Not worrying too much about it, Rori set out to explore the house. It was clean, she’d give him that. Although, come to think of it, Mike was the one who took care of the house. Muscular bad boy he might be, but he knew how to dust. In typical guy fashion, framed movie posters took the place of actual art on the walls and furniture was utilitarian. There were no small flourishes that spoke of a woman’s touch. Tables were bare and without centerpieces while the windows had blinds with no curtains. It was all clean, but no one would ever accuse a woman of living in the house.
Moving down the hall of the main floor, Rori saw four doors. The first on the right was a bathroom—with a shower—and the second on the left was the room she had woken up in the day before. Mike’s room. That left the other two doors. One of the two remaining doors should be Luke’s room. When she reached the first one on the left, she pushed the door open and saw a home office. A high-end Mac sat on a glass desk and the walls had been turned into giant white boards listing clients, projects, and progress.
It appeared that Mr. Perfect was also perfectly organized.
For a moment Rori studied his tidy handwriting and the little lists Mike had made for himself. He’d even scheduled out the day for himself. He had met the bride at her home to film her waking up for her wedding day and was following the bride’s every move until the luncheon ended at 2:00 and the photographer took over. Mike was then going to return home to edit the video together for a reception that started at 6:00 p.m. The edited video of the wedding would then be played for reception guests while Mike filmed until the bride and groom drove away. Then Mike would return home again, edit the new material in, and call it a day.
Rori didn’t want to respect him for having work ethic, but apparently he did. Based on his calendar, she wouldn’t be seeing much of him during her brief stay. He certainly didn’t have a hole big enough in his schedule to model for her. Luke had called it when he’d marked Mike as a workaholic.
Skipping Mike’s bedroom, Rori moved to the last door in the hallway. The door didn’t open right away when she turned the knob, so she gave it an extra push and blinked at what she saw when it swung open. It wasn’t Luke’s room, that was for sure. Compared to the rest of the house, it was dark and a little bit musty. The carpet looked like it was from a different era, as did the bedroom furniture and the quilt on the California king bed in the center of the room. What confused her the most, however, was the yellow crime scene tape wrapped around the bed, roping it off. This was clearly the master bedroom, so why would anyone wrap the bed in yellow police tape?
Then Rori remembered she was dealing with Luke and she started to laugh. Then she laughed harder until tears filled her eyes and she shut the door.
Luke had said that this was his parents’ house and he’d bought it from them. That was their bed—she’d bet money on it. And Luke wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who could just move his parents’ furniture out and take their place. He didn’t talk much about his parents, but based on the crime scene tape, she had an idea about how he felt about them.
It was nice to know that she wasn’t the only one with an uncomfortable dynamic when it came to parents. But still, she would have to get the story on that one. Was he just traumatized that his parents were physical, or had he walked in on them a time or two? Maybe on a sunny day after he and Mike had played basketball for a while. Maybe he had barged into their room, wanting to ask permission for a popsicle or something, and shazam! Coitus interruptus.
Traumatized for life.
She definitely had to get that story.
In the meantime, she still needed to find his room and there was really only one more place for it to be: downstairs.
Following Luke’s steps from a few minutes before, Rori walked down the steps and knew immediately that she had crossed the threshold into Luke’s lair. Yes, it had