Though my body was still hot with… anger? Attraction? Confusion? A sliver of ice crept down my spine. I was not accustomed to feeling fear in my own home. I’d been staying in houses alone since I was five years old. Creaks and darkness and silence that only an empty house could provide did not scare me. Plus, I didn’t let myself watch any scary movies, any true crime documentaries or pretty much anything that could bring all that kind of bad energy into my home.
But there was a thread of fear at Rowan’s mention of Nathan. I would say he wouldn’t hurt me, but there were bruises on my arms to contradict that statement. He wasn’t taking no for an answer. Men who didn’t take no for an answer were dangerous. And there was no limit to what those men might do to convince themselves that they could make a woman say yes.
“You seem like you’re sorted here,” Fiona said, jerking me out of my own head. I watched her drain her glass then walk it to the sink where she rinsed it.
“What are you doing?” I asked, a hysterical edge to my tone.
Yes, Rowan’s presence in my house and his presence in general was unnerving to say the least. But Fiona was here. Fiona was my anchor to reality. My buffer. She was what I could cling to when things became too much.
Fiona could fill awkward silences. Fiona knew how to deal with really hot, ultra-masculine, hard-ass men.
Without Fiona, I was fucked.
She looked up from the sink at me then to Rowan then Maggie then back to me. And she smiled. She fucking smiled.
“I’m going home to listen to the new Taylor Swift album and eat an entire rotisserie chicken,” she chirped.
“No, you’re not!” I half shrieked.
“Yes, I am.” Fiona’s smile stretched wider before snatching her purse off the counter and winking at me.
Then she walked out.
Of my house.
Leaving me alone with Rowan.
And Maggie.
Maggie, although cute, did not provide an appropriate buffer and could not fill awkward silences that would quite obviously stretch their way into every corner of this house because… how was I meant to keep up any semblance of conversation when Rowan was in my house?
I stared in the direction of the front door, the one that had just opened and closed.
There was only so long I could mentally will Fiona to come back before I had to focus on the problem at hand. Being Rowan. And his dog. Well, the dog wasn’t a problem. Actually, I was quickly falling in love. With the dog.
“You don’t need to stay here,” I told him when I’d found the strength to look in his general direction again. “I mean, it’s very… I don’t want to say polite because forcing yourself into my house for the night in order to protect me from cabinet doors isn’t actually polite, it’s more over the top, insane, and more than a tad misogynistic.”
I folded my arms across my chest, annoyed enough now that I wasn’t too scared to look him in the eyes.
The eyes that were twinkling once again.
And the twinkling made my breath hitch again. I’d never experienced so many conflicting emotions at one time before.
“A tad misogynistic?” he repeated, his voice no longer hard and scary. It was soft… like molasses.
I struggled to hold on to my anger. It was slipping through my fingers in response to his melty tone, twinkling eyes and his overwhelmingly masculine beauty. And the way his dog just sat at his side obediently.
I nodded with pursed lips. “Yes. Because you coming in here and saying you need to stay in my home because I couldn’t possibly be able to stay in my home alone, me, a thirty-three-year-old woman who has lived on her own her entire adult life without sticking my fingers in any light sockets.”
His lips twitched. Maggie, who was now obviously sick of this whole thing, abandoned her post at her master’s side and padded over to my fireplace, plopping herself down in front of it like she owned the place.
I was momentarily distracted by the dog and the way she made my home feel… complete.
Yes, it was the dog, not the man who gave me that feeling.
I needed to get a dog.
“Maggie can stay,” I decided, looking back at Rowan. “But you, sir, have to leave.”
Rowan’s lip was no longer just twitching. He was now smirking. I’d never seen him smirk. He looked really, really good smirking.
“Maggie goes where I go,” he informed me.
“Everywhere you go?” I countered.
He nodded.
“But you work construction.”
“I’m aware.”
I let out a puff of air. “You cannot take a dog on a construction site.”
“Tell that to Maggie,” he replied. “She’s been on site with me since she was a puppy.”
“That’s got to be against code.”
“We really talkin’ about construction code?” Rowan asked, obviously amused.