Except I wasn’t particularly ready to face Ford, Tanner, and especially Aiden.
I dressed in a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals. The people I’d seen yesterday, Tina included, had dressed pretty casually. Plus, it was supposed to get into the low nineties again today.
I took my purse when I ventured out of my room, so I’d be ready to go. The door to Ford’s room across the hall was slightly open. I peeked inside. The bed was unmade, the sheets twisted in a tangle at the bottom of the bed. But there was no handsome guy with those killer green eyes in there. Maybe he was eating breakfast?
But the kitchen and the living room were empty, too. The door to the master bedroom was shut, as was the door next to it that the guys had said used to be a den but had been converted into a small bedroom. That was probably Tanner’s room. I couldn’t imagine Aiden passing up the opportunity to take the master bedroom.
I went into the kitchen and was pleased to find a coffee maker. It took a minute or two to figure out all the fancy buttons, but soon, a delicious smell filled the kitchen. I looked in the fridge and found several covered dishes. One contained scrambled eggs, another had crispy strips of bacon, and the third had oatmeal. Feeling a bit like Goldilocks in the three bears’ house, I took the dishes out of the fridge and set them on the counter.
That’s when I heard someone on the stairs, but it didn’t sound like the tread of someone on the carpeted stairs that led up to the second floor. I realized that the house must have a basement a second before a door at the back of the kitchen swung inward.
My jaw dropped as one of the twins stepped into the small room. He was hot and sweaty and shirtless.
Holy.
Shit.
He had the most amazing abs I’d ever seen. I could count them from across the room. And those pecs… and the broad shoulders… and those biceps. Suddenly realizing I was staring, I turned my attention back to the food on the counter.
Please let that be Tanner, not Aiden. Please, please, please let it be Tanner…
“Morning, Princess.”
Damn it!
“Morning,” I said in the direction of the scrambled eggs. “I didn’t know this place had a basement.”
“It had to. It’s in my contract that I have to have exercise equipment in the home I stay at.” Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him stride to the fridge and take out a bottle of water. His broad back was just as impressive as his front, although there wasn’t that little patch of dark hair that led down to—
“See anything you like, Princess?”
“What?” I sputtered. Had he really just said that? He was my stepbrother—technically. And a stranger.
“To eat,” he elaborated, but it didn’t sound any less dirty.
“There’s eggs, bacon, and oatmeal.”
Aiden looked over the spread. “There’s a lady down the street who delivers food each day, though we end up eating on the set a lot. She does a good job.” He plucked a towel off the counter and wiped the sweat from his brow.
“That’s a dishtowel,” I said. “Ew.”
Aiden shrugged and threw it back down. “Someone comes to clean, too.” He looked up at me. “Or did you want it? You could probably get a pretty penny for it online. Aiden Hunt’s workout towel.” He made as if he was going to throw it at me and I took a few rapid steps back. Which gave him the opportunity to move forward and swipe the cup of coffee that the machine had just finished brewing.
“That’s mine.”
“Sorry, Princess,” he said without a trace of sincerity. So much for his acting skills. But at least he programmed another cup.
I scooped some eggs into a bowl but I couldn’t settle down. This was just too strange. I was in a kitchen with a man I hated—my brain was quite clear on that point. But my body kept chiming in to remind me that I was also in a room with an extremely hot, mostly naked man. My pulse sped up, my nipples hardened, and various other body parts were demonstrating their interest.
But the man was a pig. Just, like, a really attractive pig. To cover my nervousness, I spoke up. “There’s really gym equipment down there? This doesn’t seem like the kind of place that would have that.”
“It didn’t. We brought it all in.”
“How?” I eyed the narrow door Aiden had come out of minutes ago.
“There’s a sliding glass door that leads out to the backyard.”
“The one with the scorpions?”
“Exactly.”
I warmed up my plate in the microwave and grabbed my coffee when it was done, not wanting Aiden to take it, too. But he was downing yet another bottle of water. It must’ve been quite a workout. Maybe I could use the equipment sometime—when he was nowhere around.