Finding Him

by Van Dyken, Rachel

  “Perfect.” He grinned coldly. “Build a fire.”

  And then he was shoving past me.

  “Wait! What are you going to do?” He moved toward the breakfast bar like . . . well, like he owned the place, which apparently he did. I was ready to remind him that I was a paying tenant and that the food and everything else was mine, but I was distracted by his confident swagger. Had he just been born with it? Or was it a learned habit?

  “Me?” He gave me an incredulous look as he pulled out my whiskey and unscrewed the top. “I’m gonna drink. Better hurry, the firewood should be out front, but it’s getting cold. I’d hate to see you freeze a finger off. How would you hold a knife then?”

  “You’re going to get drunk while I take care of our basic human needs?”

  “Think of it this way . . .” He smirked. “If you don’t build a fire, we’re going to have to get naked and share body heat, and I highly doubt that would be your first choice, since you’re already so fucking frigid.”

  I almost picked up the knife.

  I almost threw it at his perfect face.

  Instead, I took the high road, flipped him off, and went in search of my coat.

  Well, at least he wasn’t Ted Bundy.

  Just a grumpy millionaire who forgot he’d rented out his cabin to someone who needed it more than he did.

  Perfect.

  Chapter Four

  JULIAN

  There was something vaguely familiar about her heart-shaped face . . . maybe it was the full lips? They were more pink than red, and seemed to turn up in a snarl every time I opened my mouth.

  Who the hell was she? And why didn’t my secretary make sure that the cabin wasn’t rented? Then again, I’d been in such a hurry to get the hell out of the city it probably wouldn’t have mattered. I wanted my cabin, I didn’t care if someone else was in it. It was mine, and she didn’t belong.

  I tipped the whiskey back, reveling in the smooth burn as it hit the back of my throat. At least she knew her alcohol. I was in a foul mood, and finding some random stranger in the same cabin that my mom used to take us to when we were kids, before the divorce, just made it that much more invasive.

  She was in my space.

  Our space.

  She was strutting around in our memories, sitting in places I remembered my mom sitting in.

  I hated it.

  And I hated her because of it.

  She had no right.

  The minute I was back in the city I was going to take this place off whatever rental site it was on, permanently. Strangers had no business in our lives.

  I poured two shots of whiskey into my coffee cup and watched while the strange woman slammed the door behind her, only to come back minutes later without any firewood.

  She stared me down.

  I lifted my mug.

  She looked like she wanted to lift a middle finger again and was barely restraining herself from doing so as she clenched her teeth and got out a terse “I can’t find it.”

  “What?” I smirked tossing the rest of the whiskey back.

  “Wood.” She crossed her arms.

  My eyebrows shot up to my hairline. “Oh?”

  She let out a sigh and threw her hands up in the air. “I looked where you said to look, I used the flashlight on my phone, and everything is covered in snow.”

  “And you’re still here because . . .”

  “I need help,” she said as she slowly eyed me up and down as if measuring to see if I was the sort of man who even knew how to light a match let alone build a fire. “Since you seem to own the place you should at least be able to look out the door and point, right? Or is that too difficult for your pea brain to manage?”

  “Pea brain.” I snorted out a laugh. “Nice. If I wasn’t so intelligent and rich, I might actually be insulted. Then again, we aren’t in middle school, so . . .”

  Her eyes flashed with fury. She was on the shorter side, and her coat was puffy enough to hide every single curve I’d taken notice of the minute I opened the door.

  Fact, her skin was flawless.

  Fact, her hair was shiny even though it was pulled up into a knot on the top of her head.

  Fact, most women were manipulative, so the second I took notice, I’d looked away, and well, the minute she’d opened up her mouth, I realized that finding her attractive wasn’t going to be a problem. Finding a muzzle in this blizzard, however, would be.

  I slowly stood, taking my time to stretch my legs after such a long car ride, lazily made my way toward the front door, then looked over my shoulder. “You coming or are you just going to wait until my back’s fully turned before you stab me with the kitchen knife?”

  “I’m not a murderer.” She crossed her arms and stomped toward me, snow falling off her boots in a nice little trail that one of us would have to clean up later. “Just point and I’ll go since you don’t want to ruin your manicure.”

  I barked out a laugh. “Manicure, wow, impressive you even know what that is.” I eyed her clenched hands and nodded. “Tell me, do you collect dirt in your fingernails as a hobby or is it just a fetish?” It was a lie; her fingernails were perfect, I just wanted a reaction.

  She ground her teeth. Well that was my answer!

  “Scientific experiments sound better. Maybe go with that. You’re a scientist and every speck of dirt counts. I like it.” If I wasn’t careful, she really was going to grab the knife. I jerked open the door and pointed to the north side of the house. “It’s against that wall. All you have to do is march in that direction, make sure you don’t get mauled by a bear, and collect enough wood to make sure we don’t freeze to death. Easy.”

  “Bear.” She gulped. “As in, there’s only one bear and you’ve seen it? Or that there could be a bear?”

  “Sorry.” I crossed my arms. “I meant bears, plural, but it’s winter, and they should be hibernating, so unless you’ve rolled naked in Nutella you should be good to go.”

  “That’s your example?” she nearly screeched. “Naked in Nutella?”

  “I’m tired.” I shrugged. “And conversing with you has officially taken up my quota of words for the day.” I jerked my head toward the wood pile. “Go.”

  “Such a gentleman,” she muttered, shoving past me out into the night. I could have sworn she stomped the entire way to the side of the building.

  A small part of me felt guilty for making her go out in the cold, but it quickly dissipated when I remembered the reason I was there.

  The reason I was facing the snow in the country instead of a light rain in the city.

  Mom.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat as a flash of her perfume hit me, the sound of her laughter after skiing and coming back to the house to roast marshmallows.

  Whoever this stranger was.

  She had no business stomping around my memories and facing me at my worst. I needed to grieve, to sit in silence and wonder how everything went so fucking sideways when all I’d ever wanted was to just make it out of my family alive.

  Take the company from my father.

  Reconcile with my brother.

  See my mother.

  It all came true.

  But it was wrong, like an alternate universe. Instead of being a part of the story of riding into the sunset with my fiancée and cutting a check for my brother saving the day.

  Bridge had done it, he’d been my fiancée’s hero while I was just the cheating jackass who was forced to play a part in order to get what I wanted.

  I was a Tennyson.

  I knew how to manipulate.

  I knew how to read people.

  I knew how to get what I wanted.

  Until a coma knocked me on my ass.

  And my older-by-a-few-minutes brother swept in.

  I wanted to let it go.

  But the betrayal cut deep.

  The knowledge that while I was sleeping, fighting for my life, his hands were on her, his mouth pressed against hers, his words breathing life into the
corpse I’d left behind.

  He’d fixed what I’d broken.

  And selfishly, I didn’t want to forgive him for that because it meant I was in the wrong, it meant that no matter what I was willing to sacrifice for my ambition, that it had been too much, because in the end it had been Izzy.

  Our relationship had been smashed to pieces long before the coma, and I was the one holding the hammer.

  I checked my watch and glanced at the dark shadow of the wall. She still wasn’t back yet.

  Seriously?

  How long did it take to get wood?

  I waited another two minutes before the feeling of panic started to set in. I was an ass, but I didn’t want her to freeze to death, just to learn her lesson and hate me enough to want to leave midstorm.

  I cringed.

  Mom would slap me.

  I quickly grabbed my coat from inside, then started the trudge toward the wall. When I rounded the corner, the infuriating strange woman was leaning against the wall with her tongue out as snowflakes fell against her face and melted onto her skin.

  Another lifetime ago, I would have thought it erotic.

  Maybe even mesmerizing.

  But in that moment all I wanted to do was strangle her. “Dehydrated or just trying to be a pain in the ass?”

  “Both.” She didn’t look at me. “It was a test. You passed—barely.”

  “A test?” I started grabbing firewood, ignoring the way she seemed to stare right through me. I ignored the prickling awareness across my skin.

  “Yup.” She popped the p and started a fresh stack in her own arms. “I figured a true gentleman would get worried and come outside to make sure I was still breathing, and a complete jackass from the city would just assume I died, which meant he could drink all my alcohol without any competition.”

  “There’s a flaw in that logic.” I grunted, picking up a few more pieces of firewood and turning to stare at her. “I’m an ass through and through, I was just a really cold ass. Had I found your frigid body lying in the snow, though, I would have at least said a quick prayer before putting a candy bar in your hand and waiting for the bears.” I winked.

  She looked ready to beat me with the firewood, only after making it pointy enough to impale me.

  With a smirk, I started whistling and walked back toward the door. “Hurry up before I lock you out.”

  She stumbled behind me, cursing me to hell the entire way, and for some reason it made me smile.

  Not just a forced smile.

  But one that made my face almost hurt.

  All because she mumbled under her breath that she was going to set me on fire while I slept.

  “I’ll be sure to sleep with one eye open, sweetheart,” I muttered softly, earning another curse from her as she started piling the firewood next to the fireplace.

  And when she looked up to give me another scathing look, I broke eye contact.

  Pretty.

  She was pretty.

  Not that it mattered.

  Because my heart might as well have been buried in that casket next to my mom’s. God knows that’s how my soul felt, like the dirt was trying to pull me under, trying to bury me along with my mother.

  I was just as dead as she was.

  And I had to wonder if maybe, maybe the world was better off without Julian Tennyson fully existing in it.

  Chapter Five

  KEATON

  He was lucky I wasn’t grabbing more sharp objects and pointing them in his direction. The fire roared from the living room, and every few minutes he would take a sip out of his coffee cup while he stared into the flames.

  I’d managed to get a small fire started.

  But I hadn’t done it well, at least not well enough for the rich owner’s approval. Within minutes of my blowing on the small flame, he was kneeling down next to me and lighting different pieces of newspaper, stuffing them under the kindling like a pro, and then giving me a look that basically said he was above me in intelligence in every single way that mattered.

  That was an hour ago.

  The snow hadn’t let up.

  I kept mentally praying for a miracle, ready to switch to whatever religion would get me out of this place, or better, get him out of my hair.

  The silence was going to kill me.

  And since the power was out, no TV, no Netflix, no anything.

  Finally accepting my fate, I grabbed my laptop and sat cross-legged on the nice leather couch and opened up my writing program.

  The cursor blinked at me from the empty page, waiting for the words that wouldn’t come, words that I needed if I was going to actually turn in something worthwhile in the next month.

  I closed my eyes despite the stranger in the room drinking heavily and silently fighting whatever demons he had, and I thought of Noah.

  Ever smiling.

  Always comforting.

  Noah.

  Where he had been warm, this rich stranger was cold.

  Where he had been optimistic, this guy made me feel like he was seconds away from screaming that the sky was falling.

  Why was I even comparing them?

  I opened one eye and then the other. He was staring at me intently.

  I could see the piercing green of his eyes from my spot on the couch, the fire helping illuminate his sculpted face. I wondered what he looked like when he was actually amused, when he didn’t feel the need to talk down to a person he’d just met.

  I refused to look away, assuming he would back down.

  He didn’t.

  Instead, he lifted the coffee mug to his full mouth as a wicked grin curved his lips. “What’s your name?”

  “You won’t need to know it since you’re leaving in the morning,” I said with all the enthusiasm of someone who just got a flu shot in the eye.

  His blink was slow as he lowered the mug and set it on the coffee table in front of him. We were maybe five feet away from one another. For such a huge house, the living room was oddly inviting and warm, with the furniture strategically arranged to make the area cozy—a bit too cozy to spend with someone who viewed you as the help.

  “I take it you haven’t looked outside.” His right brow shot up a bit, and then he sucked in his bottom lip and sighed. “This is what meteorologists call a blizzard. I’m just praying my car isn’t buried in the morning, and since we’re stuck together I’d at least like to know what name to give my family when they find my cold corpse buried beneath the snow.”

  I would not laugh.

  He wasn’t charming.

  I swallowed a smile and tilted my head. “You planning on being even more insulting in the future? I mean you must, since you think I’m over here plotting your death.”

  He just shrugged. “I’m pretty sure my breathing annoys you.”

  “You didn’t ask, you told me to build a fire, like I was some hired help, plus you tried to throw money at me when I wouldn’t go away, so kind of annoyed yes, more disappointed in mankind than anything, though.” I flashed a grin then glanced back down at my laptop.

  Focus.

  Honestly, he hadn’t done anything horrible in the last hour, he’d even helped with the fire, but something about him rubbed me the wrong way, even his silence made me want to throw something.

  He was ruining my solace.

  And up until that point, I hadn’t realized how badly I needed to just sit and think and be alone.

  A person like me was never alone; constantly surrounded, whether by social media, photographers, or my parents’ insane amount of staff. There was always someone. My parents were A-list celebrities, my mom an actress and my dad an award-winning director. Growing up in the limelight meant everyone was always willing to bend over backward for you—even if they hated you. When Noah died, the noise around me made the choking sensation in my throat worsen, because when people don’t know what to say, they say they are sorry, and they ask if you’re okay, and I didn’t trust myself not to break down. Social media used to feel like an esca
pe, and now it felt more like a dungeon because I couldn’t grieve the way I knew I needed to, not in front of millions of people and not with someone asking me if I needed anything every few seconds. Every single time they tried to be nice, I had to fake a smile.

  And I was fresh out of those.

  I think I used my last one on him.

  See? Selfish!

  I typed “Noah.” My fingers shook.

  And then my laptop was slowly being shut. I moved my hands to keep from getting them caught and glared up at the guy responsible.

  I had no choice but to scoot over as he sat down on the couch next to me, his whiskey cup in his hand. “I’m Julian.”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “Tennyson,” he finished.

  And I couldn’t not react.

  Tennyson?

  The Julian Tennyson?

  The one who was in the coma and all over the news? His brother and his former fiancée were expecting a child. It was like a bad soap opera.

  What were the odds?

  “If you ask me if I’m that Julian, the one who was in a coma, I’ll probably set myself on fire to get a head start on my murder. Consider yourself warned.”

  I sighed, pulling my laptop to my chest. “I don’t have to ask what I already know.”

  He stared ahead into the flames. “Normal people can’t afford this place.”

  It wasn’t a question, more of a statement than anything.

  I said nothing and let him keep talking.

  “Your boots are Wyn, one of the hardest brands to get ahold of during Fall Fashion Week, you have lip injections, just enough to make your upper look a bit bigger than your lower, your hair’s tinted, not dyed, giving it the appearance that the color is natural when it’s not. Your fingernails aren’t painted but manicured to the point that I doubt you even know what a callus feels like. You smell like Gucci, and I already saw the GG Marmont bag in the corner.”

  I gaped up at him.

  “You don’t need to tell me your name, princess. I know exactly your type, I’ve been around it all my life, a name changes nothing.” He stood and called over his shoulder, “Good night.”

  I felt scolded as I watched him disappear down the hall, and then I felt something I hadn’t felt in a really long time.