If I Say Yes (Say Something #1) Page 13

  “What the hell happened in here?” It’s Eli.

  I glance up, the tears form again, and the sobs threaten to make a return. Reid moves aside, and I see Eli, who looks just as I last saw him. In a heartbeat, he takes Reid’s place on the ground, holding me in his arms and rocking me back and forth. I can see Reid out of the corner of my eye, standing just a few steps away, watching us. I gaze up at Eli, who brushes a strand of hair out of my face. “I-I-it was Robert,” I say softly. Eli stares at me, confused for a second. Then the realization of who Robert is crosses his face. I can tell he wants to ask more, but he holds back.

  “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here,” he says gently. He stands up, helps me off the floor and over to a barstool. Placing more distance between Reid and I. I feel the heat of Reid’s eyes on me, but I can’t face him. What am I supposed to say? That sadistic, murderous people have a tendency to be a part of my life? No, I can’t tell him that, even though I’m sure he has probably guessed something along those lines. But I can’t look at him, either. I’m too embarrassed. God only knows what he thinks of me now.

  Eli starts shuffling around the house. He brings out one of my duffle bags and starts making trips between my bedroom and the living room, placing some of my belongings inside the bag.

  “What are you doing?” Reid finally speaks. My heart flutters, my body aches for his touch again, and I finally glance at him. He isn’t staring at me though. His eyes are focused on Eli.

  “What does it look like?” Eli’s voice is harsh. “I’m packing some of her things. She can’t stay here.”

  Reid tenses and straightens his shoulders. “She can stay with me,” he says matter-of-factly.

  “Is that so?” Eli laughs and shakes his head before resuming what he is doing. I watch him place my favorite pair of sweats in the bag. “That’s kind of you, really, but I think that Liza would much rather stay with me.”

  Reid takes a step towards me, and Eli stops what he is doing. He slams the bag down against the countertop of the breakfast bar and moves between Reid and I. He’s in protective mode now. I glance between the two men, unable to register what is going on, which is clearly some sort of alpha male thing here. The tension is thick in the air. Reid and Eli face one another, staring the other down and not saying a word. Reid shifts so I can see him better now, and he stares right at me. “What do you want, Liza?”

  Both eyes are on me again. I take a deep breath. My stomach is in knots, and my knees begin to bounce up and down. “What do you mean?” I ask hesitantly.

  “Who do you want to stay with?” Reid asks. “This bonehead…” I can’t help but smile, and I see Eli’s eyebrows furrow. The smile quickly disappears off of my face, and I glance back to Reid. “Or do you want to stay with me?”

  “With you.” The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I have just said. I hear Eli take a sharp breath and curse. I open my mouth to say something but shut it quickly. Eli is leaving, heading towards the door, and I stand up to go after him. He stops just at the door, staring at me, and his eyes are full of hatred. I stop in my tracks and frown. Eli shakes his head and then slams the door behind him.

  I’m ready to cry again. I begin to fumble around with the bag, trying to place the last few things Eli had brought out of my room into it. Reid’s hands cover the top of mine, his body close to me, and I feel his shallow breath on the back of my neck.

  “Here…” he whispers. “Let me do it.”

  I nod my head and move to the side. Reid is quick to pack my things. He disappears down the hall and reappears a moment later. He grabbed the pillow off my bed. He holds it up and smiles gently. “I thought you could use something from home to comfort you.” I smile back at him and nod. With the bag packed and ready to go, Reid offers his hand to me. Instead, I smile and walk past him to the front door. I hear Reid exhale a deep breath, and his footsteps fall into place behind me.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  REID’S HOUSE IS NOTHING like I expect it to be. Being the nephew of a man who ran the most successful agent house, the nephew of a billionaire, as well as a man who has millions himself, I honestly expect more. Another thing to add to the list of surprises. While in the dark I can’t see much, I know his house sits on a lot of acreage. In the moonlight, I see nothing but trees and hills for miles. His house comes into view as we reach the end of the long, narrow, tree lined driveway. What it lacks in size, it makes up for in beauty. His home is crafted out of logs, offering a warm, welcoming feeling. Of course, his home is bigger than an average house, but isn’t as big as I thought it would be. I was expecting a gigantic mansion, filled with more rooms and bathrooms than a single man needs, just to show off his wealth. Seeing his house is almost like a slap in the face. Maybe he is right? Maybe I have judged him too quickly without having all the facts. Reid pulls his car right in front of the house, jumps out of the driver’s seat, and rounds the car to let me out. I place my hand in his, trying to ignore the energy pulsing under my skin, and laugh.

  Reid raises an eyebrow and smiles. “What is so funny?”

  “This… is not what I was expecting,” I answer honestly. He smiles again and closes the car door behind me. He quickly drops my hand. In the dim light illuminating the house, I see his hand curl into a fist and release several times. He turns and heads inside. I follow him, noting the sudden change in his mood. He is tense.

  Reid opens the door for me, standing off to the side, and motions me to go in first. As I step over the threshold, I suddenly wish he is carrying me. What the hell? Where did that come from? I shake my head and continue to walk into the house. The scent hits me intensely. The same woodsy aroma I smelled on him that night at the diner. The door closes behind me, and I hear the locks click into place. Reid starts to flip on the lights, revealing a large, open room. I glance around, immediately taken aback by the beauty of the interior. The crossbeams are intricately carved above, and across the room is a large fireplace made of stone with a large mirror hanging above it. One oversized white couch is placed in front of the fireplace, and two wooden end tables with lamps resting on top of them are placed at the ends of the couch. It isn’t much. In fact, it’s almost as barren as my office. Off to the right is a large open kitchen. To my left is a large set of wooden steps, and I presume that’s where the rooms must be. Just like any log cabin, everything is made out of wood.

  “I’ll go get my blankets and some stuff out of my room and bring them downstairs.”

  I turn towards him and tilt my head to the side. “That isn’t necessary,” I tell him. Or is it? Reid tenses again. He seems as though he’s about to say something but stops himself from saying it.

  “I only have one room upstairs, besides my office.” I stop my jaw from dropping and stare at a painting of a sweeping landscape on the wall next to me. “Unless you don’t mind sharing…” I glance back at him and see him smiling. It’s not his usual smile. It’s one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, which are a hauntingly dark color. “Because in that case… we can go to bed right now.”

  “I can sleep downstairs then…” I say. Reid straightens his stance, stares hard at me, still smiling, and shakes his head. I’m not going to win this argument. “Fine… it probably is best if you sleep downstairs then.”

  Reid’s smile drops, and I would do almost anything to see him smile again. Even one of the half faked smiles he does. “It probably is.”

  Without another word, Reid ascends the stairs and disappears out of sight. I hear him shuffling around upstairs, opening and closing things, and I move into the living room. The only difference between my office and his living room is that he actually has pictures. A few are of himself with another boy and a girl. They all look strikingly similar. Most of the photos, however, hold the same slightly older woman in them. Some of them are just shots of her, caught off guard or unaware that the photo is being taken. Others have him next to her, in several different places across the world. A photo of him and the woman in front of the Great Wall
of China, in front of the Eiffel Tower, on the beaches of with white sand, and one of them at Disney World.

  I walk around the living room, gazing at photo after photo. Whoever she is, she brings out a side of Reid I have never seen before. In all the photos, his eyes are light, almost a green color. A total contrast to the nearly black eyes that I have become all too familiar with. I hear Reid clear his throat behind me and quickly turn to face him. I feel my cheeks warming up, embarrassed that I have been caught staring at what is obviously private moments of his life. He drops a pillow, comforter, and a change of clothes on the couch before walking towards me. Reid stops next to me. I see out the corner of my eye that he is tense. I watch as he picks up the photo of him and the woman at Disney World. He sighs and releases a deep breath.

  “My mother.” That is all he says. I turn my attention towards the photo in his hands. Relief fills me as I discover the woman who covers the walls and mantle is his mother. He places the photo back on top of the mantle, and I see his hand shaking. I feel his eyes on me before I turn towards him. He is standing close, I can smell the scent of his cologne and the woodsy mixture. “I think it’s best that we get some rest. You’ll find the room ready upstairs for you. There’s a bathroom off to the side of the room if want to take a shower or a bath.”

  I nod my head and turn to leave the living room, feeling like I have been dismissed. I pause on the stairs long enough to see him pull another photo off the mantle and run his finger over it. I swear I hear him let out a soft sob as he places the photo back where it belongs. In that moment, my heart breaks for him. It’s clear that he loves her. I wipe the tear that slides down my face and head upstairs to the room.

  ***

  I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I can’t make a sound, frozen in place. The nightmare is back, only it’s different this time. A slideshow of tonight’s events and the events from six years ago blur together as one never-ending movie. I am coming home from the club and open my apartment, only to find that it’s my mother tied to the chair instead of Jacob. She’s already dead, though. Her throat has been slit. My father and Jacob appear, both holding knives with sinister grins on their face. They’re coming towards me, both ready to attack. Just as they are about to lunge at me, I am forced awake by the sound of my phone beeping.

  I jump up in the bed, sitting up and leaning over to flick on the light. The lamp casts a dim glow across the room, which is similar to the living room downstairs. Wide and open, barren of all things except for the large carved wood bed I am sitting in and the grand wooden dresser with a large mirror on it. Up here, I see no photos, no paintings, just the bed and dresser. I grab my phone off the pillow resting next to me, the screen flashing with one new message. I unlock the screen, hoping it’s a response from Eli. When he refused to answer my phone calls and text messages before I fell asleep, I sent him an email. My heart stops, and my body tenses when I see that it isn’t from Eli but from the unknown sender.

  From: Unknown Sender

  To: LWinter@hlah.com

  Talk about blast from a past! How was that reunion with dear Robert and your ex-lover yesterday? Sorry it didn’t go quite according to plan. It’s a shame that Robert didn’t get to finish what your father set out to do six years ago. That’s okay though. I’ll just have to finish it for him. Soon enough. In the meantime, don’t be getting too cozy in that log cabin. You’ll be leaving soon. Remember, Elizabeth, you can run but you can’t hide.

  I throw my phone across the bedroom, shattering it against the wall into a million pieces. Great, now I don’t have a phone.

  Maybe it’s for the best. If I don’t have a phone, I can’t get any more emails. I sigh heavily and lean back against the pillow. I just start to drift back to sleep when a loud crash followed by the sound of breaking glass startles me, and I jump out of bed. I take the stairs two at a time, and I am immediately engulfed by a black cloud of smoke. I cough while flailing my arms around to try and clear the smoke. I walk into the kitchen where Reid is sweeping up shards of broken glass. The smell of burnt food hits me, and I start to laugh.

  Reid looks up from the ground, and our eyes connect. “What happened in here?” I laugh again and circle around the island.

  “Be careful,” he says. I stop walking, narrowly missing a piece of glass near my left foot. “I, uh, well…” He rubs his temple, leaving a streak of black smudge behind. “I thought you could use some breakfast.”

  That’s when I notice the morning light pouring through the sky lights in the kitchen. How is it possibly morning already? The room was completely pitch black upstairs. I could’ve sworn it was the middle of the night. “I closed the blackout curtains when I was upstairs last night. I thought you could use the uninterrupted sleep,” he says as though he read my mind.

  It wasn’t completely uninterrupted. I think of the email on my phone, and the fact that I now need to get a new cell phone. Reid discards the remaining pieces of glass into the trash can. I walk across the kitchen and open the windows to clear the remnants of smoke. Reid follows suit and opens the French style doors in the living room that lead to a large wooden deck.

  “What exactly is it that you were trying to cook?” I eye him curiously. He leans against the island, his cotton drawstring pants hang low on his waist, revealing his sexy v-cut of muscles, and I can see all the lines of his defined shirtless chest and abdomen. His hair is a slightly disheveled mess. His eyes aren’t dark, but they do have bags under them like he didn’t sleep last night. He looks absolutely mouthwatering. I could just take him there against the counter, savoring every taste of him.

  “I’m not too sure exactly,” he admits and laughs. He runs his hand through his hair and sighs. “I’m not very domesticated.”

  That’s the understatement of the year.

  I pick up a dish towel draped over the handle of the oven, walk over to Reid, and smile. “You’ve got a little smudge there,” I say and proceed to wipe his face off. Reid takes in a sharp breath. I feel my own breath catching from being so close to him. He reaches his hand up and touches my hand. He smiles and slowly exhales.

  “You do realize you are in your underwear?” His lips quirk up in a smirk. I gasp, dropping my hand quickly and taking a step back. How could I forget I was wearing only a thin tank top and my underwear? “I think I could get used to seeing you dressed like this.” His voice is soft and full of desire.

  “Don’t get any ideas.” I turn on my heels and run out of the kitchen.

  I take my time showering and getting dressed, mainly because I’m too embarrassed to show my face downstairs. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before Reid comes searching for me. It’s almost lunch time, and that only further embarrasses me. I take one last glimpse at my hair. I had taken the time to tame it with some mousse. I don’t why I do it. My hair only cooperates that way for so long before it decides to go whichever way it wants. It’s the price I pay for not taking care of it properly and dying it every time a faint sign of my blonde roots begin to make an appearance.

  Reid isn’t downstairs in the living room when I finally show my face. With the house having an open floor plan, I don’t have to move far from the bottom of the stairs to see that the French doors are still open. A light breeze flows in and causes the sheer white drapes to dance in the wind. I take a deep breath and head towards the doors.

  I bite back my surprise at the sight before me. Reid is wearing nothing but swim shorts and is lounging on a chair across the deck. The sweat on his skin glistens in the sunlight. He is devastatingly beautiful. I lean against the side of the house, watching him turn the pages of whatever book he is engrossed with. He peeks over the top of the spine, and our eyes meet. I sense hesitation as he motions for me to take a seat in the empty chair next to him.

  I sit down, glancing over to see what so vigorously had his attention before I came out here, and am shocked to find what he is reading. “Bone Cold?” I ask. He is reading my favorite book by Erica Spindler. I’m not sure it’s a
coincidence. I’m pretty sure nothing is when it comes to him.

  “I saw on the questionnaire that this is your favorite book.” He doesn’t look at me. Of course, being the nephew of the man who owns the company I work for, he has unlimited access to my files. After all, that is how he found where I lived the first time he showed up at my house. I wonder just how much of my file he has seen. The questionnaire is no big deal and nothing to worry about. Lawrence makes everyone fill one out, so he can ‘get to know his employees better’. If Reid has snooped to find my address and has taken the time to read my questionnaire, I can’t disregard the fact that perhaps he has read my entire file.

  Does he know about Dr. Uria? Does he know why I see her?

  The questions run through my mind a mile a minute. I feel his eyes on me, watching me, waiting for me to say something. “What do you think?” I finally say.

  “You do realize this is a romance?” He tilts his head to the side and a half crooked smile appears.

  “Is not,” I say too quickly. Reid laughs and shakes his head in disagreement. “It’s a suspense novel.”

  “A Romantic Suspense,” he says. “You discount the growing feelings between the two main characters, the detective and the writer.” My face drops. Of course it is. How could I forget? I’ve always been so enraptured by the suspense of the book that I pretty much ignore the other part— the romance. Maybe this is why Lawrence stuck me in Romance.

  “You still never answered my question.”

  Reid smiles again, and a hearty laugh fills the open air around us. “And you still haven’t answered mine.”

  “Fine… it’s a Romantic Suspense.” I sit back and fold my arms across my chest. “Are you happy now?”

  “Very.” We sit quietly side by side. Reid turns his attention back to the book, and I gaze at the view around me. It’s breathtaking. Nothing but rolling hills and trees for miles, it’s like we’re on our own little planet out here. I spy Reid close the book and turn my head as he places it on the small round table next to his chair. “It was an alright book.”