figure something out.
If she was here for a fun, flirty fling, and now Mitch had decided not to fling with her, then maybe she didn’t want to stay here.
This town was full of Landrys. According to both Mitch and Tori, the Landrys believed in romance on a very grand scale. When you fell for one Landry, you got them all. Tori had told her all about how they’d accepted her and brought her into the family without question and how she couldn’t help but love them.
Just the kind of thing Paige wanted to avoid.
But those people who made strangers part of their family so easily had apparently talked Mitch out of the fling idea. And they hadn’t all descended on the house when he’d showed up without her. And now she was in her own bedroom.
Well, damn. Maybe she wasn’t going to have to avoid them. Maybe they were going to avoid her.
That was good.
Right?
It was. Probably. Mostly. She didn’t want to deal with his family wanting to know when they were going to get hitched.
It looked like they had decided that not only was that not going to happen, but it shouldn’t happen.
She frowned and pushed away from the door. Huh. They didn’t want her and Mitch to be together forever?
She definitely wasn’t used to that.
But this was good. She could stay here, work the job Mitch had set up for her, save up the rest of the money she wanted to, and avoid the whole topic of marriage. To anyone in Appleby and, evidently, to Mitch Landry.
Yeah, that was good.
The niggling what-the-hell feeling that accompanied her to bed and kept her from concentrating on her book was just her being ridiculous.
She was getting exactly what she wanted.
It just didn’t feel that way.
8
That night was hell.
Mitch tossed and turned and second-guessed his decisions and wondered what Paige was doing. And what she’d do if he walked down the hallway and joined her in… whatever it was.
The next morning was even worse.
He came down the stairs to find Paige doing yoga in his living room.
Which was bad enough, but she was also wearing the half sweatshirt that fell off one shoulder and showed teasing peeks of her bare stomach and back as she moved. She’d worn that shirt the first time he’d spent the night with her at her apartment in Appleby. She’d been wearing it when he’d showed up to surprise her a week ago at her yoga studio.
He loved that shirt.
He also fucking hated it.
He gritted his teeth, averted his eyes from her ass as she bent to stretch, and headed for the kitchen.
But he didn’t get far.
“Morning.”
He turned back. “Morning.”
She looked so good. Sexy. Sweet. Right. Waking up to her in his house was an exquisite torture that he’d never experienced before.
“Griffin made coffee,” she said, seeming lost about what to say.
“He makes good coffee.” Yeah, he had no idea what to say either. Then he frowned. “You saw Griffin this morning?”
“Yeah. He came down as I was starting.”
Starting yoga. Dressed like that. Mitch felt a very stupid rush of jealousy.
Griffin was a good guy. They’d been living together for two months, and Mitch hadn’t had a single problem with him. He was a fucking grouch, but that didn’t faze Mitch. It had nothing to do with Mitch. He didn’t love the way Griffin clearly felt that being in Autre and working with Tori was a step-down, and he wanted more. But who was Mitch to judge?
Griffin had messed up at his last job. Mitch thought he’d done the right thing from what he knew about the situation. Some big donor to the zoo had been at a fundraiser with his wife. They’d been on an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour. They’d been shown the new baby tiger that had been born. A huge boon to the zoo because the species was endangered. It had been Griffin’s project and the main reason he’d gotten the job.
Then the donor’s wife had touched the baby tiger. Which was a huge no-no. The baby could have been rejected by its mother if handled by humans.
Griffin had informed the woman that she needed to get away from the cub and reminded her that she’d said she understood the rules laid out ahead of the tour.
Of course, he hadn’t said it quite like that.
Or in any kind of normal tone of voice or volume.
He’d been fired that same night.
Griffin was now here because his friend from vet school, Tori, had been appalled that he’d