Devastated (Anger Management, #1)(23)

“I think it’s safe to say that Miss Davis just figured out that she would be compensated for the rest of the year if you went to jail,” Ryan explained, following that up with a curse as Hunter watched the woman who had played him so well come rushing inside as he was yanked back and-

“Mr. O’Mallery didn’t miss his appointment! The therapist cancelled,” Kylie rushed to explain, sounding out of breath as she stumbled, righted herself and somehow managed to shove her phone in the D.A.’s hands before she stumbled again while the D.A. looked down at her phone and sighed heavily before handing it back to her.

“Release him,” the D.A. said, waving a hand dismissively in his direction. “The therapist cancelled and forgot to let us know,” he added while Hunter stood there, watching the woman that had taken him by surprise for the last time.





Chapter 13

“This isn’t so bad,” Kylie lied to herself because lying to herself was better than admitting that she was seconds away from freaking out.

Besides, things could be worse, she reminded herself as she sat there on the couch, the soft glow from the iPad the only light in the otherwise pitch-black room that she’d stumbled her way through the dark to get to after the power had gone out once she’d accepted the fact that it probably wasn’t coming back on for a while. Granted, she’d come to that conclusion with the help of the loud thunderstorm currently rocking the house and the text alert she’d received from the electric company informing her that they expected to have the power back on by six a.m.

Normally, she enjoyed thunderstorms and the way they were able to drown everything out, including the deafening silence that she’d always hated. It probably also didn’t hurt that storms had always guaranteed that she wouldn’t have to worry about waking up in the middle of the night to find her father standing over her bed, ready to take everything out on her since he hated storms and normally rode them out with a six-pack and a bottle of whiskey. Thankfully, her father had his priorities straight and always made sure there was plenty of alcohol in the house. So, Kylie never had to worry about her father paying her a visit on nights like this.

She’d probably been the only kid growing up who’d prayed for thunderstorms, she mused, worrying her bottom lip as she shifted back against the couch, reminding herself that those days were long gone and that she would never have to worry about waking up to find her father wrapping his hand around her throat, again. But unfortunately, no matter how many times she told herself that, she couldn’t quite seem to believe it.

Five years and fifteen hundred miles later, and she still couldn’t shake the feeling that-

“No,” Kylie said, shaking her head with a sigh because she wasn’t going there.

Not tonight of all nights.

Instead, she was going to sit here and answer emails, check on orders, and start working on getting everything ready for the convention while she waited for the lights to come back on, which she really hoped was soon because she was exhausted. She just wanted to go upstairs and curl up in her bed and call it a night, but she couldn’t do that until the lights came back on. Until that happened, she was going to take advantage of the situation and get some work done, she decided even as she couldn’t help but worry her bottom lip as she glanced around the large dark room, unable to shake the feeling that she wasn’t alone.

Telling herself that she was just being paranoid, she reluctantly opened the flashlight app on her iPad and-

“Tell me something, Miss Marshall,” Hunter drawled from where he lounged in the desk chair, shirtless, and looking completely relaxed while she sat there, waiting for the panic to hit, only…

It never came.

If anyone should scare her on a night like this, it should be this man, but for some strange reason she wasn’t scared. Then again, that probably had something to do with the fact that she was too busy struggling to remember if she’d said or done anything to embarrass herself in the last ten minutes. Besides, her mad dash in here while mumbling to herself like an idiot, she thought, biting back a wince.

“What are you doing up?” he finished, looking bored as he sat there, waiting for a reason that would explain why she was down here at two in the morning, wearing an oversized tee-shirt and a pair of panties when she should be in her room, fast asleep.

“Working,” Kylie said, clearing her throat nervously as she quickly reached down and discreetly adjusted her shirt so that she didn’t inadvertently give her boss a peep show.

“I see,” Hunter said, shifting his attention back towards the large window as several bolts of lightning struck with deafening booms that rocked the house as she reluctantly resigned herself to going back upstairs and-

“It occurred to me that we’re stuck living together for a year and we don’t know anything about each other,” Hunter said, while she sat there, licking her lips nervously even as she told herself that now was not the time to panic.

“Well, I-”

“Why don’t we rectify that, Miss Kennedy?” he suggested right around the time that she amended her previous decision and decided that now was definitely the perfect time to panic.

---

“Do you play cards, Miss Brown?” Hunter asked, as he pulled out a deck of cards from the kitchen drawer and tossed it on the table where it slid to a stop in front of Kylie, who looked seconds away from bolting for the door.