The Last Eligible Billionaire(5)
“Turn around.”
He aims his eyeballs at the ceiling. I yank the robe shut, tie it, then aim the blow dryer at him once again. “How do I know you’re the owner? What if you just know the owner? Or what if you’re casing the joint to figure out when the house will be empty next?”
“You’ve found me out. I’m a burglar. I’m the tuxedo burglar, and I only burgle while wearing last night’s formal wear. Whatever shall I take first?”
“Sarcasm is not attractive on you.”
“I don’t believe you’re in any condition to make observations about anyone else’s attractiveness.”
I gasp. Did he just—he did.
He called me ugly. “Marshmallow, bite him in the balls.”
My dog lifts his head, bites the edge of a pair of jeans, pulls them off the hanger, and delivers them to my feet.
My intruder—Hayes—makes that face again like he’s considering all the bad decisions he’s made in life that led him to this moment.
Or possibly I’m projecting.
But is this a bad moment? Does it have to be a bad moment? “Marshmallow, you know those don’t fit my hips. If you want to help me dress, get something out of my suitcase.”
My dog grins at me. This is his favorite game. Look what I know how to do, Mommy.
Hayes squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I need to see a copy of this rental agreement.”
There’s nothing like being an obvious inconvenience to a man to make a woman believe his original intention wasn’t murder. Not saying I won’t annoy him enough that he’ll want to hurt me for other reasons—my ex-husband says I have a gift—but at the moment, I feel weirdly safe.
“It’s in my email on my phone. And if you’re not in the family pictures downstairs, I’m calling the police. I’m happy to work this out with you, but I need a show of good faith. You have to let me get dressed and cleaned up, and then I’ll show you the agreement.”
His nose twitches.
Because he’s afraid of the police? Does he come here to get in trouble? Are those not family photos downstairs? I didn’t look very closely in the study, because it felt wrong to work on watercolors in a room where I could’ve caused real damage if Marshmallow decided to help, and while I adore looking at family photos, I assumed they were staged and not the actual family that lives here.
“You have five minutes to get dressed and meet me downstairs with this rental agreement, or I’ll be the one calling the police. Are we clear?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“Five.”
“Fifteen.”
“Five.”
“Thirty.”
“Three.” He pulls a phone from his pocket, like he’s about to dial the police now.
And that’s when my dog decides it’s playtime.
I see it coming in slow motion. Marshmallow’s eyes landing on that phone. His brain clicking. Chew toy! Chew toy! His eyes light up, his jaw opens, his back legs engage, and in one quick snap, he’s stolen the phone.
And here we go. “Marshmallow!”
My hundred-pound dog pivots, launches forward, dashes from the carpeted closet to the tile-floored bathroom, skitters, gets his balance back, and sprints away.
And Hayes Rutherford, Mr. Fancy Pants with bloodshot eyes and a tic in his jaw and flaring nostrils and a stick up his butt—though maybe that’s not entirely his fault—turns the kind of glare on me that would’ve incinerated me on the spot a year ago before he takes off after my dog.
3
Hayes
Of all of the angles in the world, corners are by far my least favorite.
Specifically, being backed into a corner, which is exactly what I am now, because my squatter has realized something very, very dangerous.
“Oh my god,” she gasps through a pant. “You’re Hayes Rutherford.”
After chasing the dog all over the damn estate, she and I are now in the study, which is where the infernal animal finally decided my phone needed to go.
The furry beast trotted in here and deposited it right beside the wireless charger on the desk as though it knows how to charge a damn cell phone.
I’m breathing heavily. My eyelids hint at swelling and my throat tickles and my sinuses clog as I snag my phone and shove it back in my pocket. The woman is bent over gasping for breath like the last place she ran was to an ice cream stand. Her towel is gone from her head, her hair a sloppy mess pasted to her skull with some kind of goo in it. Her skull itself is an odd red color, which is leaking onto her green goop and turning it an unnatural shade between sewer brown and repulsive, and her robe is gaping open almost as much as her mouth as she stares at the row of family photos on the built-in bookshelves currently at her eye level.
“Your name,” I order.
The dog barks as though it thinks it can answer that question.
I point at it. “And get that nuisance out of my house. Now.”
“You’re from those Rutherfords. The Razzle Dazzle Rutherfords.”
There goes any chance I might have of privacy while I’m here. My mother will know my whereabouts in approximately forty-two minutes, because a woman whispered my name—it’s like rubbing the genie’s magic lamp—and she’ll arrive with at least one eligible bachelorette in tow within four hours.