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She popped a hip and rested her hand on it, a movement that made her tits bounce under the low neckline of her shirt. “Can I help you?”
God fuckin’ damn it, no. I wasn’t here to think about her round tits, her full lips, or her wildly long legs. If I were, she most definitely could help me.
“Can we talk?”
She pursed her lips. “Give me one good reason why.”
I pulled my badge out of my pocket and flashed it at her.
Hard, narrowed eyes joined those pursed lips. “Give me five minutes.”
Then, she slammed the door in my face.
Yeah.
She was pissed.
Chapter Four
Perrie
“Lola!” I called, grabbing her ragdoll from the bottom stair. “Bedtime.”
“Who’s that man?”
Ugh.
“Nobody you need to concern yourself with. Bed, please.”
“Why is he leaning against our front door?”
An excellent question.
“Something else that’s none of your business. Don’t make me ask you a third time to get your butt upstairs.”
Her sigh echoed through the house, and there was a thud as she jumped off the sofa onto the floor. “Fine,” she whined, tugging on a loose thread at the bottom of her pajama top. “But I just want to know.”
“You don’t need to know.” I handed her the ragdoll. “Thank you, pumpkin.”
“I want to know.”
“I know you do.” Grabbing her shoulders, I steered her toward the stairs. “And I want you to go to bed.”
“This isn’t fair!”
“Neither is the fact you ate my ice-cream when you’d finished yours earlier. Life sucks.” I followed her up the stairs. She sighed with every step she took, each one getting louder and making her sound more hard-done-by than the last.
Being seven was terrible, clearly.
Lola stomped into her room and threw herself on her bed.
“Hollywood will be calling to award you your Oscar any moment,” I said dryly.
She peered at me out of one eye, not moving a muscle from where she’d faceplanted her pillow. “Mommy, you’re not funny.”
“Neither is your attitude, so quit it. Leave it in your sleep.” I pulled her covers over her and kissed her hair. “Night, Lolo.”
“Night,” she murmured, rolling over with another small huff.
Apparently, nobody told my daughter that the attitude comes with puberty. I was in for a long, rough ride with her.
“Mommy?” she said in a small voice.
“Uh-huh?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Lolo.” I shut off her light and closed her door, waiting for a moment for any signs of movement before going back downstairs.
To where Detective Adrian Potter was waiting outside my front door…to talk.
Talk.
Right.
About what? Why he’d let me go? Why I’d cried so hard? Why he’d taken pity on me?
I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to hear his sympathy or his pity or whatever bullshit he was inevitably going to spew at me, but I couldn’t turn him away. He’d made that clear the moment he’d flashed his badge in my face.
I didn’t want his judgement, either. Because I knew he was judging me. For what I did, for where I lived, for my whole life.
Everyone did.
People liked to judge what they knew nothing about. The problem was, they didn’t care enough about who they were judging to find anything out.
I brushed my bangs back from my face and took a deep breath. My stomach twisted into nauseating knots, and for a moment, I stood perfectly still a few feet from the door.
Everything inside me did not want to open it. Common sense told me I had to, but that didn’t make it any more appealing.
Dragging my feet, I forced myself to walk to the door and open it.
He was leaning against the side of the house, feet crossed at the ankles, arms folded across his chest. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up to his elbows, showing off the ink that decorated his lower arm and back of his hand.
I ignored that, and the way the material hugged his biceps, and glared at his face. “Hurry up. I don’t have long.”
Slowly, he turned his face and his blue-green eyes found mine. “Why? Got somewhere to be?”
“No, but my patience is about to run out with today.” I stepped back from the door. “Excuse the mess in the front room. You interrupted bedtime.”
“That explains the door slamming.” He shut the door behind him and followed me through.
I knelt where Barbie and Ken and co. were, as usual, naked, and picked up two of the dolls.
“You call this a mess?”
I glanced up. “It is a mess.”
“Looks like a plastic doll orgy to me,” he replied. “But if you think this is messy, you should see my front room after my son has tipped out his entire collection of Lego to find one measly brick. You can bet your ass he doesn’t pick it back up, either.”
“You do actually have a son? That wasn’t a line to trap me?”
“I didn’t trap you.”
