room with blessed light.
Maybe too much? she wondered, imagining the light pouring out through the windows and into the night. Would it be visible from any of the other windows on one of the sides of the mansion that came together to form this tower?
Trying to visualize the layout of the house, she decided it was unlikely. Not to mention that, now that she was here, she didn’t really feel like wandering around in the dark with only her flashlight to guide her. Not here. Not in this room.
Stepping forward, she surveyed the space. When she’d heard the room had had a balcony, she’d wondered why Courtney hadn’t asked for another one given her fear of heights. Now that she was here, she could understand why. Jillian had thought the room she’d been put in had been impressive, but this one was magnificent, bigger and more extravagant, from the massive bed that could easily fit a half-dozen people to the stone fireplace on one wall that was practically the size of a full room itself. The space was warm and comfortable despite its size. The exit to the balcony was such a minor part of the room it would be easy enough to forget it was there at all.
Inevitably, though, Jillian’s eyes found the doors, closed tightly against the night. She studied them from across the room, suddenly wary. This was it. A month ago Courtney had stood in this room, and then she’d found herself out there, and then—
“Looking for something?”
The voice came out of nowhere, shocking in the silence. Her heart leaping into her throat, she whirled around, automatically raising the flashlight to defend herself—
Adam Sutton stood just inside the door, arms folded over his chest, his expression as dark as the blackness that yawned beyond the open doorway.
She hadn’t even heard the door open. The fact that he was standing there in that pose, obviously having been there for at least a few moments, told her he’d been watching her. And she wondered if he’d waited to speak until a moment that would startle her most.
That didn’t mean she was going to be meek and defensive, even if she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. Slowly lowering the flashlight, she met his gaze head-on. “This is the room, isn’t it? The one where the last bride stayed?”
“The one she fell to her death from?” he said, arching a brow. “I think you know full well that it is. The only real question is what you’re doing here.”
“You can’t blame me for being curious.”
“Can’t I?” He stepped forward, arms dropping to his sides, moving toward her one slow step at a time, with the leonine grace of a predator gradually approaching its prey.
She didn’t allow herself to take a step back, to retreat, to move at all. Even as her skin began to tingle the closer he came, with wariness, with unease...with something else that made her heart beat faster most of all.
He finally stopped a few feet away, not enough that he was really invading her space, but enough that he might as well have been. He towered over her, peering down into her eyes, the lines of his handsome face hard and cold. His presence was overwhelming, a palpable thing she felt too strongly. Her whole body seemed to buzz with awareness of it, of him. It was all she could do not to swallow hard.
Unsettled by the strange emotions churning inside her, she managed to hold her ground and found her voice. “If you wanted to keep people out, you should have locked the door.”
“I did,” he said, surprising her. “Right after the police were done with the room.”
Jillian frowned, not understanding. “But it was unlocked.”
He smiled, the slow curving of his lips sending a shiver of warning up her spine. “I unlocked it this evening and set a sensor to inform me if anyone opened the door. Just in case someone decided to come up here.”
It couldn’t have been clearer who that “someone” was. A trap, she thought. He’d set it specifically for her and she’d walked right into it. The only question was—
“Why? Why go to all that trouble?”
“Because I wanted to know just how much trouble you are.”
“Indulging a little basic human curiosity is hardly causing trouble.”
“If that’s all you were doing,” he said pointedly. “What are you really doing here, Ms. Jones?”
“I’m here to get married,” she answered automatically.
“Are you?”
“If not, I’ve paid a very large deposit for no reason.”
“Or