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“God, you’re certifiable, Grace.”
What the hell was he doing here?
It’s his house, you idiot.
My fingertips went white against the pane.
I really didn’t care that it was his house. It didn’t feel like his house. It still felt like mine. No amount of talking myself out of it last night mattered right now. Not when he was standing there and surveying the property with sweat-soaked skin.
I didn’t want to move on.
I wanted this house. I wanted to work here in the perfect light that I’d discovered when I was barely into my teens. When my obsession for glass had started after walking into Mrs. Stephens’ living space. The windows and arches of the main house were gorgeous, but the sheer multitude of window panes in her space had clicked something in me.
Sunlight, pure and perfect, touched every corner of the room and I’d been hooked.
When Mrs. Stephens had retired, I’d taken it over before all her bags had been packed. Back then, my work area had been an old drafting table scattered with markers and pencils until I’d transitioned to suncatchers and simple glasswork.
By high school, it had become overrun with tools, glass, and metals. Now the smell of butane and singed wood was as familiar as the ocean outside.
How on earth was I supposed to give this up?
He stood on my beach—Blake Carson, with his hands on his hips, eyeing his latest acquisition. Didn’t he know the love and creation that had resided in this house was priceless?
I moved to the door and almost flung it open to go out there and tell him, but common sense finally slapped me back. If he knew I was here, he’d surely have me arrested. After our last interaction, he’d definitely have me forcibly removed at the very least.
“You’re fired.”
I curled my hands into fists and slammed the side of my hand into the door. “Damn you, Mr. Carson.”
Just his name on my tongue and lips sent my body haywire again. The game we’d been playing, the sirs and misters and misses that had filled our days. They’d been as close to sex talk as I’d ever experienced.
Until he’d actually fucked me.
My body throbbed in memory.
His rough voice behind me as he’d driven himself into me on that rooftop. “Squeeze that tight pussy. Squeeze me, goddammit. Harder.”
Such a marked difference from the man in the office. So repressed and chilly, but the moment he got his hands on me, everything changed. And I’d found myself longing for those moments where he showed me that other side of him.
Who was the real Blake? Was he an amalgamation of them both? Or was he just a liar all around?
I backed up until my worktable brushed my backside before stumbling around it and back to the windows that lined the side of the house. I ducked down and out of the line of sight when he climbed the sand dunes to the property.
My heart climbed into my throat.
He couldn’t find me. Not now.
I glanced over to my table with the three-foot angel mid-fall. All he had to do was look inside and he’d know someone was living in this part of the house. The rest of the house was shrouded in sheets over the furniture I hadn’t been able to get into storage.
I’d run out of money for paying people to move things. The idea that my grandmother’s sideboard and china cabinets weren’t being kept made me a little ill, but what exactly was I going to do with it? I was as close to destitute as a college student fresh out of school.
My savings from sales of my work had gone to funeral expenses and lawyers, and the last of it had been taken by my mechanic with a shake of his head. As far as he was concerned, my car was a loss and should be junked, but it was pretty hard to get a loan for a new one when my finances were in shambles.
All I had was my art.
I’d called in every favor and contact I had over the last three weeks to sell my work, but it had been barely enough to buy new materials. My only hope
was the angel.
