

“Not much reason to come here at all.”

I heard something different in his tone and glanced over to check his face. “You’ve been here before?”

“I grew up here.”

“Oh.” This was new information and vaguely interesting. I tried to keep my teeth from chattering from the cold as I asked, “What part of the city?”

“Not a good part. Definitely on the wrong side of the tracks. Pretty much exactly the opposite from where you were raised.”

I could kind of see that. He had a lot of really hard edges, as if he’d had to push through a lot of crap to get where he was. Maybe that was why he hated me so much—because he thought my upbringing had all been velvet and roses, compared to his.

It helped me understand him better. Not like him any better though.

“Do you resent everyone who didn’t grow up the way you did?”

He turned his head toward me. “What?”

“You seem to resent me, and it seems to be because you think I had an easier time in life than you did.”

“I bet you everything in your fat wallet that you did.”

I brushed off the snide comment. “Whether it’s true or not, you resent me for it. That’s a hard way to go through life, only respecting people you think have suffered as much as you have. Do you resent Sebastian too?”

Something flickered on his face, and I could see that he had resented Sebastian—at least at one point even if he didn’t still now. “Sebastian is a friend.”

“So that means you’ve realized there’s more to him than the easy life you think he’s had. Is it possible that might be true of me?”

Cole met my eyes, and for a moment he seemed to really see me. See me—in a way he hadn’t in the entire past week. Before he could say anything, though, the buzzer from the doorman sounded.

Both of us jumped, and I ran back into the living area of the apartment, relieved to be back inside.

“Are you expecting anyone?” Cole asked as he reached to pick up the phone to talk to the doorman.

I shook my head and waited.

“I’ll be right down,” Cole said after a minute and hung up. He looked at me. “Jimmy sent you something from the bakery. Is that normal?”

Nodding, I said, “He normally sends me something once a week.”

With a curt nod, Cole went down to get it, and he came up with a box of gourmet muffins.

I smiled at the sight. “Jimmy has sent these to me before. He does it to be nice. I’m sure it’s fine.” I reached out to take the box from Cole.

Cole was still frowning, but after inspecting the box from all angles, he handed it to me.

I brought it over to the counter, realizing I was a little hungry since all I’d had so far today was half a cup of coffee.

When I lifted the top, there were the familiar rows of muffins in a variety of flavors. I grabbed one and started to take a bite.

Then I noticed something. In one of the slots for the muffins, there wasn’t a muffin.

There was a dead mouse.

I squealed in shock and disgust, dropped the lid, and took several steps away from the box, shuddering in disgust and spitting out the bite I’d just taken.

Cole sprang into action immediately, jumping over to examine the box and then coming over to me.

I was still spitting and half sobbing, trying to get the sight of that mouse out of my head. For some reason it was more horrifying than it should have been. I definitely didn’t like mice, but when it was placed like that, amid food objects that were supposed to be a gift, it took on a kind of nightmare, surreal quality.

“Evangeline,” Cole was saying, sounding urgent, strong, strangely reassuring. “Evangeline, are you all right? It’s okay. It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. I ran over to the sink to fill a glass of water and swish it in my mouth, spitting it out again into the sink. There was no reason to think anything was wrong with the muffin I’d taken a bite from, but it had been in the box with the dead mouse, and I didn’t want any crumb of it remaining.

“It’s just to scare you,” Cole said, evidently assuring himself I hadn’t been poisoned and going back over to the box. He put the lid on it and moved it out of the kitchen, over to a table near the door. “It’s just supposed to scare you.”

“It did scare me,” I said, rubbing my mouth with the back of my hand. “It was horrible.”

“I know. It was ugly. I’m sorry I didn’t check the box before I let you open it.”

I shook my head since it was obviously not his fault. “Jimmy sends me those muffins. He’s done it a lot. The note sounded like him.”

Cole nodded, looking sober. “It’s someone who’s familiar with your and those around you.”

That was even more terrifying. I gave a little whimper, shivering from the aftermath of the horror on top of the chill from being outside in my pajamas. I hugged myself, barely able to stand still.

I must have looked particularly pitiful because Cole’s expression broke with what looked like empathy. “Damn it,” he said, reaching out and pulling me against him, wrapping me in one of his arms. “It’s over now.”

It didn’t feel like it was over. It felt like there was a stranger in my home, constantly threatening me, making me helpless, vulnerable.

I just wanted it to stop.

I felt better with his arm around me, and I huddled against him. He felt warm and strong, and I needed it.

After a minute, though, I started to pull myself together. I was a little embarrassed at my breakdown, particularly since it probably just confirmed Cole’s first impression of me being weak and spoiled. I pulled away enough to look up at him. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m okay.”

“You don’t look okay.” His eyes weren’t as cold and hard as normal. They looked protective. And defiant, but not toward me.

If there was anyone I wanted going after the bastard doing this to me, it was this man. It was Cole. The bastard wouldn’t have a chance against that strength and defiance.

“I’m okay,” I repeated, pulling farther away from him. “Sorry about the dramatics. It was just a mouse.”

“It was ugly,” he said again. “Anyone would be upset by it. Fuck, I’m upset about it.”

Ridiculously, that made me feel better, even though I was sure he was lying. “Thank you.” I gave him a small smile and hugged myself again when another chill ran over me as my eyes glanced past the table near the door where the box was.

Cole put an arm around me again, and I let myself take comfort in it—for just a few seconds.

“I used to love getting packages in the mail,” I murmured, following the line of my thoughts. “My granddad used to send me these caramels from a little candy shop in his town. He’d send them every week to me when I started doing the television show—just to let me know he was thinking about me. The only place you could get those caramels was Hillsville, Indiana, and every time they came in the mail to me, I’d know he was thinking of me. They just meant love.”

I realized what I was saying—to a guy who’d been nothing but a jerk to me—so I pulled away, a little embarrassed.

“Sounds like a good grandpa,” he said, not sounding like he thought I was stupid.

I nodded. “I haven’t had them since he died, but getting stuff in the mail always felt really special to me because of it. But now I’m afraid it’s all going to be tainted because of this.”

“This won’t last long. We’ll get him.”

When I looked up at him, his expression was different. It was still protective, but it was warm in a very different way.

I responded to the expression immediately. My heart accelerated, and my pulse started to throb in my wrists and my throat. There was something very masculine, powerful, almost fierce about him. He wasn’t handsome like the men I was used to dating, but his presence so close to me suddenly prompted an instinct more primitive than anything I’d ever experienced.

As if my body was attuned to his—by nature, all the way down to the core.

We stared at each other, both of us breathing heavily, and for a moment I was sure he would kiss me.

And I wanted him to. Ridiculously, irrationally, I wanted him to.

I wanted him to claim me in some primal way.

Fortunately, my brain finally caught up, and I suddenly saw us as if from a distance. Me in my pajamas, him in his jeans and bad attitude, trapped in some sort of holding pattern of resentment and attraction for a moment that just wouldn’t end.

Then I remembered everything he had said to me that week, all the offensive ways he had treated me.

There was no way in hell I could kiss that kind of man.

There was no way in hell I would want to.

I turned away, reaching for my lukewarm coffee and taking a swig, mostly for something to do.

He made a sound in his throat and took a step back too. “I’ll have the box checked out,” he said at last, sounding not nearly as focused as normal. “And I’ll look into the courier service. This guy won’t be able to hide his tracks as well as he thinks.”

I nodded. “Good.”

He looked around as if he wasn’t sure what to do. “I’ll go take care of it. You stay here today.”

I didn’t want to go out. I didn’t want to go anywhere. But I also didn’t want him to order me around as if I had no say about my own life. “I might go to the day spa later.”

“No. You need to stay here today.”

I stiffened in anger, more at his harsh tone than at the instructions. “I’ll go somewhere if I want to. Malcolm can take me.”

“No, he can’t.”

I snapped, completely losing my patience. After the week of aggravation and the fright I’d just had, I had no mental barriers left. Not to mention the weird reaction I’d just had to him, which I absolutely could not let myself entertain. “You can’t stop me from doing normal things. It’s not dangerous. I haven’t made an appointment, so no one can know I’m going there. Maybe someone like you could be satisfied buried in a hole somewhere, but most of us want to behave like civilized human beings.”

I regretted the words as soon as I’d said them since they came out sounding like I was slamming him for a class reason—as if he were lower-class and thus uncivilized—when I’d intended it to be about his endlessly rude behavior. But there was nothing I could do about it now.

At least I’d said something to show how I felt about him.

He grew very still for just a minute, and then his eyes turned ice cold. “Understood,” he said. “But you’re still not going with Malcolm. If you’re going out today, I’ll get an extra guy to go too.”

“Fine,” I said, relenting just to get him out of here. “Now would you just take that horrible thing out of here and go away.”

He gave me another cold look. “I’m gone.”

He was gone, and I was relieved. But I was also really upset. About everything.

Someone was after me, refused to let me feel safe anywhere.

And Cole seemed to hate me more now than he had before.

It was a lot to have accomplished before ten o’clock on a Saturday morning.