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“Hey,” Eric said. “Rough night?”
Tessa put a hand to her tangled hair and swallowed hard. “Yeah. I was just getting in the shower. What’s up?”
“I feel like we’ve been passing each other by lately. I thought I’d come over for breakfast.”
“You mean you forgot to go to the grocery store again?”
“No,” he said, but she noticed he had a piece of leftover fried chicken in his hand. Breakfast, indeed.
“Well, maybe we can catch up over lunch today.” Not that she had any intention of meeting him for lunch. “I’m kind of running late this morning.” She gestured toward her door. That turned out to be a mistake.
Eric narrowed his eyes at the door, as if he’d just realized it was closed. And why would a woman who lived alone need to close her bedroom door?
Then the shower turned off. The fall of water hadn’t seemed very loud, but the absence of it created a vacuum of sound that rang in her ears.
Tessa’s skin went numb, even as her muscles turned to painful knots. Eric was only a foot away from her. She had a front row seat to the emotions that chased across his face. Confusion, alarm, worry and then hard, cold fury. His pale gaze swept down her robe, which she belatedly realized was her summer robe: pale silver and silky and sensual.
“Who is he?” he growled.
“Eric,” she said, putting her hands to his chest when he reached toward the door. “I’m not a kid anymore.”
“I’ll kill him.” His voice was so low
it scared her.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.
He reached past her. Tessa grabbed his wrist, but his hand was already turning the knob. As the door swung inward, Luke’s voice flowed into the hall with perfect clarity.
“Tessa, I used your towel. I hope that’s okay.”
She watched helplessly as Eric’s eyes went wide. He bared his teeth as if he were a guard dog. Tessa did the only thing she could think of. She pushed him back into the hallway. Hard. “It’s none of your business.”
“What?” Luke called, but then she felt his presence at her back, and her brother’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“Shit,” Luke breathed so softly she barely heard it. “Yeah,” she whispered back. Warm humidity snuck past her limbs as steam left the bathroom. She didn’t have to look back to know he was wearing a towel and nothing else. She could see it in the furious hatred on Eric’s face.
“Eric,” she said calmly. “Go. We’ll talk about this later.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” he barked. “I’m not going anywhere!”
“Yes, you are. This is my house and my room, and you have to go now.”
Eric ignored her, pointing at Luke as if he could kill him with the tip of his finger. “How the hell could you do this to her?”
“I didn’t…” Luke started, but his words faded into a silence that pulled at them like weights.
“Go,” she said to her brother as she backed into her bedroom. When he didn’t move, she shut the door in his face. And then she locked it.
Eyes wide with horror, Tessa slowly turned to face Luke. He looked much grimmer than she’d hoped to see him this morning. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Eric’s footsteps moved away from the door and Luke just stared at her until they faded. “Why don’t I go talk to him,” he finally suggested.
Tessa shook her head frantically. “No way. I’ll talk to him. I just…”
“You might want to mention that you weren’t…”
She waved him off. “Yeah. I know. I just need to find a way to ease him away from being mad at you.”
