I squeaked, juggled my full load, and snatched it out of his hand. Just fucking great. It wasn’t the first time he’d held my bra or anything, but, god, at some point, I had to catch a break. I had to.
“You’re welcome,” he muttered under his breath.
I had no intention of thanking him for anything. So, I kept my mouth shut.
“Are you going to tell me why you seem like you’re ready to set me on fire?” he asked. He was calm—curious but calm.
I was a puzzle he needed to solve. He needed to be able to put me in a box so that he could figure out how to manipulate my emotions to his whim.
“No.”
“All right,” he said. But it only made him inspect me harder. “I really don’t understand why you’re mad. This is my house. I thought you were the one trespassing.”
“Well, I’m not,” I growled. “I got this job a month ago. And I had no idea that you were going to be here. In fact, I had no idea you were even a Kensington.”
He peered at me inquisitively, as if he were memorizing the span of my face and the curve of my figure. As if he were about to take a test and was having a last-minute cram session to remember all the little things he already knew about me but promptly forgot. “Have we met before?”
I snorted. “Observant.”
“And it was a bad meeting?”
I snapped my narrowed eyes to him.
He held his hands up. “Okay. Very bad meeting.”
“The fact that you don’t even remember is…” I trailed off.
“Bad?”
“Reprehensible.”
“You know, you do look familiar. I thought you did this whole time.”
I rolled my eyes skyward and then deposited the shovel back where I’d found it. Better to keep it out of arm’s reach for the rest of this conversation. “Don’t bullshit me.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Sure,” I said sarcastically.
I wasn’t sure he knew how to do anything else.
“No, really, how do I know you?”
I shook my head. Hurt broke through the anger. Hurt that I hadn’t let myself feel in so long. “If you can’t remember, then I don’t really see any reason to enlighten you.”
Then, I reached for the door, but he stopped me in my tracks.
“Paris.”
I whipped around in shock. He did remember. That bastard did remember something. But hurt was then immediately replaced with that boiling anger. That righteous, vindictive flame that shot through me every time I remembered my first time.
I yanked the door open and glared back at him. “That’s right. We had one night in Paris. You wooed me, you fucked me, and then you ghosted!”
Pushing the door the rest of the way open, I stepped into the Kensington summer cottage. And I froze in place as four people turned to face me. Four people who had clearly heard me screaming at Penn and airing our dirty laundry.
Just…wonderful.
Natalie
3
My face turned the color of a tomato.
“I…um…” I stammered, at a loss for words.
I looked like a hot mess, standing soaking wet in my sand-covered dress with a bottle of bourbon and my bra. They probably thought I was a lunatic. A madwoman that Penn had picked up outside when he went to check on the fire.
It was even worse that, whoever these four people were, they looked fabulous. Two men and two women clothed in tailored suits and cocktail dresses. Glamorous, confident, wealthy. It was evident in their dress and mannerisms and the way they let me stand there and gape like a fish out of water.
“I’m so sorry,” I finally managed to get out. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be at the house tonight. I was hired by Mayor Kensington, but Penn informed me that he wasn’t aware of that fact. Just as I was not aware that he had…friends with him.”
Penn stepped over the threshold and inside. He kicked at the sand on his shoes. Our eyes met, and my breath caught. He was even more stunning in the light. No wonder I’d noticed him in Paris, writing furiously in his notebook in the park by my flat. Or why I’d approached him at that party. Or why…I’d had that one-night stand.
“Why don’t you introduce us to your friend, Penn?” the brunette girl asked coyly. She was tan, as if she had spent the summer on the beach, and wore a glittering emerald-green dress.
Strangely, she gave me Anne Boleyn vibes. I wasn’t sure yet if that was good or bad.