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Her pink lips pucker into an “O” as she draws in air and then pushes it out slowly. Still, she finds the energy to scowl at me.
“I’ll take your annoyance as a sign that you’re going to survive. Can you walk?”
“Of course I can walk,” she spits.
“That’s true. You were just about to walk off of my property, so I guess your legs work fine.”
“I wasn’t—” She shakes her head, auburn waves falling around her pale face. “I wasn’t escaping. Benjamin needed some fresh air. It was a walk. Anormalwalk. Your friend showed up and blew things out of proportion.”
I turn away from her, expecting her to follow. “Don’t lie to me. It wastes your breath and my time.”
Piper doesn’t argue or try to defend herself again. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s relenting or because getting up the stairs without falling backward requires all of her energy. She may be able to walk, but her legs are shaky.
I reach back and grab her elbow. She tries to twist away from me, but I hold her firmly.
“You look like a newborn giraffe mounting these stairs,” I tell her. “You’re no help to me if you crack your skull falling down them. I’m not going to let you put yourself and a baby in danger.”
“You aren’t going to let me do anything,” she mutters. But she lets me lead her up the rest of the stairs and into the house.
I don’t hesitate in the foyer. We cross it quickly and head down the hall towards my office. The whole way, I feel Piper tensing beneath my touch. With every step, she draws further away from me.
By the time we’re in my office, she’s shaking again.
I close the door and Piper promptly presses herself into the corner. Like maybe if she flattens herself against the shelves, I’ll forget she’s in here.
“Fine,” she says before I can even begin to ask, “I was trying to escape. Is that what you want to hear?”
“I didn’t ask you anything.”
She presses her lips together. “But you’re going to. I’m being interrogated, right?”
I lean against the edge of my desk, legs crossed at the ankle. “You tell me. Does this feel like an interrogation?”
Piper ignores the question and squares her shoulders. “Before you do whatever you’re going to do to me, Benjamin needs to leave.”
Benjamin is drooling on Piper’s sleeve, his chubby cheek squished against her arm.
“But he’s so riveted in the conversation,” I drawl.
She doesn’t laugh at my joke. “I don’t want him here for whatever is about to happen.”
“You don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“I can guess,” she hisses. “I’m not stupid.”
I bob my head back and forth. “Agree to disagree on that one. You walked out my back door with Benjamin in your arms and thought you would just keep walking? To where? Don’t bother trying to fumble up some bullshit answer. You didn’t have a plan. You have nowhere to go. No one who can protect you. Unless you planned to rough it in the acres of forest around my property, I’m not sure where you thought you’d go to escape me.”
“Anywhere!” she shrieks.
Benjamin jolts, and Piper instantly starts to console him. She shushes in his ear and rocks him side to side.
The moment he’s calm again, she turns her venom on me. “I wanted to go anywhere else. Anywhere you weren’t. Feeling desperate made me stupid, I’ll admit. But I won’t apologize for it. I don’t regret it. In fact, I’d do it again.”
Her chest is heaving again, but it isn’t with panic or fear—it’s rage. The fire that took down half of my kitchen yesterday has nothing on the fire burning in her eyes right now.
Piper hates me. She despises every inch of me.
Yet all I want to do is wrap her auburn hair around my fist and watch her bend under my touch.
