This was a simple manipulative conversation, and I was good at those. I’d talked around the most stubborn people to donate time and money to the charity I volunteered at,pulled reluctant boards into consensus, and convinced people with more wealth than empathy that the charity was vital. I’d earned a career in finance without a degree, untangling numbers no one else wanted to look at, steering bad situations toward outcomes everyone could live with.
“I will stay calm. I know how to make a case. This is no different.”
I dressed in layers, shivering at first, then warming as each one went on. Finally, I pulled on jeans and my favorite sweatshirt, the one with the charity logo, worn thin and deliberately casual. Approachable, if I needed it to be. Cute, with sleeves a little too long, the pale pink was a good color for me.
“Let’s do this.”
I headed downstairs, no sign of Jesse. The smell of yesterday’s near-disaster still lingered faintly in the air. I made coffee myself on the stove, careful this time, humming under my breath. The mug warmed my hands. When the first sip hit, bitter and necessary, I decided to explore.
Instead of turning right at the door like I had yesterday, I went left.
The front room opened up larger than I expected, but it was hard to make out anything but the shapes of big sofas in the half-dark. I pulled back the heavy drapes.
White.
The glare hit me full in the face, snow piled high and fresh, blinding enough that I swore and squinted. More snow.
“What the fuck!”
The shout came from behind me. I whirled so fast thatcoffee sloshed over the rim of the mug and splashed straight down the front of my sweatshirt.
Jesse Knox was sitting bolt upright on the biggest sofa I’ve ever seen.
The evidence was everywhere that he’d been sleeping there. A rumpled quilt half-slid to the floor. Boxes stacked against the wall. A makeshift table pulled close, cluttered with mugs, papers, and—my brain stalled—was that lube?
And in the middle of it all, Jesse.
Bare chest. Mussed hair. Lean muscle pulled tight over bone. There was dirt smudged along his jaw and at his temple, and the lines at the corners of his eyes were deeper than they should have been for a man his age. Hell, he was only a couple of years older than me, if I remembered right. He looked even more weatherbeaten and worn down than when I saw him yesterday, exhaustion sitting on him as heavily as the anger. One arm braced behind him as he leaned forward, eyes locked on me, an expression of pure fury and shock rolled into one. For a second, neither of us moved. I was standing there, dripping coffee, heart pounding. He looked like he’d woken ready to fight.
The silence stretched, electric and awful.
Jesse broke it first.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, hauling himself to his feet and dragging the quilt with him. His gaze flicked over the room, then back to me, taking in the coffee, the sweatshirt, the glare through the window.
“Why are you sleeping in here?” I stopped, clearly losing the thread.
“That’s none of your business!” Jesse snapped.
I went on the defensive instantly, words tumbling out before I’d thought them through. “It’s a family room,” I said, a little too fast. “I wasn’t exactly expecting you to be using it as a bedroom. I mean, I just came down for coffee, and then I was exploring, and—” I stopped, because he was still glaring, and the harder he stared, the more my mouth kept running. “It’s not like there was a sign on the door. This is my house, too. I can go where I want.”
The second the words were out, I winced internally. Fuck. I sounded like a spoiled brat.
So much for a cute charm offensive.
Jesse’s jaw tightened. “It’s only three-quarters yours,” he grumbled, sweeping an arm around the room, taking in the sofa, the boxes, the table, all of it. “This?” He jabbed a finger at the space between us. “This is my quarter.”
“That’s not how this works,” I shot back automatically, even as my confidence wobbled. “You can’t just divide up rooms like territory and?—”
“Get the fuck out!” he snapped, and God help me, but the way he stood there was intimidating, bare-chested in jersey boxers, all muscle and coiled tension, dark hair a mess, his face twisted into a snarl, was sexy. An unhelpful flicker of awareness hit me, and I shut it down just as fast. I pulled a tactical retreat and shut the door behind me.
I scrubbed at the coffee mark on my sweatshirt in the kitchen sink until the pink was only faintly darker than before, then gave up. It would do. I poured myself more coffee, my hands steadier now, and went hunting for food. The cupboards yielded cereal. Sugary, brightly colored cereal. Captain Crunch.
Not my usual egg white omelet.
I managed one spoonful, milk going flat-sweet in my mouth, and decided that was enough self-punishment for one morning. With coffee in hand, and still no sign of Jesse, I headed back upstairs. Why the hell wasn’t he using a bedroom up here?
There were doors on the opposite side of the landing I hadn’t explored yet. Three of them. I opened the first. Empty. A spare room stripped back to nothing but bare walls and a thin layer of dust.
