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“Where…are you…you’re going to be here?”
“Yes, I am. I’ll be in my studio, finishing up the painting I’m working on. You have until tomorrow morning! You understand, Elisa?”
Oh, so that’s how you want to play this. Well, I can play along too, Ash Asswell.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “I get it.” But then, because I’m a journalist, and I have a bit of a big mouth and a problem with not voicing my thoughts, and also because I don’t want to be haunted by images of my finger getting detached from my body all night, I have to blurt, “What if it doesn’t work? The jeweler, I mean? What if he can’t get it off? Or cut through it?”
Ash grins that evil, signature, Cromwellian grin. “Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Yes, let’s hope indeed. Because I’m rather partial to my finger, thank you very freaking much. “Are you a psycho?”
“Excuse me?”
“If I’m going to spend the night here, I need to know you’re not a psycho.” I glance down at the ring. “Wait, yeah, you’re totally a psycho.”
“The spare bedroom has a lock on the door, just like most of the rooms here. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Oh, I see.” I lift my eyes to the ceiling. The pot rack is still up there. Death by frying pan is so appealing right now, but I honestly don’t want to go out as the murdering kind. “Other than the whole ring and curse thing, then yup, absolutely nothing at all to worry about.”
“Exactly.” Ash’s tone has a brutal finality, and he leaves me there with a bunch of goo coating my hand to figure out how to fix this all on my own.
CHAPTER 4
Ash
That cursed ring—damn it, I don’t believe in curses—that ring couldn’t have landed on the finger of a sassier, more annoying, more infuriating woman.
Overnight, I decided that my immediate life has boiled down to one thing and one thing only, which is detaching the ring from Ellis’ finger and firing her, so I never have to see her again. I couldn’t get her strange eyes—those weird sea-colored orbs or the amber-hued ones—out of my mind all night. I had creepy dreams. Creepy ones that turned taboo. Dreams about Ellis standing before me, wearing only the ring and a taunting smile, and holy shit, I’ll cut it off right there. I have no control over my dreams. I know that. But still.
Normally, I love getting up early when things are still quiet and gray, and I usually opt for a good workout. But not this morning. This morning, I’m bleary and unfocused, and I desperately need to get my head into the game. Nothing makes that clearer than when I stumble into the kitchen for a cup of coffee to try and beat back the sensation of utter exhaustion, and I find Ellis down there already hard at work with the jug of dish soap and the olive oil again. I become instantly surly for no reason at all that I can explain.
Well, other than the fact that my maid, who clearly has it in for me, has a cursed family heirloom stuck to her body, and the heirloom is supposed to belong to my soulmate and my soulmate alone.
And she’s definitely not it!
But I do have to admit, soulmate or not, Ellis in her immaculate clothing from the day before, with her wild dark hair mussed and hanging halfway down her back in a free fall of rich velvet lushness, and her amber eyes wide and hopeful, reminds me just a little bit too much of the strange dreams I had last night. The reminder makes me flush, and I don’t flush or fluster.
Usually.
Also, I realize her clothing isn’t rumpled, which means she probably didn’t sleep in her jeans or t-shirt. Was she birthday suiting it between the sheets? Naked? No! No, I can’t go there. The last thing I need is this annoying semi to change into an even more annoying, raging hard-on.
I scramble for a coffee cup, turning my body away from her so she can’t see that I’m suddenly rock hard in my jeans. She made coffee, I notice. When I angle around just a little, I can see that there’s an empty cup on the counter not too far away. It’s seven in the morning. What time does this girl get up?
I help myself to a cup of coffee, ignoring the fact that what I really want is a cup of her. Wait, no! No, what I technically want is the ring off her finger and her out my front door, kitchen door, back door, or rooftop door. Just any door will do. Although perhaps not the rooftop door. There aren’t any stairs leading down from there, so the descent would be somewhat questionable, and I don’t want to get sued on top of everything.
