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The stranger’s tone immediately caught my attention, and my blood cooled in my veins as he turned slowly, head canted as he started to look up to where I was standing. I rolled to the side and pressed my back against the wall, my breathing almost ragged behind my hand as panic became the only prevalent emotion.
“I haven’t seen her. If I sneak out now, she probably won’t even know I was here.” I heard his steps as he moved through the house, but I didn’t dare move. “How the fuck was I supposed to know he had an office in his agent’s building?”
My heart was hammering so hard, my chest began to hurt, and as I strained to hear a footstep on the stairs, I stopped breathing altogether until the front door opened and closed.
I waited for a minute to see if it was maybe a fake-out, and I only took a breath when I heard an engine start outside. Holding my towel together, I rushed to one of the rooms at the front of the house and watched an SUV pull away and down the hill, the car too far away to attempt to read the plate on the back.
Crumpling to the floor in relief, the tension in my body fell away, and I cried. All my fear and panic were bleeding out of me now. I had no idea who the man was, or why he’d been in the house, or what he could be looking for in Noah’s office. He didn’t seem like the type of guy to fuck around, and the gun scared me. What the hell had Noah gotten himself into?
It took me a moment longer to get past the fear and rationalize my thoughts enough to realize someone had broken into Noah’s home. I didn’t think the guy had taken anything, and yet, he’d been in here without Noah’s knowledge or permission. I should have called the cops while he was still here—let them know there was an armed intruder. Instead, I’d been standing there watching him like a fish in a tank. I was an idiot.
I tried to gather myself into some semblance of strength and rose on shaky feet to go and get my phone when I heard the sound of a car stopping too abruptly. I glanced out of the window to see Noah’s BMW parked at an angle in his drive.
I didn’t stand around to watch him climb out. I ran to meet him instead, almost falling down the stairs as I took them too quickly. He was in the front door before I made it downstairs, his eyes wild, cheeks flustered as he looked around his living room for me.
“Babe?”
“Noah.”
I didn’t slow as I ran into his embrace. I didn’t grab for the towel when it fell into a ball between us and slid to the floor. All I needed at that moment was the comfort of his arms and the reassurance that he was okay.
“You’re trembling,” he said into the damp tendrils of hair on my neck as he pulled me closer.
“We need to call the cops. Someone broke in here.”
“Shh,” he cooed. There was no panic or shock in his voice, not even a hint of surprise. Instead, he pushed the door closed and led me inside, picking up one of the blankets to wrap around me as he sat me on the couch. His warm hands stroked my exposed skin.
“Noah, we need to call the cops,” I repeated like a broken record. I hated the manic pitch in my voice as I said it, clawing at the blanket and pulling it tighter around me.
“No cops,” Noah finally said, sitting close to me and wrapping his arm around me once again. “He shouldn’t have been here, but he didn’t break in, either. Just a miscommunication.”
“Amiscommunication?” I asked hysterically.
Noah nodded, rubbing my back in slow circles. “He’s a runner for one of the studios. He was supposed to pick up a couple of things from my office but assumed I meant my home office.”
“Then, why the fuck did he have agun?”
“A gun?”
“He’d tucked it in the back of his pants.”
“I don’t know why he was carrying a gun, but it was a misunderstanding.”
I wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that. Sometimes intuition plays a significant role in how you perceive things. The stranger’s presence in this house had felt insidious. Wrong. Dangerous. When he’d mentioned someone being here, I’d felt all of that energy aimed in my direction like a divining rod. I couldn’t tell Noah that, though. Even in my head, it sounded irrational and unfounded.
“What were they looking for?” I asked, finding myself enough to lean into his embrace and press my head against his chest. Then, almost as though on cue, Noah’s heart picked up in pace and hammered in his chest.
“Possibly a wardrobe or prop piece I took as a souvenir. You know what I’m like.”
I did, but that meant I could tell when he was lying. Rubbing my arm again, Noah dropped a kiss on the top of my head with a gentle sigh.
“I’m sorry he scared you.”
“It’s okay. It’s your house. You shouldn’t have to justify the people you invite inside.”
“That’s not true. I asked you to move in, which means you should feel safe here. I’ll have a word with the guy’s bosses and make sure it doesn’t happen again.” He kissed my neck this time and lingered there for a moment. “How about you get dressed? I’ll take you to lunch and tell you about the meeting I had this morning.”
“Where?”
