Who the hell was coming in through the back?The only scenarios I could think of were that Victor had locked himself out at the front, or that someone was trying to get in unseen, just like I was. I pressed my eye to the keyhole, but all I could see was a small sliver of the room. And then I heard the familiar sound of a bag being unzipped, followed by the unmistakable sounds of Velcro straps being pulled open.
It didn’t take a spy to figure out that someone entering from the back entrance, with what sounded like a large duffle bag, was up to no good. I quietly shuffled to the other side of the closet and pulled my knees up in an attempt to make myself as small as possible. It was rather lucky for me that Victor owned a long black leather trench coat, so if someone did look in here, they wouldn’t see me straight away.
I heard footsteps shuffling around, then a faint squeak, as if someone had just climbed onto the bed.What the fuck?Then I heard something else – voices. One voice at first, then a second. The first voice I recognised immediately as Victor’s, I’d watched enough videos of him on YouTube to know it anywhere. The second was a surprisingly shrill sound of a woman giggling.
The voices suddenly turned into an even worse sound: the sound of the villa’s sliding door being opened, and a second later, the closet door being opened too as someone climbed inside. I pressed myself into the wall.Shit! Shit! Shit!This was not good, not good at all. But there was no avoiding it: whoever had just climbed into the closet was going to see me, not to mention probably feel me at any moment now.
Sure enough, as the door closed, a leg shot out and collided with mine. There was a moment of silence, and in that instant, I knew they knew I was there, and they knew I knew they were there too. I could hear them breathing and I was pretty sure they could hear me.
All I had to do now was pull the trench coat aside to see who I was sharing a closet with.
No time like the present. I wrapped my fingers around it just as I saw someone else’s fingers wrap around from the other side. There was a pause, and then as if we’d both agreed on it, we pulled the coat back at the same time. And when we did, my stomach dropped.
I knew this man.
The moment I slipped into the closet, I knew I wasn’t alone.
It wasn’t a sound. It was a feeling. A shift in the air. A presence. Then the faintest scrape. Breathing. Movement. And a shin.
My leg had definitely collided with a shin. I froze.
And then I saw it: fingers. Wrapping around the edge of the coat. Wait . . . familiar fingers. The kind of vague familiarity that makes your stomach clench with an almost-memory, waiting for your brain to catch up and fill in the gaps.
We pulled the coat back at the same time.
And there she was.
Lizzy.
CHAPTER 10
I blinked several times, as if my brain was busy snapping mental photos of the face in front of me, desperately running it through some internal facial recognition software. Surely I wasn’t seeing this. Please tell me I wasnotseeing this. Because if I was, then something was very, very wrong – like my brain had glitched.
But it wasn’t a glitch.
It was Cam.
‘Cam, what the f—’
Before I could finish, he lunged forward and slapped a hand over my mouth. My fight-or-flight response kicked in immediately – well, it was more fight orfight– enhanced by the sheer audacity of this man touching me, and without thinking, I threw a punch. Unfortunately, my fist simply grazed his shoulder . . . but oh, what a shoulder.
Broad.
Muscular.
Much more so than I remembered. My fist felt like it had ricocheted off steel. I shook my head. Nope. Not going there. Not thinking about how those muscles once felt under my fingertips. Those thoughts needed to be banished. Immediately.
Cam winced and rubbed his shoulder, which I derived a sliver of satisfaction from. But then he gave me what looked suspiciously like a smirk.
‘Bastard!’ I hissed, balling my fist up tightly and throwing another punch. This time he intercepted it with his big hand. God, it hadbeen six years since we’d been sparring partners, and yet this asshole still anticipated my every move. And that just made me hate him even more.
‘What the fuck are you—’ My frustration boiled over, but he quickly silenced me by throwing a sock my way and gesturing at his mouth, a clear command forshove a sock in it.
I grabbed the sock and flung it straight back at him, and he caught it mid-air. Of course he did. Those stupid reflexes. I hung my head and that’s when it hit me, the very inconvenient truth of this moment, just how close we were, and how much of our bodies were pressed up against each other.
Touching. Skin to skin.
This cupboard wasn’t designed for two people. And certainly not for two people who despised each other but had also had incredibly hot sex once upon a time. An image that had just unfortunately flitted through my mind when I looked down and noted his legs braced on either side of mine, holding me in place.
