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Bella
So, tonight hadn’t gone as planned. I’d imagined it would be like every night, but I hadn’t expected the strange, black-clad man from the theater to be sitting in our living room, holding deadly weapons like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Stone Preston. His name suited him. It was cold and hard, like him. Yet, there was something about him that drew my eyes wherever he went. Like a magnet tugging at my attention, I couldn’t quite look away.
We sat in silence in the car as he drove through town. I stared out the window at the familiar shop fronts and shivered. What had I done? Had I just agreed to disappear to the secluded and spooky manor on the hill, perhaps never to be seen again? Would my father even care if I never came back? Of course, he will. Don’t be dramatic. I shut down that depressing line of thinking and focused on the road.
Everyone in town knew of Thorn Hill estate. When I was young, kids had dared each other to go through the gates at the bottom of the long, winding drive, but few ever did. There was an air of caution about the place, a warning implicit in the air but never spoken aloud. I didn’t know when it had started, but Thorn Hill had become a place of local legend, and now I was more than a little scared to be driving up the road that wound through the woods toward it.
“Is Thorn Hill haunted?” I heard myself ask. “That’s what people in town say.”
Stone glanced at me. “Is it? I suppose it could be. There is plenty of history about the place. It’s over two hundred years old.”
“Really?”
“There are some books about it in the library if you want to read them,” Stone said.
“You have a library?” Forgetting my awkwardness, I turned toward him.
He nodded. “Yes. A private collection dating back a good while, though I’ve added to it over the years.”
“I love books,” I confessed, and the awkwardness of this situation flooded back.
This man was dangerous, a criminal. Someone who had come to my house tonight, meaning to threaten my father. I should be afraid of him, not getting to know him.
I turned back and folded my arms across my chest. I didn’t know why, but my father was the one I was mad with. He’d borrowed 10k, and yet the bookstore hadn’t seen a dime, which meant he’d gambled it away. Thousands of dollars we couldn’t afford wasted on a temporary high. My respect for the man who’d raised me was slipping through my fingers like sand. Don’t forget. It’s your fault his life is shit. Right, I shouldn’t forget that.
“What do you do, Isabella?”
“Nothing much. I work at the bookstore, the diner, and O’Malley’s over on Peach Street.”
“That’s it?” he asked, making me bristle.
“What? Three jobs aren’t enough?”
“They are, of course. What I meant to ask, I suppose, is what do you want to do? You’re twenty-two.”
“So?”
“So, twenty-two is the time for dreaming, studying… passions.”
“Is that what you did at twenty-two?” I asked Stone, trying to change the subject from my own pitiful life.
He thought for a moment and then nodded. “Touché. Not all twenty-two-year-olds do that.”
“How old are you, anyway?” I wondered. The slight graying at his temples made him look distinguished, but his tanned face was unlined, and he was so broad and virile looking, I couldn’t imagine he was that old.
“Thirty-seven.”
I nodded, relieved. Not too old. The unbidden thought made me pause. Jesus, Bella, get a grip. What was I even thinking about? Sure, he was handsome and charismatic as hell, but he was a stranger and one who had entered my house illegally without breaking a sweat. The man was trouble. I felt it in my bones.
“And what do you do? Apart from threatening aging widowers and taking their daughters captive?” I blithely asked to stop my disturbing thoughts about how sexy this man was.
“Captive?” he repeated, turning the car effortlessly up the winding curves that tucked in against the hill where the manor sat. “You offered yourself, princess, even before I threatened your father,” he said easily.
His words made me flush. I kind of did, didn’t I?
“We’re here,” he said before I could think of a comeback. He pulled the car to a stop in a huge forecourt. A large fountain sat in the middle before the impressive façade of Stone’s home.
“Welcome to Thorn Hill, Bella.”
