by V. Hunter
"Phone."
"I'm not giving you my phone." She reached down and moved her phone quickly from her front pocket to her back one. As if that would do anything to stop me.
I took another step closer to her, pinning her into place as her head tilted so she could maintain eye contact. I was close enough to see her pupils dilate as I rested one hand against the gentle curve of her neck. My thumb stroked her delicate collarbone as her lips parted.
I’d only meant to disarm her, but her reaction emboldened me. I reached around her with my other arm to touch her hair. One of her eyebrows twitched in surprise, but she didn’t say a word. I stroked my hand around the horrible librarian-style updo until I found the clip holding it all into place. I yanked it out and carelessly tossed it away as her hair sprang to life around her shoulders.
She reached up to touch a clump of strands falling into her face, but I beat her to it, tucking them behind her ear for her.
I could feel more anger simmering below the surface inside of me. Clearly, the woman was attracted to me, and she wasn’t making the slightest effort to get out from under my touch. So why the hell was she so quick to refuse my job offer? No one refused me like that. Not anymore. Not since I’d taken over the empire my brother built.
My hands slipped down to grip her by the waist. “You’re going to stay.” She opened her mouth to protest but my hand had already snaked around and whipped her phone out of her pocket.
Her expression shuttered, the desire reflected there only seconds earlier completely vanishing in front of my eyes.
“Call your family and tell them you’re staying for a few days for a trial period,” I pushed on, ignoring the amplified distrust in her eyes as I held her phone up in the small space between our bodies—neither of us moving to put physical distance between us.
"They're in the middle of my sister's engagement party," she said.
"Do you really think I give a shit about that? Or more importantly, do you really think that I believe you give a shit about interrupting?"
After an annoyed huff, she reached out for the phone, but I moved it just out of her reach as I added, “On speakerphone.”
“You’re a real asshole,” she mumbled so low I almost didn’t hear her.
I kept the phone held away, forcing her to lean into me to take it out of my hand. She was careful not to touch me though. With a couple taps on the screen, the phone started to ring aloud. When the line picked up after the third ring, the background noise made the woman that answered almost impossible to hear.
"Brooke?" came the muffled voice across the line. "...everything okay?"
She hesitated, her eyes finding mine again as I stared down at her hard. There wouldn’t actually be anything I could do if she told her mother I was trying to force her to stay. The only thing I could do was try to distract her into doing what I wanted, so I leaned into her neck and breathed in deeply, feeling her stiffen and then shiver when my breath let out over the sensitive skin of her neck.
She twisted and slid several steps away from me. Her mother repeated her question as Brooke silently sucked in a huge mouthful of air and let it out with a shuddering breath.
Fuck, she’s about to freak out.
My mind raced over several different scenarios of what I could tell the cops when they inevitably showed up. The noise picked up on the other side of the line until finally it fell quiet.
"Sweetheart, I really can't talk right now, Alex is about to make a toast."
Brooke's head jerked back as if she'd been slapped. I made a noise of disgust, surprising even myself by how angered I felt over the careless words her mother used. Her daughter was in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people and that was the best she could muster?
"Everything is actually going really well," Brooke answered with renewed defiance. I was just glad it wasn't directed at me the second time around. “I’m actually calling to tell you I’m staying for a few days to do a little test run before I make a decision.”
“That wasn’t the plan.” I could practically hear her mother’s frown from over the phone.
Brooke practically spit her next words out, "Well, plans change."
"Well, Brooke... I'll call you back later to talk about this more."
The line went dead before Brooke even got a chance to say goodbye. She stared down at the phone with a blank expression that gave little away. Clearly, she was unhappy with how the call went, but I wasn't sure if she was more angry or upset.
"Happy?" she looked up and asked.
The surprise tension between her and her mother worked in my favor, but I didn’t want to risk her changing her mind later. Instead of answering her, I put my hand out to take the phone back. The sudden movement made her flinch.
Her face flushed bright pink as she realized I wasn’t raising my hand, just holding it out. She was quick to hide her embarrassment, her expression hardening as she went out of her way to be defiant.
She flipped her hand over and chose to drop her floor to the ground rather than hand it over to me.
I growled at her, “That was childish.”
Once again, she crossed her arms protectively in front of herself. And damn if I didn’t find myself becoming even more turned on by her stubborn streak.
“Now what?” she demanded.
So much for showing her who was boss.
9
Brooke
After his strange power trip, it surprised me that Jairo was willing to just turn me loose in his house. I expected more talk at the least, or maybe even that he might try to make a more forward pass at me now that I'd basically sealed my fate by telling my mom I was staying longer. Instead, he told me to feel free to look around and then just went back to his desk like he wasn't concerned with me at all.
As much as I didn't understand it, I knew I needed to use it to my advantage.
I speed-walked through the hall and down the stairs as if the devil himself was on my heels. At the bottom of the staircase I glanced back, but he really had let me go without following me.
I half-expected the front door not to open when I reached it but the knob turned easily in my hand. I stepped out onto the stone porch but froze immediately.
An armed man standing in front of the porch steps turned to stare curiously at me. He might not have even seemed all that threatening if it wasn’t for the angry red scar marring a good portion of his face. He moved his gun to the other side of his body so that it was partially obscured, so he didn’t necessarily seem like an immediate threat. But his presence reminded me of something else.
Tomas. And the drive to the house.
We drove at least ten miles without seeing anyone or anything else. Since the house seemed to sit at a dead end, I could only assume the woods were dense enough to keep distance between the house and any other sign of life. Not that I’d ever consider braving the wooded area by myself anyway.
I didn’t imagine I could just seek out Tomas and ask for a ride home, either. Which left me with no transportation and no honest idea of where exactly I even was.
Frustrated, I stepped back inside and slammed the door behind me.
I could feel tears pricking at the back of my eyes and I willed them not to spill over.
All I wanted was to get away from the craziness at home—and now I found myself stuck with a whole new level of crazy. And worse than that, I felt like I’d proven my family right.
“If it’s too good to be true, Brookie, then it probably is.” Bridget had warned, but I’d been adamant that there was nothing weird about the offer. Partially because the last person I wanted to listen to at the moment was my sister.
I really wanted to believe the whole thing was for real so I could get away, so much so that I’d ignored all the warning signs and gotten myself in the current mess. Now, I could feel desperation clawing at me as I wondered whether or not I would even make it out of the house alive.
Jairo didn’t come off as someone who particularly wanted to hur
t me, but I wasn’t exactly in a position to assume the best of him, either. Not now that he was effectively holding me hostage.
And what was the deal with him touching me like that?
You liked it, my own traitorous mind teased.
I couldn’t deny I’d liked the way it felt when he touched me. I’d also liked the way it felt for him to give me his full attention, looking down at me like I was something precious. I reached back to touch my loose hair. It was wild and all over the place, leaving me wishing I took a second to find my hair clip before leaving the office.
I snorted when I realized what a trivial thing it was to think about. A man was holding me hostage in the middle of nowhere and I worried how my hair looked. No wonder I got myself into such a mess in the first place.
Renewing my efforts to find a way out, I decided to go in search of a telephone—or any people that looked like they wouldn't consider shooting me if I did make a run for it. It only took a few minutes for me to accept that I wouldn't be finding either. I searched every room of the main floor without coming across any other staff or guards. I also saw no noticeable sign of a telephone or computer.
Heaving a sigh of defeat, I turned back to the stairs. Maybe if I begged, Jairo would take pity on me and send me home. Or get annoyed enough to send me home. I would accept either one so long as the end result was me getting to go home.
Though, if I was honest with myself, that prospect wasn't all that thrilling itself. After the disastrous, brief phone call with my mom, it seemed clear to me that I couldn't stay at my parents' house any longer. If I kept being forced to face Bridget's upcoming wedding, my relationship with the whole family wouldn't survive. I needed some distance.
Just preferably distance in a way that didn't involve being kidnapped.
I happened to like having free will, thank you very much.
As I made my way back up the stairs, a strange sound greeted me. It was quite the racket and I couldn't help but be drawn in the direction of it, my curiosity getting the better of me.
I felt guiltier roaming the second floor than the first floor. The second floor felt somehow more intimate, probably because I knew all the bedrooms must be up there since there were none downstairs. I justified it to myself that the noises constituted the first sign of life I found while exploring the house. Therefore, I was practically obligated to check it out if I wanted to really exhaust all my options of getting help without having to face Jairo again.
At the top of the steps, I turned left to follow the sounds coming from the end of the hall.
A door stood open midway down the hall so I peered carefully around the corner to look in. The first thing I noticed was pink. A nauseatingly bright shade of the color that seemed to cover every square inch of the room.
It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to it. Once I could do that, I examined the rest of the room. It looked like someone ripped the room right out of a Barbie's Dreamhouse. In theory, it was cute, but in practice it just came off as overwhelming. I couldn't image what little girl would genuinely want to be stuck living in a room like that.
I took another half-step forward to try to get a look at the other half of the room. More pink. More princess decor. I knew I would have nightmares about that room later.
As distracted as I was by the room, I would easily have missed the little girl standing in the corner if it weren't for all the noise she was making. She stood in front of an oversized bookshelf, her little hands grasping at several books at a time as she pulled them off the shelves and dumped them to the floor.
What on earth was she doing?
I blinked hard as I realized what I was seeing. Jairo didn't lie about there being a child in the house. It turned out she was very, very real. And very, very unhappy—if the frown on her face was anything to go by.
She looked miserable as she created a messy pile of discarded books on the floor. On another glance around the room, I noticed the books seemed to be the only thing in the room with a real sense of personality. That made it all the more confusing to see the way she treated them. The psychology degree I earned in college did little to prepare me for what I was seeing now.
Talking about behavior and personality was easy when it was hypothetical. Not so easy when a distressed little girl happened to be standing right in front of you.
I noticed she looked a lot like Jairo. Enough so that I would easily have assumed she was his daughter if he hadn't corrected me earlier. His niece, he said. I wondered where her parents were, and why they'd chosen a man like Jairo to look after her. He didn't seem like he knew much about children and seeing the obnoxious pink bedroom only confirmed that.
If I thought the bedroom strange before, that feeling amplified as I looked at the little girl herself. She looked more like a tomboy than anything. Her pin-straight brown hair hung in a long ponytail down her back, pulled out of her face in a tight style that made my own scalp ache just looking at it. Her canary yellow dress fit in with the overly feminized room but I could tell from the way she moved that she didn't feel comfortable in it.
I was the same way growing up. Bridget loved dressing up, but I always thought cute dresses felt itchy and too airy to be comfortable. I'd grown out of that eventually but as a kid I always insisted on clothes my parents didn't mind me getting dirty in.
It seemed like Jairo's niece might be in need of some clothes like that herself.
Figuring I could only stare for so long before it got blatantly creepy, I decided to step into the room and introduce myself. If Jairo planned on making me stay, I would have to meet the little girl at some point. Better to do it on my own terms than on his, I figured.
"Hi," I said.
The little girl jerked around and gaped at me. Her dark little eyes went wide with surprise as she seemed to stare hard enough to take in every little detail about me. She seemed almost too surprised about seeing me there, and it made me wonder when she last saw a stranger. I could tell it hadn't been recently, that was for sure.
One thing I did remember Jairo mentioning when he overwhelmed me with information about the job was that the girl was home-schooled. It sort of made sense considering how far away from everything the house was—but surely he took her out of the house to do other things... right?
Good god, what had I gotten myself into?
10
Brooke
"I'm sorry," I said softly, "I didn't mean to scare you."
The little girl seemed to shrink into herself as I took a few more steps into the room. I couldn't just walk right back out, so I moved to the opposite side of the bedroom to compensate. I pretended to admire a pink elephant painting on the wall so that she could adjust to my presence without feeling like I was towering over her and staring her down.
I stared at the painting for so long that I felt myself going cross-eyed until her small voice broke the silence.
"Does Uncle Jairo know you're here? she asked softly.
I turned and smiled, "Yep. My name is Brooke. I'm staying here with you for a little while if that's okay."
I was careful not to give any exact time-frame since I still wanted to get out as soon as possible. I wouldn't risk getting the girl's hopes up that my stay would be any longer than the time it took to convince Jairo that I wasn't planning to work for him no matter what he did.
"Oh." She eyed me suspiciously.
She seemed awfully distrusting for her age considering she couldn't be more than maybe seven-years-old.
"What's your name?" I asked.
I could tell she didn't want to answer me. She twisted her lips but kept her mouth firmly shut.
Instead of forcing the issue, I pretended to get distracted again. I picked up a pink horse stuffed-animal sitting on top of the bed and turned it over in my hands. I heard a sharp-intake of breath and looked over at the girl.
"Do you like horses?" I asked, wondering if I'd upset her by picking up a particularly special toy.
Definitely not, though, based on th
e way she adamantly shook her head. I shrugged like it was no big deal and then—on a hunch—I pretended to carelessly toss it so that it missed the bed and went flying into the corner instead. I had to fight a grin when the girl giggled.
I'd yet to meet a kid who didn't get a laugh out of an adult doing something that seemed completely un-adult-like. From a psychology perspective, letting a kid see you do something silly was a quick way to let them know you wouldn't mind if they made mistakes, too. It seemed to work like a charm as slowly, my new little friend made her way towards me.
"I'm Sofia," she said, sticking her hand out for me to shake.
I knelt down to be closer to her height and shook her hand. I wanted to laugh at how absurd the gesture was coming from a young girl but I didn't dare do that and risk offending her now that we'd made some progress.
"Well, Sofia, I have to tell you something." I paused, looking around as if trying to make sure the coast was clear. "This room looks really silly."
Sofia turned a circle, staring around the room with narrowed eyes. When she didn't say anything right away, I started to worry I made a bad assumption. Eventually, her whole body relaxed, and she nodded with as much force as a young girl could muster. So, I wasn't wrong, she didn't like the bedroom any more than I did.
"What do you say we re-decorate?" I suggested. I stood up and reached out to knock the elephant painting off the wall to let her know exactly what sort of redecorating I meant.
Her eyes darted nervously to the door as if she worried we would be in trouble less than thirty seconds after me doing it. She took a step back, too, as if she didn't want to be associated with my small act of recklessness.
I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat as I watched her reaction. Little girls were supposed to be chaotic and impulsive. They got the rest of their lives to over-think or behave; now wasn't the time for it as far as I was concerned. Childhood was meant to be fun.