Stranger Read online

  He doesn’t respond, just pulls into the parking lot of the courthouse. It occurs to me: His beat up truck, his casual clothes—he has no money. Of course he has no money. That’s why he’s after mine. “Where do you live?”

  “On the beach.”

  “Are you renting?”

  “Camping.”

  “Wait, on the beach?” I can’t hide my revulsion. I love the beach, the sand between my toes, the water lapping at my ankles, the warm sun on my face. But sleeping there, in a tent . . . “Which beach?”

  “Yours.”

  “You mean—”

  “Next to your building.”

  I see them sometimes from my terrace, an occasional tent camper on the sand. It’s illegal. They’re not supposed to be there. “How long have you been . . .”

  His gaze shifts to me from the corner of his eye, and I gasp. The predator is there, that I’m hunting you, are you sure you want to know you’re being hunted? look he had on the first day I saw him at the hospital. He wasn’t only following me at lunch. That was just the first time he let me see him. He’s been watching me at night too.

  “How long?” I whisper.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Three nights? Four?”

  He cuts his head back and forth.

  My heart thrums faster. “A week?”

  “And a half.”

  He’s been sitting outside my condo. Watching me. “Can you see my terrace?” I know it’s visible from the beach. I don’t sunbathe nude or anything, but it’s my private space. The idea of him spying on me when I didn’t know . . .

  “I can see everything you let me see.” His voice rumbles like a train barreling down the track, drowning all other sound.

  The fear and excitement—the spike in adrenaline I felt every time he stared at me at the hospital—is back. It washes through my blood like a high and steals away my anxiety—about my father, my brother, my life. All gone. In its place is the flood of sensation, everything in me igniting and spinning.

  He’s been watching me, at night, through my windows, for weeks. I know I should be freaked, but instead I want it. I want him to stare at me. I want to be stared at.

  I wonder what I would’ve done if I’d known he was watching. Would I have closed my drapes tighter? Or would I have parted them . . . given him a show?

  The truck stops, and I open my eyes—I didn’t realize they were shut.

  He has parked outside the courthouse. I glance at the entrance arch and see someone familiar walking inside.

  “Shit.” I duck beneath the dashboard.

  “What?”

  “Get down!” I pull his arm down until his head is level with the steering wheel.

  “What the hell?”

  “Shh!”

  “Who is it?” He glares at me.

  “Blake.”

  “Why’s he here?”

  “He’s a lawyer. He must be in court today.” But suddenly that isn’t important. Because Logan’s eyes are inches from mine, transfixing me. “They’re green.”

  He jerks back like I’ve slapped him.

  “Wait.” I reach for his face and clasp his cheek.

  For days I wondered what color they were. They’re so light, they’re almost white. The irises would blend with the outer white of his eyes except there’s a black ring—or maybe it’s dark green—a line around his irises. That’s what makes them look dark yet light at the same time.

  His breath brushes my cheek, his lips part, his tongue flicks out, and I realize I’m hypnotized—by the mouth of the lion.

  * * *

  Her hand is on my face.

  I have the urge to nip at her, to bite her and frighten her away.

  But the stronger urge—the one that means I can’t keep my eyes off her mouth, can’t get enough of her begging eyes, full of the cloudless, sweet life I never got to lead—that urge wins.

  I clutch the back of her head and seize her mouth with mine.

  Sweet. So fucking sweet.

  Fresh as spring, pure as downy cotton, and ripe for taking. I suck her lips between mine with a frenzy I didn’t know I possessed. She whimpers, and it’s like on the floor of her condo: her mouth opens before I ask.

  I delve into her mouth, capturing as much of her as I dare. Not as much as I want, but as much as I can’t resist.

  Fire.

  How can something so sweet be so hot?

  I stretch over her, pushing her into the seat with my chest. My hand up her skirt gripping her thigh, her fingers pulling my hair until it stings.

  She gasps hard and I bury my face in her neck, sucking her skin, inhaling her scent. She’s soft as silk and fragile, pliable, bendable to my will.

  However I want her, whatever I say, she’ll do it.

  That, as much as a car door slamming, shocks me.

  “Shit!” I pull away from her and leap from the truck. I rest my hands on my knees to catch my breath. What was that? I groan to myself.

  I’ll never get anything I want from this woman if I can’t keep my hands off her.

  But maybe . . .

  I want money. I have to marry her to get it, but that’s as much an inconvenience to me as it is to her. What am I really taking from her? If my goal is revenge, if I want to ruin her life, maybe I really need to ruin her.

  Maybe I need to take everything she has to give me. Including herself.

  Chapter Eight

  I sit, stalling in the waiting room outside my brother’s office, and stare at the ring on my finger.

  I thought Logan’s head was going to spin off when I charged the ten thousand dollar thing to my credit card. It’s extravagant, but neither Blake nor my friends will believe it for less.

  My brother didn’t see us at the courthouse.

  I got married.

  To a man who scares me as much as he turns me on. Or turns me on because he scares me, or scares me with how much he turns me on. All of the above.

  After he kissed me in his truck . . . If I can even call it a kiss. It was more like an attack of his mouth, a seek-and-destroy mission, a wrecking of every preconceived notion I had of what a kiss could be. If that was a small piece of what he keeps bottled up behind his brooding fury, then if he ever really lets loose, full throttle, he will finish me.

  And Lord help me, I want it. No matter how much I shouldn’t want anything from him, I want him to scare me and hold me down while he . . .

  I palm my face. How am I going to live with this man?

  “Penny.” Blake blasts my name from his door. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” I bolt to standing. But as I suspected, before he even looks at my face, his eye catches on my ring.

  “What is—”

  I brush past him into his office. “We need to talk.” I hide my shaky fingers behind my back.

  He closes the door softly. “Is that . . .” His normally stoic face glazes with apprehension.

  I need to be out of this office as soon as possible. “I got married.”

  “You . . . ?” He chokes. “That’s a joke right? Some prank, like I’m still hoping your decision not to go to medical school was.”

  “That was never a joke. I want to be a nurse. I like working with—”

  “What is it you want? I haven’t been giving you enough of whatever you need. But I can’t help if you won’t tell me.”

  “It’s real, Blake. I married Logan at the courthouse today.”

  He gets closer like he wants to examine me, figure me out. It’s intimidating, though I don’t think he means to be. Blake is a foot taller than me. I’ve never been scared of him before, but he’s in my face too fast for me to get away. “Stop with the games, Penelope. This is a serious life decision.”

  “It’s not a game.”

  He holds my shoulders. “Why?”

  “Blake, stop.” I try to get away but he shakes me.

  “Tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you!” The confusion in his eyes is a fierce
desperation, almost like fear peeking through.

  “Stop it!” I can’t handle him so intense. I can’t handle any more of anything.

  This whole thing with Logan, his lies about our father, it’s too much for me. There’s no way my brother, with his obsessive need to take care of me, could handle me being under such duress. I can’t tell Blake about the lies. He’s stressed enough taking care of my father’s estate and the problems with the retirement pay for the memorial hospital.

  He spends so much of his time worrying about me. I can spare him this and take care of myself for once. No matter how much he disliked my father, he deserves better than to have the memory of a dead parent tarnished. It’s not like he’d be able to help me. My trust won’t allow the money out until I’m married, and we can’t allow Logan to go public with the information.

  But I will forever be his little sister, six years younger. He will forever be my big brother, the support I needed when my father wasn’t there, even when he was still alive.

  I expect Blake to push me away. But he doesn’t. For the first time since we entered his office, he does what I’ve wanted more than anything: he wraps his arms around me and hugs me.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmurs between curses. “I’ve done a terrible job at this. I don’t know what you need. I’m trying and nothing works. And now . . .” He puts a finger under my chin and lifts my eyes to his. “It’s true? You married the man I met yesterday?”

  I try to nod. I don’t know how I’m going to do this without telling him the whole truth.

  “It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I can fix this. It was a few hours ago, right? I’ll get it annulled, and—”

  “You can’t.”

  He leads me to an armchair and sits next to me. “I’m a lawyer. I’ll get you out of this mess. That’s why you came here.”

  “That’s not why. I don’t want you to fix it. I want—” I don’t want to say it.

  He goes still, not breathing. I have to look up to make sure he’s still there. His eyes, as dark as Logan’s are light, narrow. They fill with something approaching rage. “Then why did you come?”

  “Because . . . for . . .”

  “For the money?”

  I avoid his eyes. He’s going to hate me. “Yes.”

  His hand clenches on the arm of his chair until his knuckles go white. “If you want money, all you had to do is ask for it. I’ll give it to you.”

  But it’s as much about controlling me and my life for Logan as it is about the money. “It’s not like that.” I stare at his feet.

  His voice stays low. “You didn’t have to marry him.”

  “I—I—wanted to.” The lie rings false, and I think he hears it.

  He sighs heavily, and he runs a hand over his face. “I’ve never told you and I don’t think he did either.” He as in our father. “You have a trust. And I don’t.”

  Confusion reverberates in my head. “He didn’t give you a trust? Why?”

  “What I have is what I make.”

  “But I’ll share it with you.”

  “That’s not the point.” He grits his teeth, trying to restrain his temper. “The point is—I’m not giving you control of the money.”

  I swallow. “You have to when I get married. It’s a condition of the trust.” My father was chauvinist like that—believing if I had a man in my life, he could better take care of the money than me. I doubt he had Logan in mind when he made that rule. I’m sure he thought he’d be alive to make sure I married someone worthy of his approval.

  “I won’t let you.”

  “Yes, you will.” I know him. The same way he won’t take money from my trust because it’s not his, he’ll give me the money because it’s what the contract tells him to do.

  I think.

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  His intake of breath is as fast as mine.

  I try to amend, “I mean, I want to. I mean, I love him.” My lies spout so fast there’s no way he believes me.

  “No.”

  “You have to.”

  He doesn’t meet my eyes when he says. “Leave. I can’t help you if you don’t want to be helped.”

  “Blake, please. Don’t be like this.”

  His anger flares. “I don’t want to see you again until you’re ready to get rid of him.”

  I sit frozen. With no idea what to do. I can’t leave here without the money. I can’t go home to that man. And live with him. He’ll destroy me. “Blake, I need th-the m-money.”

  “I can’t help you. Go.” He points at the door, the outrage on his face too much for me to bear.

  I run from the room. What will Logan say? What will he do if I tell him my brother said no? He’ll call the paper. He’ll tell everyone everything.

  I’ll have to lie to him, tell him the money will take time. I can do that. Try again with my brother in a couple of days.

  I trudge down the stairs to the parking lot, outside into the blazing sun.

  If I wasn’t alone in this before, I am now.

  I have no one.

  Except the man who’s forced me to marry him.

  Chapter Nine

  She comes home, interrupting my fantasies, my plans.

  I stay sitting on her couch where I’ve been motionless for the last hour, loath to touch anything in this pristine place. Everything in the room is a sign of what she has always had and what I’ve never had.

  She pauses when she sees me. Her skirt is askew and ratcheted up on one side, exposing two more inches of thigh than she means to, and one bra strap is showing, a lacy blue. What is it with this girl and blue? As if her ultra-innocent eyes aren’t enough.

  She fidgets and tilts her feet. “He, um, said it could take a while.”

  Her inability to lie aggravates me. “You mean he said no?”

  “Yes. I mean, no. It’s going to take a little time, okay? I’ll get you the money.” She can’t look at me when she begs, “Please don’t tell anyone,” then rushes past me down the hall.

  Her bedroom door slams.

  I feel a sadistic sense of pride. She’s in pain, and it’s because of me.

  I’m winning. For the first time in eight years, I’m the villain in this story.

  But I don’t have a moment to bask in my triumph, because on the heels of my victory, I’m faced with the urge to follow her.

  To charge into her bedroom and lay her out like I did in my truck. To peel away her self-pity and her sweetness. To show her that everything she’s prided herself on, every good-girl piece of her that has to follow the rules, that feels the shame of not giving me what I want—it’s false, a lie. There is no truth except fear and pain. Before I’m done, she will know both of these as well as I do.

  * * *

  Layla has been one of my best friends since prep school. We went to college together. Amisha and I met in the pre-med program, but Layla—she wants to be a journalist. Which means asking questions is her professional skill.

  “Why haven’t you been answering our calls? Who is he?”

  My butt hasn’t even hit the seat across from her and already I’m on trial. “I’ve been busy.”

  Amisha sits next to me and flags down a waiter. “Let her have something to drink first.”

  Layla brushes her auburn curls over her shoulder. “Amisha said you’re off intensive care. Are you okay?”

  I scratch my head. “I miss it, but I’ll go back in the NICU someday.” I hope.

  Though I’m not sure recovery is what I’m going through right now, more like backsliding. I was distracted at work all day. Focusing on patients is harder than ever, even more than in the first month after my father died. I can’t stop thinking about that man, the one who stalked me for two weeks. The one I married. The one who’s living in my condo.

  I couldn’t sleep last night. He was in the other room. On the other side of the wall.

  He could’ve walked in my bedroom any time.

  I
didn’t lock my door.

  The waiter sets waters in front of us. I take a drink and lower my head to the glass, trying to hide how my hands shake. The adrenaline, the fear from Logan now living in my condo, has become a permanent fixture in my blood. Every spare second my thoughts stray to him sitting on my couch, long legs spread, his hair hanging over his brow, almost hiding the light green eyes staring at me like he wants to melt me into nothing. And all the ways he will melt me into nothing.

  It’s intoxicating.

  “Penny.” Layla waves her hand in front of my face.

  I blink fast and refocus on her. “Uh, yeah. I’m fine.”

  Her brows draw together in concern and she glances at Amisha. They exchange a look that I try to ignore. Great, they’ve been talking about me behind my back. Judging me.

  “I have to go.” I back out my chair.

  “What? No.” Amisha pulls on my arm. “Penny, stay!” The look on her face, the look of hurt stops me more than her words.

  Layla lays a hand across the table. “Tell us about this new guy.” Her voice is kind. She’s not being pushy. They’re not judging me.

  The waiter comes and we order dinner. It’s a restaurant I’ve been to many times. Not my favorite, but it’s convenient for us to meet Layla here after she finishes work at the newspaper.

  “How was your date?” Layla nudges.

  I have no idea how I’m going to lie through this dinner. I never should’ve come. Except it’s the preferable option to going home to . . . my husband.

  God, that chafes.

  I can’t lie any more than I have to. Best to tell as much of the truth as I can. I reach in the small zipper pocket of my purse and slip on my new ring.

  They gasp in unison.

  “Is that . . . ?”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Please tell me that’s . . .”

  “ . . . not real, is it?”

  I clear my throat to quiet them. “It’s real. We bought it yesterday.”

  Even Layla’s stunned. “We?”

  “Logan. That’s his name.” I stare at the diamonds glittering at me. “We got married yesterday. He moved in with me last night.”

  “What!” Amisha gapes. “How long have you known him? Have you been hiding him from us?”