“Are you being held against your will?” Ariel adds, glaring at Vincent before looking back over at me. “Blink once for yes, twice for no.”
“What the hell? I’m fine! What are you guys doing here? I told you to wait an hour,” I complain, finally moving the rest of the way across the room to where they’ve all congregated.
Cindy and Ariel are still standing in the open doorway, and Vincent is blocking their way into the house by crossing his arms in front of his chest with his feet shoulder-width apart. It’s how I’ve seen him stand at the door to Charming’s on a few occasions. The poor man has become a bouncer in his own home because of my crazy friends.
“You sent us a text with just a strange address and come in an hour,” Cindy states. “We thought you’d been kidnapped.”
“I still think she’s been kidnapped. No way in hell would she go with this Neanderthal willingly,” Ariel adds, shooting another angry glare in Vincent’s direction.
He lets out a sigh and finally drops his arms down to his sides and moves out of the doorway for them to come in.
My friends immediately rush over and start touching my hair, my face, and my shoulders, then they push up the sleeves of my dress and study my arms.
“She doesn’t have any bruises or rope burns.”
“He could have roofied her. Belle, what do you remember of the last twelve hours?”
“Good grief, I wasn’t kidnapped!” I tell them with a roll of my eyes, yanking my arms out of their hold. “I’m fine. Everything is fine, and you can stop treating me like a child now. Vincent, can you give us a few minutes alone?”
Cindy and Ariel share equal looks of shock as they look back and forth at the two of us.
“Vincent?!” they shout at the same time.
The man in question reaches his hand up and pinches the bridge of his nose, something I’ve now learned he only does when he’s really, really annoyed.
“That’s so . . . normal,” Cindy mutters.
“I thought for sure his real name was Wolverine. Or maybe Conan the Barbarian,” Ariel adds.
“Rules,” Vincent growls, staring me down from across the room when he finally drops his hand from his nose.
In my head, I quickly go over the small handful of house rules that he set, and I wince.
“I didn’t invite them over for a sleepover, just a little chat. And technically, you just said my two annoying friends. You didn’t specify which two annoying friends. I mean, for all I know, you could have been referring to Mrs. Potter or Harold, the cashier at my favorite bookstore. You really should be more specific about your house rules,” I inform him, pushing my glasses up on the bridge of my nose.
And there’s that mouth twitch of his again. I guess I’m not in danger of being kicked out for breaking a rule after all.
“Hey, we’re not annoying! We’re a fucking delight!” Ariel complains.
I hold my breath and wait for Vincent to either toss my friends out, or toss me out. After a few tense seconds, he lets out his signature sigh of aggravation and stalks through the room, moving right past the three of us without another word.
“What in the fresh hell is going on?!” Ariel explodes as soon as Vincent disappears down the hallway and we hear the slam of his bedroom door.
“Sweetie, if he really did coerce you and this is some sort of Stockholm syndrome, it’s okay. You can tell us. We won’t judge you,” Cindy says softly, rubbing the side of my arm.
“There was no coercion. Well, there was, but it was really sweet after the initial obnoxiousness. And no, I don’t have Stockholm syndrome. I think we should sit down for this.”
Grabbing my friend’s arms, I pull them over to the couch and we all flop down, with me in the middle.
“Did you know the term Stockholm syndrome is from a bank robbery that happened in Sweden in 1973, when the robber took four employees and held them in the bank vault for one hundred and thirty-one hours, and after they were released they appeared to have formed a bond with their captor and they told reporters they saw the police as their enemy instead of the robber?” I ramble nervously.
“Oh, thank God,” Ariel says with sigh of relief. “She’s fine. She’s totally fine.”
She pats my knee and gives me a smile.
“You do seem fine, but seriously, what is going on? Why are you at Beast’s house? And how in the hell does a guy like him have such an amazing house? It’s beautiful,” Cindy adds, looking around the room.
“He’s not exactly what he seems. I’m getting to know him, and he’s not an animal. He’s sweet, in an overbearing way,” I tell them with a shrug. “And he kind of rescued me.”