The Pact (Winslow Brothers #2)(42)

He grins. Nods. And steps forward to snag the large white suitcase that started the clusterfuck in the first place. As he pulls it off the carousel, I point to the one next to it. And then another one.

And another one.

“That’s it,” I finally declare once four large—and heavy—suitcases are off the track and sitting beside me. “I took your advice and packed light,” I say through the embarrassment.

The sarcasm makes Flynn laugh, and my chest inflates dramatically. Gah, that might be the best sound ever.

I have the immediate and almost overpowering desire to make it happen again.

Flynn handles my shitshow of bags with ease, leaving me with only my backpack and carry-on to manage.

He looks strong, confident, calm, and—dare I say it—content.

As we make our way out of the airport and head in the direction of Flynn’s car, I can’t stop myself from thinking that if I were an innocent bystander watching our interaction, I might actually believe that we are husband and wife. In a serious relationship, at the very least.

Which, I guess, is a good thing, right?

For getting a green card? Yes. For your future sanity? Probably not.





Flynn

The elevator dings our arrival on my floor, and I jerk my chin for Daisy to go ahead of me and her four suitcases. She’s been relatively silent since we left the airport, choosing instead to spend her time surveying the city around her as we drove, saying only a singular “wow” when I drove my Range Rover into the underground garage beneath my apartment building.

I know it’s a lot—moving here, across the country, to the apartment of a man she barely knows—so I don’t push her. She’ll have plenty to say in her own time; I’m pretty much sure of that.

I hand her the keys to open the lock, and after pushing the door open, she heads to the kitchen first, located right off the entryway hallway, to divest herself of her backpack and carry-on—and then performs a slow spin into the living room. The floor-to-ceiling windows at the side make the light so bright that a gentle dust floats in the air, and the leather of my cognac-colored couch almost shimmers.

Her yellow pillows sit in each corner of the couch, and she smiles when she sees them. She circles around to the back of the couch to look out the windows again and perhaps take in the whole room at once, and the motion light in the back hallway clicks on.

“Mm,” she hums. “I see this place is just as teched-out as the one in Vegas.”

I shrug. It’s practical to be able to see where you’re going with minimal effort.

“The pillows look great,” she continues then. “Really liven up the place.”

My shoulders rise and fall again. “I’ll take your word for it.”

She giggles at that, turning to look again at the room and any of the details she may have missed, when her gaze snags on the fireplace—or more specifically, the painting above it.

It features a laughing woman with curly hair and vibrant eyes, the strokes of the paintbrush soft and wispy in a way that completely belies the masculine overtones found throughout the rest of my place.

Now that I look at it closely, it’s remarkably similar in its resemblance to her in both physicality and personality.

“That painting…it…it seems out of character for you.”

I nod. “It is. But my great-great-aunt painted it many years ago and promised it to me when she passed. It’s been hanging there ever since. I’m pretty fond of it, honestly.”

Perhaps that’s why I became so enamored of Daisy so quickly. Normally, I don’t take a weighted interest in anyone’s life but my own.

Daisy nods, her eyes watching me closely for a long moment before moving on almost suddenly.

“What’s down this way?” she asks with a small jerk of her head toward the hallway.

I raise my eyebrows, and she laughs, adding, “Right. Only one way to find out with Mr. Mysterious.”

She walks to the end of the hallway, peeking in briefly to a linen closet and a half bathroom on the way, and then opens the door—after a nod of permission from me—to my bedroom.

The gray brick on the opposite wall stands out in the light from the windows, and the industrial shelving on one side of it boasts its emptiness.

“There’s nothing on those shelves,” Daisy points out immediately, making me laugh.

“I know.”

She shakes her head and then startles, her head jerking toward me. “Is that it?”

“What do you mean? To the apartment?”

“Yes. To the apartment. That’s it?”

I shrug. “Yeah.”

“There’s…there’s only one bedroom in this apartment?”

I raise my eyebrows, and she immediately shakes her head. A long-winded babble is coming, I can feel it.

“How is that possible? H-how? I googled your building, and this building doesn’t look like the kind of building that has apartments with only one bedroom in it.”

“I didn’t know that was discernible from the outside.”

“Well, it’s not! Obviously! Because here I am in a building that shouldn’t have any one-bedroom apartments, in a one-bedroom apartment. Your house in Vegas has multiple bedrooms, Flynn. Why doesn’t this have multiple bedrooms?”