But lying, manipulative neighbors could slay.
He went to take a sip before he realized he was empty.
“Here,” Mackenzie came up to him with a full glass. This one was dark brown. He gave Andie’s friend a questioning look and she leaned down to whisper loudly, “It’s whiskey. Figured you might need something stronger after the night you’ve had.”
His head snapped over to Hunter, who was looking suspiciously focused on the arrangement of the presents under the tree.
“Hunter, did you blab about me and Holly to everyone?”
Hunter looked over and shrugged. “I just told Jenna and—”
“And I blabbed to everyone.” Jenna walked back into the room from the kitchen, her arms laden with appetizers. Despite her admittance, she didn’t look even a tiny bit guilty.
When he continued to stare, she met his gaze. “What? You’re family now. We’re worried about you.”
He narrowed his eyes at Hunter. “Just how much did you tell them?”
“Umm…” Hunter scratched the back of his head. “Everything?”
Spencer groaned. He’d called Hunter the night before when he’d pieced together what his father had intended to do. He’d needed Hunter’s professional opinion as a former cop. They’d decided it would be up to him whether he brought his father’s intentions to the police.
Seeing as Spencer had stopped their plan before it began, he was tempted to let it go. Especially since Holly could get dragged into an investigation. But he’d made sure he’d have the upper hand with his father once Jack figured out that his plan had failed, like always. He’d be in a position to protect Holly. And himself, of course.
Spencer looked toward the opposite side of the room where Hunter’s former partner and good friend, Eddie, was talking to Mackenzie’s fiancé, Jacob. Hunter seemed to guess what he was thinking. “I didn’t give Eddie any specifics. Just a heads up that he should keep an eye on Jack and his friends. That maybe they’re not as reformed as they’d like us to believe.”
He nodded. That was the way he wanted it…for now, at least. “And he was okay with that?”
Hunter glanced over to make sure Eddie couldn’t hear. “He had questions—a lot of questions, mainly about how the Hallister girl fits into this—but he understands that you’re handling this situation as you see fit.” He lowered his brows and gave Spencer a clear look of warning. “But if I get the slightest suspicion that you’re in trouble because of that father of yours—”
“I’ve got it handled.”
Hunter nodded, though he didn’t look entirely at ease. But since he was a former officer of the law and this situation fell in a hazy shade of gray, he supposed that was understandable.
Hunter turned to answer the front door when the buzzer sounded announcing a new partygoer. Since he was already out of his element and hating how crowded the little apartment had grown, he decided that was his cue to head out as well. He followed in Hunter’s wake.
Hunter’s back filled the doorway and Spencer waited somewhat patiently for the incoming guest to come in so he could go out. He should have known something was up by the look Hunter threw him over his shoulder. If he’d been asked to say what his look meant, he’d say Hunter was giving him a warning.
Then Hunter stepped to the side and the reason became clear. Holly was there. No, she wasn’t just there. She’d thrown the world off its axis by her sudden presence. If he’d had some warning, he might have…what? Run away?
Yes, he admitted to himself. He would have run away. Because he was self-aware enough to know that she affected him. Too much. It was irrational and unnerving but it was also undeniable. This woman was his kryptonite.
And she was hovering in the doorway with a look of uncertainty like he might kick her out.
Probably because he had kicked her out the day before. But that had been his apartment. He had no right to refuse her entry here. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t have to be nice about it, either.
“Spencer!” He heard Jenna’s scolding voice behind him. “Is that any way to greet a guest?”
Spencer frowned up at her. “She’s not a guest, she’s a—”
“An angel from heaven, clearly,” Hunter said as he made of show of taking a bottle of whiskey from her hands. “She even brought my favorite.”
Her gaze never left Spencer’s even as she relinquished her bottle with a little shrug. “I was told you should never show up empty-handed and the only thing open was that liquor store around the corner.”
Next thing he knew, Jenna was ushering Holly past him and into the apartment. Hunter turned to him with a mocking smile. “So…you still leaving?”
Yes. He should leave. That was exactly what he should do.
He made a sound that could possibly have been described as a harrumph before turning his wheelchair around and heading back toward the kitchen where Holly had been dragged.
When he entered the room went silent as everyone turned to stare. He was vaguely aware that there were other people there but the only one he could look at was Holly. She didn’t look like she’d set out for a holiday party. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt beneath her oversized wool coat and her hair looked like it had been hurriedly pulled back in a low bun with strands falling around her face. He knew her well enough to know that she did that when she was working from home or running errands, not when she was going to the Upper West Side for a party at a stranger’s apartment.
“What’s going on?”
“Spencer, be nice.” Kate hissed the warning from where she stood beside the island. It seemed the whole party had relocated to the kitchen on the heels of Jenna and Holly. Mackenzie was across from Kate, watching Spencer and Holly with unabashed interest. “Who’s this?” she asked, not unkindly, her gaze fixing on Holly.
“No one,” Spencer said. Sure it was rude but he had no time for niceties. Alarm bells were going off in his brain as it registered that Holly was here to see him. Because something had happened.
She was in danger.
“Everybody out. Now.” It was absolutely not his place to kick people out of Hunter and Jenna’s kitchen, and he assumed under any other circumstances Jenna would have protested mightily. But, seeing as she knew more than most about the kind of mess he and Holly had ended up in, she ushered everyone out saying, “Listen to the Grinch, people. Let’s give them room to breathe.”
Breathing is not what he needed and not what he wanted to do when he looked at her. Christ, how was it that he still wanted her after everything she’d done? He’d deal with his body’s intensely inconvenient response to her at another time. For now, all that mattered was her safety. “Are you all right? What’s going on?”
She stood in front of the kitchen table, wringing her hands, though he was pretty sure she had no idea she was doing it. Sure enough, he saw her look down at her hands and stop, placing them on the back of a kitchen chair instead. “I had to see you.”
He couldn’t stop the cynical smirk. “Miss me, neighbor?”
She ignored the jibe. “I think you’re in trouble.”
He frowned at her. “What kind of trouble?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just…it was kind of…just a hunch.”
He stared. “A hunch?”
When she nodded, he gave in to his curiosity. “All right, tell me what happened that has your sixth sense all riled.”
In the span of one long breath she rattled off the events of her afternoon. How she’d met with Jack and what had transpired. He stopped himself just in time before he could wince at his father’s predictable move in refusing to pay her. He’d seen it coming; he could have warned her.
But he hadn’t. Why? Because he was an ass.
And also because she’d had it coming, he told himself. She’d gotten into bed with the devil. She couldn’t be too surprised when he turned out to be dishonest. He even managed to shrug when she was done and kept his voice bland. “So you didn�
�t get paid for tricking me. My heart bleeds for you.”
But the sucky thing was, his heart did hurt. He was pissed on her behalf that his father was such a schmuck. He didn’t know why she needed the money but it was clear that she’d been depending on his father’s payout.
She lifted her chin. “I know I was wrong to work for him. I knew he was up to something…not good…but I did it anyway. I’ll deal with the consequences.”
He tried to come up with something sufficiently bitter to say in response but found himself sitting there in silence. He was losing his edge if he couldn’t come up with a joke at her expense. He settled for sounding bored as he asked, “And this affects me how?”
She licked her lips. She had to stop doing things like that. He was holding onto anger with both hands, because if he let go, he’d lose any shred of dignity he had left. He’d do something monumentally stupid, like kiss her again. Or maybe even ask her to explain why she needed the money.
He might even be tempted to forgive her. And that would be idiocy. Lust-induced idiocy at its very worst.
“I think you’re in trouble,” she said.
“You’ve already said that.”
She frowned down at him. “You’re not taking me seriously.”
“I am,” he said, though his tone was still mocking and he knew it. “You’re telling me that I’m in trouble. Trouble that you got me into, by the way.”
She flinched.
Score one for the jerk in the wheelchair. He wasn’t done. “You’ve also crashed my friends’ party just to tell me something you could have said over the phone or texted. Why?”
He hadn’t meant to ask that. Curiosity had won out over cold distance.
Her frown deepened and he watched her fists clench in frustration. “That’s not important, what’s important is that—”
“Yeah, yeah,” he waved off her concern. “You’re worried about me.” The sarcasm dripped from his voice and he cursed himself inwardly for his transparency. It wasn’t like his bitterness had been a secret before but now he was in danger of looking…hurt.
“Spencer, listen to me. I know you’re angry, and you have every right to be—”
“Really? I do? Oh, thank you so much for your permission.”
She ignored the caustic remark. “But I don’t think it’s just your father who’s behind this. Charlie said—”
“Who’s Charlie?”
She let out a harsh exhale at the interruption. “It doesn’t matter. He works with Jack and he said that Jack isn’t the only boss, there are other people, mean people, who are in on this…scheme.”
He’d watched her struggle for the word “scheme,” obviously not sure how to classify the mess she’d gotten herself into. Was it a caper? Some tomfoolery?
He could have told her it was theft, plain and simple.
Her warning didn’t surprise him. He’d known from the start that his father hadn’t acted alone. Not only was the plan more complicated than Jack’s typical jobs, but it had required a level of technical savvy that was not in Jack’s repertoire. If he had to guess, he’d say his father had told the wrong people about his son’s line of work and those “mean people” had seen a way to benefit.
All Jack had to do was sell out his own son.
He should have been immune to this kind of betrayal by now, but it still stung. His father had never been what anyone would call “loyal” and he’d never expected him to be. He never expected anyone to be, except for Andie. Loyalty was a rare commodity in his world. He’d never been good at acquiring it.
Maybe it was him. The thought made him uncomfortable, like an itch he couldn’t scratch. Evidence lined itself up in his brain. First his father, then his hacker friends back in college who’d been ready to sell him out the moment they’d been discovered. And now Holly, the first woman he’d felt a genuine connection with in a way that was so not friendly, and definitely not sisterly.
The woman in question was watching him with so much worry in her eyes, he caved to his nobler instincts and reassured her. “You can stop fretting, Holly. I’ve got it under control. I’ll make sure you’re not in any danger from Jack or his friends.”
Her eyes widened as her brows shot up. “I’m not worried about me, you idiot. I’m worried about you.”
A laugh escaped before he could stop it and he only laughed harder when she slapped a hand over her mouth. There was something delightfully refreshing about Holly calling him an idiot.
Yeah, he definitely had issues.
But it beat watching her worry about Jack’s agenda or beat herself up over how she’d lied to him. He might not have forgiven her but he still hated to see her tied up in knots.
When he looked up she wore a hesitant smile, clearly not sure if she was supposed to be amused as well. The hopefulness in her gaze brought him back to reality and his laughter died off.
Her hesitant smile faded away.
He looked toward the window over the sink as if admiring the view. He supposed it would have been more believable if there had been a view and the window didn’t overlook an alley. “Look, I figured out Jack’s plan and I put a stop to it. He and his friends can’t hurt either one of us.”
When she didn’t reply, he turned back to see that she was nodding…and biting her lower lip. She really had to stop doing that.
She took a step toward him and paused. He realized he’d tensed up and forced himself to relax.
“Spence, I just wanted to say—” She licked her lips and he bit back a groan.
She opened her mouth to continue but a couple he didn’t recognize walked in to the kitchen at that moment and she stopped. They both watched the couple as they laughed and chatted, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they’d just interrupted a moment.
Holly turned back to him wearing a small self-deprecating smile of amusement at their sudden awkward situation, stuck in silence as a loud, tipsy couple helped themselves to a cheese platter behind them. He found himself returning the smile before he could stop himself.
“Could we…” She jerked her head toward the hallway. “Could we find someplace a little more private to talk?”
No. He should say no. This woman was trouble and his best defense was distance. “Sure, come with me.”
He was an idiot of the first order.
Navigating his wheelchair past another couple who’d invaded their turf, he led the way into the hallway and turned back toward the bedrooms, the only area of the small apartment that wasn’t overrun with partygoers. When they were both inside a room that looked to be an office, he clicked the door closed behind them.
A light from the desk cast the room in a warm glow. She was backlit, her long wavy brown hair and her perfect curves illuminated in the dim light. She looked like an angel.
A lying, manipulative angel, but an angel nonetheless. “What do you want, Holly?”
She stared at him for a moment and then said, “You.”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
She dropped onto her knees so she was on his level and the look in her eyes was earnest and sweet and so breathtakingly genuine it touched a part of his heart he hadn’t felt in years.
“I know I don’t deserve a second chance, but I need you to know that I like you.” Her words came out so quickly it took his brain a moment to catch up.
“I like you,” she repeated. “I really like you. That wasn’t fake. None of it was fake, except for, you know…”
“All of it?” He said it without malice but it was the truth. Every moment had been fake because her whole reason for being in his life had been a lie. Granted, he’d known she’d been lying. But did that make it any better?
Her cheeks had turned a pale pink at his statement and she nodded. Her big brown eyes turned up to him and she took his hand in hers. “It was wrong. I know it was wrong. But I’d like to think you’ve gotten to know me well enough to know that I don’t typically do that sort of thing.”
He remained silent. He didn’t
trust himself to speak. That part of his heart that she’d brought back to life hurt, like a limb that had suffered too much nerve damage. This was what he’d always tried to avoid. His whole life he’d succeeded in keeping people at bay. He prided himself on it.
She shook her head in frustration, most likely at his lack of response, and he held himself back from reaching out to her. If he touched her now he might not be able to stop himself from touching her again. From saying things he didn’t want to say. He’d already admitted to himself that he was weak around her. The only way to fight it was to steer clear.
As if she could read his thoughts, her grip tightened on his hand and she tugged until he was leaning forward. Her face was in his and he watched in fascination as she nibbled on her lip. “I just came here to warn you,” she said. “I was worried about you.”
The truth of that statement made it hard to breathe. When was the last time someone had worried about him? Before she’d said “you know me well enough by now…” He did know her well enough. Well enough to know when she was lying.
She hadn’t been lying about her reason for coming today. She’d been concerned. For him. Not for herself like she should have been.
He didn’t want to know that. He wished he could erase it from his memory along with every conversation they’d had or kiss they’d shared. He tugged his hand out from under hers and pulled back slightly. “And what are you still doing here?”
Her eyes widened slightly and to his horror he saw tears there again, hovering at her eyelids. One blink and they’d fall.
He could not handle her tears right now. His voice was gruffer than he intended as he repeated himself. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know,” she said quickly. But then she shook her head and let out a huff of a breath. “That’s not true. I can’t leave without telling you something.”
The silence in the room was torture as she licked her lips and took a deep breath. “I like you.”
The words were a blow to his chest. They were trying to wheedle their way in. He swallowed and took a deep, fortifying breath. “You’ve said that already.”
Enchanting the Beast Page 12
