AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I think you do,” came the stunning reply. “You just don’t know that you know.”
“That’s crazy talk,” I said with a voice that shook with a sudden swell of fury while my heart tried beating me to death. “Do you hear me? That’s justcrazy.”
“Eden, calm—”
“Believe me, if my stalker were someone I knew, I’d be able to spot that from a mile off. And before you say it,” I added when he snorted, “that’s not hubris. ”
“Kinda sounds like it is.”
“It’s not hubris,” I snapped, keeping myself from smacking him through sheer strength of will, “Long before I contacted PSI, I had the same idea. I thought I might know my stalker, since most victims know their stalkers, so I went through my address book. That thing is almost as old as I am, so it holds the names, numbers and addresses of just about every person I’ve met from the time I was a kid. Trust me, there’s no one in that book that makes any sense.”
“It’s someone at HEG, Eden,” he said flatly, but with such conviction it threw cold water on the rage that had me shaking. “It’s someone from the life you led three years ago.”
Fuck. Just… fuck. “No.”
“Yes.”
“You’re wrong.” I began to shake my head. “What you’re saying is impossible.”
“The pickup truck’s plates confirm it. One way or another, the source of all this shit comes from there, so whether you’re okay with it or not, you’re going to tell me everything you know about the House of Enlightened Greatness and all its dirty little secrets. And we’re going to start withyou.”
Chapter Seven
Our Little Secret
When I’d bought my house three years ago it had put a huge dent in my savings. At the time I hadn’t been completely sure I could hold on to it all by myself. But as time went on and I slowly built up my loyal clientele, scrimping and saving and eating instant ramen five days a week, I slowly began to realize two things. One, a diet of instant ramen wasn’t the healthiest way to go, and two, I was capable of taking care of myself. I didn’t need anyone’s support or protection to create a place that was all my own.
That being said, I couldn’t help but look around my place as Luke pushed through the front door as soon as I unlocked it and told me to stay in the foyer while he “cleared” the inside. The neatly ordered space on the first floor had been carefully created with a life coach’s clientele in mind. The palette I’d chosen could have come from an interior designer’s Pinterest board—white walls, gray and taupe furnishings with black as a dramatic accent. Tasteful accents from nature were scattered throughout the first floor, like an oval wooden bowl of seashells on the spotless coffee table, or the large antique milk pitcher filled with straight twigs in the space between the stainless steel and white kitchen and gray-toned breakfast nook.
These touches of nature were supposed to bring a sense of homey coziness, a design that everyone could relate to and feel comfortable with. I wanted my clients to feel comfortable, so I went out of my way to use every trick in the book to get them to relax and open up to me.
So far, it had worked like a charm.
The second floor, however, was a place where no clients were allowed to venture. That meant it was all mine. While the walls were still painted white, I had indulged in my love of the jewel-toned colors just about every place you looked. Framed landscape prints of William Henrits and Ken Hong Leung crowded the walls of the upper loft, under which sat an oversized burgundy easy chair half-covered in a fuzzy pink throw as it faced a wall of boxlike shelves from IKEA. This was where I stored my favorite books, a mish-mash of fiction and nonfiction, crammed into the shelves in no particular order. The color trend continued down the hall to both my personal office and bedroom, where more prints were hung, this time portraits or scenes filled with people, such as Henri Matisse’sLady in Kimonoand a couple of Van Gogh street scenes, as well as his self-portrait. Splashes of red, gold and purple were everywhere, especially in my bedroom, where I’d left the bed unmade that morning.
I just hoped I remembered to put yesterday’s underwear in the bathroom hamper.
“All clear.” Luke came down the stairs that emptied onto the foyer, and to my utter shock he held a gun in his hand with a casual mastery that came from years of familiarity. He must have noticed my riveted attention on the gun he held, because he looked down at it before holstering it in a place behind his back. “Did you set the alarm?”
“Um, I’ll set it for detecting opening doors while you’re here, and I’ll set it for the night once you’re gone.” It was a relief to turn away from that all-seeing gaze of his, and I took my time working the keypad. My heart was pounding so hard it was a wonder he couldn’t hear it. Damned if I knew why it was acting that way. Maybe it was the stress of being hunted, or the roller-coaster ride I’d been on for the past few hours. Or maybe it was…
The kiss.
The kiss I shared with the man who was alone with me now.
The kiss I wanted to pick back up where we’d left off, and not let him go until he moaned with need while he tugged my clothes from me.
Yes.
Thatkiss.
I closed my eyes for a fortifying moment before turning to face him. “Thank you for checking all the nooks and crannies. I would’ve been up all night scared out of my mind thinking someone was hiding in a closet somewhere.”
“Now, now, genius.” He shook his head, and his voice filled the small foyer with that purr-like taunting tone of his that I was starting to love. “Let’s not start off by lying to me. It’s like I said when we first met—I don’t think you get scared. At least, not in the usual way.”
I stared at him, flabbergasted, while my heating blood abruptly chilled. “What?”
“You heard me.”
