Page 52 of Irresistibly Wicked

He smiled. “Yeah. I guess it is. Sorry. I should’ve asked permission. I’m still new at this responsible-adult thing.”

“It’s okay, and for what it’s worth, I don’t feel violated, and you’re doing a great job of adulting. This place has never looked this good. If you ever get tired of contracting, you could be a houseboy. I bet you’d earn good tips if you wore booty shorts and went shirtless.”

“Now who’s blurring those fake fiancée lines?” He touched her back again. “Let’s get your bracelet and jewelry box, and anything else you need.”

“I want to get my pillow,” she said as they headed down the hall.

“What’s wrong with the pillow at my place? It’s brand-new.”

“Nothing. I shared it with Kitty this morning, and I thought she might like her own.” She’d heard Kitty scratching on the bedroom door when she was getting into bed after work that morning, and Kitty had jumped right onto the bed and curled up with her.

“I think you just got a little hotter, Flores.” He leaned against her doorframe and crossed his arms, watching her as she went around to the dresser.

“Because I want to spoil your cat?”

“Exactly.”

“I’ve never had a pet. It was nice to have something to cuddle with.” She opened the wooden jewelry box where she kept the bracelet, but it was empty. She closed it and scanned the top of the dresser.

“What’s wrong?”

“My bracelet isn’t in it.” She opened the top dresser drawer, but that was empty, too. “I probably left it in the bathroom.”

He pushed off the doorframe as she walked past him. “I didn’t see it when I was cleaning, but I didn’t look in the vanity drawers.”

She rummaged through the vanity drawers and started to panic, trying not to think the worst. But she wasn’t naive. A gold bracelet doesn’t just go missing. “It’s not here.”

“Is there anywhere else you would’ve put it? In your nightstand, maybe?”

“No.” She took a deep breath, her heart breaking. “I think Brian took it. I should’ve checked after the TV went missing, but I never would’ve thought…” Hurt burned deep in her chest. “How could he do this to me? He knows how important that bracelet is.”

Zander pulled her into his arms. “He wasn’t thinking straight,” he gritted out.

“I hate this.” She squeezed her eyes shut against the sting of tears.

“I do, too.” He held her tighter. “I think this calls for a John Wick marathon. What do you say, darlin’?”

Every time he called her that, it made her smile, but this time it was more than the endearment that had her lips curving against his chest. He somehow always knew what she needed, and that was astonishing to her. “I like the way you think, Wicked.” And the way you feel. Which was why she stepped out of his arms and said, “Let me grab my pillow.”

He followed her into the bedroom, and as she went to get her pillow, he grabbed her jewelry box. It was a good thing he did, because she would’ve forgotten to bring it. He motioned to the pillow and said, “You can scream into that if you want to.”

“I bet you’d love that, you perv,” she teased, and swatted him with the pillow.

He laughed. “You sure you don’t want to take anything else?”

She looked around the sparse bedroom, feeling a strange sense of emptiness. But when she met his gaze, she didn’t feel quite so empty. “No. I’m good. But I think when you were listing all the good things in my life, like my job and my car, you forgot to mention my kick-ass fiancé.”

He slung his arm over her shoulder, and as they left the bedroom, he said, “It’s about time you noticed.”

Chapter Eighteen

MONDAY WAS A bitch. It seemed like everything that could go wrong on the job did, and on top of that, Zeke was in a pissy mood, and Tobias, the guy who rarely smiled, was whistling like one of Snow White’s happiest dwarves all fucking day. Zander considered waiting to talk to his parents about Shauna until tomorrow, but Shauna had brought it up again that morning. She was a lot more anxious about it than he was, and he wanted to put her mind at ease. But he’d only seen Preacher for a few minutes, when his father had stopped at the job site and said he’d heard about what had gone down over the weekend with Brian. Zander had been in the middle of handling a cabinetry issue, so he’d quickly filled Preacher in about Brian and had said he’d swing by his parents’ house after work to talk to them.

He wasn’t worried about telling them he was helping Shauna. For as far back as Zander could remember, his parents had ingrained helping others into him and his siblings by raising them with foster kids and helping families in the community. As he climbed out of his truck in front of his parents’ house, the rambling two-story, with its wide front porch, gabled roof, and breezeway that led to a multicar garage, brought a sense of comfort.

He headed up to the house, and memories rolled in of running around the yard wreaking havoc with his siblings and cousins, wrestling in the grass, playing football and other games, while their parents barbecued or hung out on the patio. He had many memories of waking up in the middle of the night to the roar of motorcycles and hearing his father’s hushed, deep voice as he held court in their living room when something had gone down in the community. He had even fonder memories of sneaking out in the middle of the night looking for trouble, and finding it.

He thought about Shauna sneaking out to get away from her parents. He fucking hated that she’d needed to get away from the people who should have done everything they could to protect her. And her fucking grandfather turning his back on her? That made Zander even angrier. Zander had often been a little jerk when he was young, treating everything like a joke, but he’d never once doubted that his parents would go to the ends of the earth for him. Not when he was getting in trouble at school or when he was a mouthy teenager and said horrible shit to them. He’d had a safety net his whole fucking life. He still did, and it infuriated him, and broke his heart, that Shauna had never had one.