I frowned. “What? Still worried about that perfect image of yours?”
He flinched.
It was slight.
It was enough.
“Are you worried I’ll embarrass you?”
He didn’t say anything.
He didn’t have to.
“Alright, lover.” I looped my arm in his. “Let’s do this.”
“Isla.” His tone held just enough warning to make the hairs on the back of my arm stand on end.
I ignored them all.
Kept my head high, and walked right up to the door and waited.
He held it open.
Colin and Blaire waved at us from a table in the corner. Nobody paid me much attention, but Jessie? It was like setting a bomb off in the restaurant.
It was at least ten minutes before he finally stopped talking to his adoring fans and took a seat across from me. His smile was flat again, the crinkles at his eyes gone.
I hated his flat smile.
Even more when it was directed at me.
Cold. Lifeless.
I don’t know what came over me, but I kicked him under the table.
His knee shot up, knocking over his water. “What the hell was that for?”
“I’m hungry,” I said sweetly. “You made me wait.”
“Eat bread!” He shoved the basket toward me.
I gasped.
Blaire let out a long sigh. “Isla doesn’t eat bread.”
Jessie’s shocked expression wasn’t at all helpful. “But . . . why?”
“Because”—I placed the napkin on my lap—“I don’t like it.”
Wrong thing to say.
Jessie stared. “I don’t understand your anger.”
“You don’t need to understand, just accept it, and know that I get really hangry when I have to wait to get fed.”
Jessie’s eyes lit up a bit before he smirked at his menu. “Noted.”
I rolled my eyes and then remembered we had to look in love, so I leaned forward, careful to show off the sparkle of my diamond ring. “So, Blaire, things all quiet online?”
Blaire lifted a shoulder. “The story was just leaked about your engagement, so I guess we’ll see if phase one actually did anything before we move on to the next phase.”
“Come again?” Jessie dropped his menu.
“Phase two?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“Um.” Blaire looked at me helpfully. “It’s just . . . it’s not enough you’re engaged, people are going to speculate that she moved into your rental because she was getting ready to move into the main house. So, phase two, meaning you move in. Together.”
I hung my head in my hands while Jessie said enough Hell no’s to make even the most secure woman want to jump off a cliff.
“That”—Jessie pointed his knife at Blaire—“is all speculation and assumption. What if we’re waiting to move in! Saving ourselves!”
A couple glanced over at us.
“Please stop talking,” I whispered. “People are staring, and the last thing they need to gossip about is me becoming a nun or Jessie not being able to get it up.”
“How the hell does that translate to him not being able to get it up?” Colin said a little too loud.
I ducked my head behind a menu. “Because people exaggerate. They’ll take the whole ‘living separately’ to mean second thoughts, problems in bed. Trust me, this is what we do for a living.”
Blaire nodded her head in agreement.
“No.” Jessie waved the knife in the air. “No, it’s my sanctuary, I finally got my crazy ex out of that place and now you want this one to move in?” He pointed the tip at me. “No.”
I grinned triumphantly.
Blaire nodded.
“She’s not moving in,” Jessie said in a stern voice. “That’s final.”
Chapter Seventeen
JESSIE
My domain.
My home.
My inner sanctum.
I’d finally gotten it back from my ex-wife’s greedy hands, finally embraced the single life.
Only to have Isla fucking Turner toss a throw pillow on my white leather couch.
It was red.
I hated it.
A red throw followed.
The color looked so out of place in my living room that I started getting anxious.
She was ruining everything.
Everything.
When she reached back into one of her suitcases, I put a stop to the madness, rushed over, and slammed it shut. “That’s enough.”
“That’s two of my things.”
“Exactly.”
Her eyebrows knit together. “What about my clothes? Toothbrush? Unmentionables?”
“Put your pink underwear in the washer with my whites and suffer the consequences.”
Her lips pressed together in a smirk. “Aw, Jessie, feeling a little bit uptight?”
I didn’t respond. If I did I’d end up strangling the expression from her face or maybe just kissing it away and then locking her in the guest room. Forget the whole “two hours of conversation a day,” I was tempted to kiss her senseless and send her packing back to her room.
“Why can’t you just keep things inside the suitcase and take them out as you need them?”
Her green eyes narrowed. “Because I live here now, at least temporarily, and I don’t want to live out of a suitcase.”
“Try,” I said through clenched teeth.
“You have no right to tell me what to do.” She jerked her suitcase away from my hands and opened it up again.
I tried jerking it back, but she was too fast. She hurled it upside down and every damn thing came tumbling out onto my newly cleaned marble floors.
I groaned and covered my eyes, so much color. “Did you mean to blind me?”
“Do you even know your primary colors? Because it concerns me, it really does, that you only wear black, white, and maybe gray if you feel like getting frisky. Your walls match the state of your clothing, which matches your stellar personality.” She grinned. “Maybe if you added a bit of spice to your life you wouldn’t have—”
She didn’t say it.
She didn’t have to.
Wouldn’t have lost Blaire to Colin?
Lost my wife in the beginning?
“Clean this shit up, I’m going to bed.”
She hung her head. “Where’s the guest room?”
“Pick one, pick all of them, just don’t come into mine.”
“Are we dealing with a real-life West Wing scenario here?” She laughed a bit.
My lips twitched but I didn’t give in. “I’m just trying to be a good roommate. The last thing you want is to walk in on me doing something you can’t unsee.”
“Honey.” Isla started piling things in her arms—oranges, reds, pinks, blues, I was dizzy trying to keep track. “I’ve seen it all.”
And because I never backed down from a challenge, I pulled her into my arms and pressed myself against her. “I highly doubt that.”
Her lips parted.
Her pulse was erratic.
I walked away.
Like an idiot with a swollen cock and a woman who hated me staring daggers at my back. It felt like déjà vu.
It felt like hell.
Ah, I nodded to myself.
Welcome to marriage!
Chapter Eighteen
ISLA
Darkness swallowed up the house, making me feel small. Every shadow that crept along the wall jolted me awake, ready to grab my hair dryer and wreak havoc on the unlucky bastard stupid enough to crawl through my window. It always ended up being a tree, or security checking the premises, something I really wish Jessie had warned me about.
It always took me a while to get used to a new place. Jessie’s house was gorgeous, but it was cold, lacking any sort of emotion or warmth, which left me more distressed than I normally would have been in an unfamiliar place.
I played with the ring, twisting it arou
nd my finger a few times as my stomach growled in protest. The clock said three a.m.
My stomach didn’t believe it.
It needed to be fed.
And I’d been so wound up after the magical fake engagement and Colin’s words coming through Jessie’s mouth that I’d only managed to eat a few bites before tapping out and forcing a smile on my face as people whispered and pointed.
And much to my horror—took pictures.
I’d been out of the limelight so long that I forgot how invasive it could be, forgot how paranoid it made a person feel to be constantly watched, to see your face on social media when you hadn’t given permission to take your picture in the first place.
I patted my stomach and tossed the white duvet from my legs. The ground was freezing thanks to Jessie’s love of slate flooring in every guest room. He should have at least put a few rugs down to bring some warmth to the place.
I had to admit I loved that each room had its own fireplace.
If I ever had enough money to build my dream house, that was the first thing I was going to do. I loved the heat.
When I lived with Wayne in his Hollywood Hills home, he hadn’t yet made it big, so everything was mortgaged to the hilt.
He never let me turn on the fireplaces because it would be an extra cost.
Apparently, I didn’t deserve extra.
Then again, he thought the world revolved around him.
With a shudder at the distant memories, I slipped my feet into my tattered bunny slippers and made my way into the kitchen.
Not a speck of dirt.
Just the moon’s reflection on the white granite, and so much stainless steel my eyes burned. I made a beeline for the pantry and rubbed my hands together as I took in fifteen boxes of never-opened cereal.
Just another weird quirk about Jessie.
He kept up appearances even when nobody would see it.
He forced poor cereal to go uneaten just in case someone came to his house and, God forbid, saw a pantry that wasn’t stocked and wrongfully assumed he was bankrupt.
At least that was my assumption, since he didn’t really hate cereal and at least took time to alphabetize it.
I took the first box and gave it a shake.
Empty.
As was the second.
Frowning, I looked underneath.
Sure enough, it was open from the bottom.
What kind of freaky cereal crimes was he committing under this roof?
I went down the line and prayed Fruity Pebbles wasn’t empty.
It was.
But the Honey Nut was fair game and hadn’t been mutilated by his backward ways. I opened the box like a normal cereal-fearing human, grabbed a bowl from the pantry, and filled it almost to the brim, licking my lips in anticipation. The light from the fridge had me wincing as I quickly grabbed his organic whole milk, rolled my eyes, and dumped it in the bowl.
Five trickles.
That’s what I got.
Five. Damn. Trickles.
“That’s it.” I slammed the milk onto the counter. “The guy’s an actual monster.”
I couldn’t eat half-dry cereal.
And I couldn’t just run to the store.
I glared at the wall separating the kitchen from his bedroom—communicating my hateful thoughts through telepathy so he’d have bad dreams.
My controlling personality was having a hard time just giving up on the cereal—in fact, I was shaking with irritation from it.
Who puts a near-empty carton back in the fridge? Just drink the last gulp! Like a normal person!
But by all means, yes, give me hope for my midnight snack, the bastard!
A light flickered in his room.
Without thinking, I charged in. “Jessie, I know you’re awake!”
“Son of a bitch!” A lamp fell in front of me, followed by Jessie jumping on one foot, in nothing but black boxer briefs that truly left nothing to the imagination. “Do you know what time it is?”
“I’m glad you asked!” I seethed. “It’s midnight-snack time, and you screwed my midnight snack.” It came out wrong.
He stopped hopping and leveled me with a glare. “I screwed your snack by what? My lack of participation? I’m sleeping! It’s late!”
“Exactly!” I threw my hands up. “Don’t you think I want to be sleeping too?”
His eyes narrowed. “Then do it, go!”
“But some monster”—I motioned to the kitchen—“decided not to buy more milk, and let’s not even get started on the whole ‘I only open cereal from the bottom of the box’!”
He had the audacity to look completely innocent. “So what? It’s aesthetically pleasing, when you walk into the pantry it looks full, untarnished.”
I gaped.
He got in bed and swept the covers back over it. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go to sleep.”
“But what about the milk?”
“I don’t know, Isla, add water to the cereal? Just get out of my room, I have an early day tomorrow.”
“We need house rules, a chore chart, something,” I found myself saying. “Rules that don’t completely ruin my sleep because your lazy ass doesn’t know how to grocery shop.”
He clenched his teeth, nodded, then shoved a pillow over his head. “There you go again with your charts and plans and highlighters.” He let out a groan. “Good night, Isla.”
“So that’s a no?”
He flipped me off.
Fanning the flames of my rage even higher.
I marched back into the kitchen and stared down my cereal. There was no chance in hell I was sleeping now.
And if he wasn’t going to establish some rules?
Well, that left me with free rein.
I started to whistle.
Chapter Nineteen
JESSIE
I brushed my teeth so hard I was afraid my gums were bleeding, and with each stroke of the brush, I imagined Isla in nothing but silk shorts, a black, see-through, lacy tank top, and some slippers that had seen better days.
I spit into the sink and stared at my reflection.
Nope. Definitely not how I pictured my life going for the next few months.
I grabbed my phone, almost afraid to look at the news feed update. Blaire had already taken control of all the pings that went off when someone mentioned my name, and it was driving me crazy not knowing if people were buying my relationship with Isla or if they thought I’d actually lost my mind.
Maybe it would be better if I just told everyone I’d lost it.
Believable, at least, with Isla by my side.
The woman was too infuriating and sexy for words.
And somehow her perfume had magically kept itself locked in my room the entire night, meaning I’d woken up less than pleased to find my body ready to consummate my fake engagement against the nearest sturdy structure.
With a groan I threw on a pair of sweats and started my trek toward the coffeepot.
Five steps was all it took for my jaw to drop.
Six steps and I was dizzy. Seven steps . . . and I wasn’t sure if I was having a heart attack or an anxiety attack or both.
Isla was perched on the counter—not a barstool, because that would be too normal—sipping her coffee from a bright-orange cup that in no way fit with the color scheme of my modern kitchen.
And the walls, well, the walls in the kitchen were no longer white, but a muted powder blue.
“What in the actual fuck did you do?” I roared, charging toward her.
She looked up, her cherry-red lips pressed together in a smug grin before she held out her orange cup. “Coffee?”
“Isla.” My jaw clicked.
She shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. So after I went grocery shopping—”
“At three in the morning?” My voice rose an octave.
She patted me on the cheek twice. “Aw, you afraid someone’s gonna kidnap me? Don’t worry, I brought my Taser.”
I snorted. “Almost fe
el sorry for the bastard that tries to take you.”
Two white teeth bit down on the red. I licked my lips, and then she put her hands on her hips. I looked lower. The dress was a matching red, with a small cape going down the back.
“Follow me.” She crooked her finger and opened up the fridge.
“I think I’m going to have a stroke,” I said, panting slightly.
“Because I threw away all the bacon? Hey, we’re about to say our vows, and I can’t have you keeling over anytime soon. I replaced it with turkey bacon.”
I started seeing spots. “And my beer? Where the hell is my beer?”
Isla had the audacity to smack my perfectly formed six-pack. “You were getting chunky.”
“The hell I was!” I roared, pushing her to the side. Desperation took over as I scanned the contents of my fridge, no leftover takeout boxes, ribs, chicken, what was I supposed to eat? Kale?
I grabbed the kale and made a face.
“Say it with me,” she whispered in my right ear. “Vegetable. Just sound it out.”
I slammed the kale onto the counter and walked her backward toward the closed pantry door. “You may not want to go in there yet.”
“Oh?” I reached for the knob.
“Yeah.” Her cheeks paled a bit. “It’s just, it might shock your system too much and I think smaller doses is a better choice.”
“Can I get you in smaller doses?” I wasn’t past begging. Hands-and-knees begging. Then again, that brought way too many erotic visions to my head, especially with that cherry-red cock-sucking lipstick.
“Sorry, I don’t come in fun size.”
“Ah, so that’s why there is no fun.” I tried moving her away, but she was a strong, yoga-doing pain in my ass.
“Move.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine, just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I opened the door.
Nobody.
Nobody could have warned me.
Not even God.
It looked like an Asian grocery mart exploded inside my pantry—and not in a good, oh-look-Thai-food way.
In an I’m-going-to-be-eating-squid-and-eyeballs sort of way. With unmentionable canned items that didn’t look dead yet.
“Isla,” I barked. “You have two hours to get this shit out of here.”
“But honey.” She hugged me from behind, her breasts pressed against my back as her hands slid to my front. “Don’t you want to learn about my culture too? It’s important in a marriage to compromise. Besides, I know everything there is to know about you. Beer, hot dogs, extra cheese, cereal abuser . . . why not learn all about what makes me . . . special?”
Dangerous Exes (Liars, Inc. Book 2) Page 8