He moves fast when he wants to, though, and is halfway up the long circular staircase in the foyer before I even have a chance at catching up to him.
“Hey!” I call up the stairs after him. “You can’t just order me to leave!”
He doesn’t even glance back at me, just continues taking the wide steps two at a time.
“Hey!” I say again, ignoring the pain in my bruised, abused feet as I dash up the stairs after him. “This is Ethan and Chloe’s house. You don’t have the right to just kick me out of it.”
I grab his arm, tug him around to face me. Then wish I hadn’t as he glares down at me out of ice-blue eyes that are as annoyed as they are frigid.
“I think we’ve already established that I’m paying rent here, Tori. Which makes it, for the duration at least, my house. And since the last thing I want to do is share a home with a spoiled, self-centered little brat who drinks too much and has a talent for fucking all the wrong people, I am kicking you out.” He points at the door with a look on his face that says he knows he holds all the cards. “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”
His words light a fire in me even as they strike with pinpoint accuracy. But just because he knows where to hit me doesn’t mean I’m giving up. Because I’m not. I can’t.
“Oh, I won’t. Believe me. Because I’ve got no plans to leave and short of carrying me out of here, you can’t make me.”
He lifts a brow. “Wanna bet?”
“Yeah, I do.” I hold my arms out like I’m daring him to come at me.
“We’re seriously going to get into this?” He glares at me. “You know, right, that I have no problem carrying you out of here? Just don’t complain to me when I drop you on your ass.”
“You can try, but I’ll scream the whole place down the second you touch me. And when the cops come, I’ll make sure they call Chloe and tell her all about how her bastard of an older brother was manhandling her best friend. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled, aren’t you?”
“She knows you well enough to know who’s antagonizing whom in this situation. And again, I’m the one who’s paying rent here—and who has the documentation to prove it.” He comes back down a couple of steps, closes the distance between us until he’s all but standing on top of me. “I was here, minding my own business, when you broke into my house without permission. So go ahead and scream until the c
ops are called. I have no problem having you arrested for trespassing. Let’s see how long it takes Alexander Parsons to bail you out of jail.”
It’s another direct hit and Miles knows it. Alexander wouldn’t walk across the street to help me at this point—I hurt his ego too much last night. And even if he did, I’d spit in his damn face for doing this to me. And then I’d kick him in the balls hard enough to make sure he thought twice before ever doing this to another woman.
I start to tell Miles that, but he’s got that look on his face again—the one that says he knows he’s won. It’s the same look my father wore this morning when he kicked me out, the same look Alexander wore when the elevator doors closed on him last night. Half pissed off, half triumphant, and one hundred percent pompous ass, it makes me see red faster than anything else ever could.
I think about kicking Miles where it hurts, think about the million and one things I want to shout at him about women and human decency and getting his head out of his ass long enough to act like an actual human being occasionally. But I know if I say any of that then this situation is only going to get more out of hand and I’ll lose any chance I have of staying here until I can figure things out.
Already the look on his face says that if I push him, he really will carry me out, instead of just threatening to. And since I can’t let that happen, I swallow down the bitterness inside me—all the hurt and rage and vitriol that’s welling up and begging to spill out all over him—and instead force myself to calmly say, “Come on, Miles. Please. Let me stay here just for a few days. It’s a big house, you won’t even notice me.” I nearly choke on the words, but I get them out.
This time the look he shoots me is drily amused, like he knows just how much it cost me to say those words. Then again, maybe he does. I’m not exactly what one would call the shy, retiring type.
“Yeah, right,” he says with a derisive snort. “Have you met yourself? You’re a force of nature, Tori. Impossible to miss and just as destructive. I can’t have that right now. I’m in the middle of some really delicate research and I need to give it my full attention.”
“So give it your full attention. Give it all of your attention. I won’t bother you.”
“Like I believe that.” But he’s weakening. I can see it in his eyes, feel it in the way his body is starting to relax.
I move in for the kill, let tears well up in my eyes that are only partially fake. “Please, Miles. Don’t make me go back out there. Not today, not right now. I’m not ready to see anyone.”
He sighs, shoves a frustrated hand through his hair, and that’s how I know I’ve won even before he says, “You know we’ll be at each other’s throats in under two hours.”
“Not if I stay out of your way, we won’t. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?” I ask, tongue firmly in cheek. I know I shouldn’t poke the bear—especially when the bear holds all the cards—but it’s hard not to when Miles is so delightfully easy to rile up. Plus, he did just insult the hell out of me and make me beg. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t make him suffer for it a little, even if he is going to let me stay. “You could call me a whore? Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret. You already did. And you aren’t even the first person to do so today.”
I pat his cheek like the word doesn’t hurt—like none of this hurts—and then breeze past him on my way upstairs. I’m heading for the guest room at the back, the one farthest away from the room he likes to use when he’s here. Because much as I’d like to make his life hell while I’m here—just on general principles—I know I can’t. Not when two hundred dollars and his goodwill are all that stand between me and total and complete destitution.
But I’ve only made it up three or four more steps before I land wrong on my foot and feel the cut I got in the street earlier break wide open. I clench my teeth together to keep from crying out, but it’s too late to hide the high-pitched gasp of pain that came out the second I landed on the foot.
I reach out for the banister and grab on, hoping against hope that Miles isn’t watching as I prepare to hobble my way—on tiptoes—to the top of the stairs. But Miles is beside me in moments, face concerned and eyes laser-sharp as they search mine. “What’s wrong? Where do you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” I lie, then force myself not to flinch as I take the next step. But he’s studying me with the single-minded focus of the engineer he is, and it only takes him a couple of seconds to notice my foot is bleeding all over Ethan and Chloe’s bleached-maple steps.
“What happened to you?” he demands, even as he sweeps me into his arms and carries me the rest of the way up the stairs. “Where are your shoes?”