He paused, looked back down at her again, his posture rigid. “What?”
“Your poker face isn’t in place all the time either, officer,” she said, her voice gentle. “But don’t worry, he has no clue.”
Andre shook his head, his expression resigned. “I knew you were going to be the death of me, bella.”
When they both reached the top of the stairs, Andre swung open the door to find the TV blaring ESPN and two empty beer bottles sitting on the coffee table, but the living room otherwise empty. She peered over his shoulder. “May have some brooding on our hands.”
They stepped inside the loft, and she locked the door behind her. The place was much bigger than she’d expected from looking up from the street. High ceilings with exposed ductwork, a solid wall of windows draped with simple white curtains at the far end of the place, and gorgeously aged brick walls flanking the left and right sides of the space. Every area was open to the next—kitchen, dining area, living room—with only a few supporting columns here and there. A metal staircase in the corner of the dining space spiraled up to an open second level where the bedrooms were located.
“Wow, y’all aren’t exactly slumming it, Andre.”
He clicked off the television, grabbed the beer bottles off the table, and walked toward the kitchen. “Jace worked a good deal for this when he leased the store space on the two bottom levels. Plus, believe me, it didn’t look like this when we first moved in. Someone had divided up all the space with cheap sheetrock. Took me a year to tear this thing down to the bones and get it in this shape.”
“You did all this?”
He tossed the bottles in a trash can and shot her a deviant smirk. “Haven’t you heard? All Mexicans know how to do construction. It’s like a requirement to be a card-carrying member.”
She rolled her eyes. “Smartass.”
“Nah, I worked at a Home Depot to get through college and took every DIY class I could. After the crap I see every day at work, sometimes it’s nice just to just zone out and hit shit with a hammer.”
“I totally get that.”
He pointed to the windows. “Jace is probably out on the balcony. You should go out there first. You’re better-looking than me, so there’s less of a chance of getting your head bitten off.”
She blew out a breath, trying to shore up her emotions. She needed to make sure Jace was okay and leave. That was it. “All right. Wish me luck.”
She pushed back the curtains and found the sliding door that led to the outside balcony. Jace was perched on the edge of a lounge chair, forearms braced on his thighs, looking off into the greenbelt that bordered the back of the building. His head turned in her direction when she shoved open the door and stepped outside.
His expression remained flat when he saw it was her. “You were supposed to stay with Andre.”
“He’s here, too.”
“Fucking Andre,” he muttered, turning back to stare at the view.
She took a tentative step forward. “Your mom okay?”r: Roni Loren
She cringed. “Guess things haven’t improved with Jace and his father. They were always at each other when I lived with them.”
Andre snorted. “His dad’s a jackass. He has this amazing son who’s breaking his back to run a business he’s passionate about—with no help from the family fortune, by the way—and all his father can see is that Jace doesn’t fit into the mold he’s created for him. Jace would never admit it to anyone, but his father’s constant digs tear him up.”
She looked down at her soup. She’d woken up from her nap planning an escape route. The two men had stripped more than her clothes in that bedroom this morning. Her defenses had been left in a tattered heap on the floor, and she needed time to reconstruct them before facing either of the guys again. But the thought of Jace somewhere alone, feeling worthless in his family’s eyes, had her chest feeling tight.
She pushed her chair away from the table and looked up at Andre. “You need to go find him.”
Andre’s eyebrow quirked. “You want me to leave you to find Jace.”
She straightened in her chair, feeling more resolute by the second. “Yes. I’m not going to be able to relax and have fun here if I know he’s somewhere else feeling shitty. Go find him, take him out for a beer, do whatever guys do to make each other feel better. I’ll be fine spending the rest of the weekend in my cabin catching up on my reading.”
The corner of Andre’s mouth tilted up and he pushed off the wall. “Bella, I agree with you that Jace probably doesn’t need to be alone right now, but I’m not leaving you anywhere. You want me to find him, then you come with me.”
“What?” she asked, flustered at the suggestion of taking any of this outside The Ranch’s gates. “No, I can’t. I mean . . .” She scrambled for an explanation that wasn’t I’m afraid I’m falling for the two of you. “My agreement with Daniel is for here, not—”
He shrugged. “So don’t tell him you left. You can stay with us tonight. We have a guest bedroom if you need your own space.”
Stay with the two of them? At their place? The whole thing sounded stupid and ill-advised and way too enticing. “I don’t think—”
“Come on, bella. Let’s not pretend this isn’t the same thing under a different roof. Being at The Ranch doesn’t make what we’re doing any less real.”