Take the Fall (Take the Fall, #1)(16)

Maybe she’s adopted.

“Thanks for letting me crash here.” I let go of her and we walk up the stairs, passing a housekeeper on the way. I smile and say hi. Piper says hi, too.

“New person?” I ask, once the woman’s out of earshot.

“Yes,” Piper says. “Momma didn’t like how the last one ate lunch in the kitchen.”

“Where are you supposed to eat?”

“At home.”

“Oh.” My eyes widen a little, and I shake my head. “I’ll try not to bother you too much. I have inventory to do.”

“Shouldn’t you do that at work?” she asks, genuinely curious.

“New computer program.” I gently pat the computer bag that’s hanging by my side. “Makes life easier.”

Piper regards me thoughtfully, her head tilting to one side. “Are you sure it’s not because Seth is there?”

I can either lie to her or tell the truth. “Maybe,” I hedge.

“Rowan,” she says with a sigh.

I roll my eyes and set the laptop on her desk. Piper has an entire suite of rooms to herself. While her dad makes good money as the chief of police in Jessamine, all this is bankrolled by her mother. Mrs. Ross is an heiress to an international insurance underwriting company, which makes Piper an heiress. Which means she’s expected to marry someone in the same league.

“I need a break. He’s sleeping at my house and now he shows up at work. I can’t get away long enough to think straight.”

“Why would you need to think straight?”

My cheeks heat.

Piper’s brows go up. “Spill.”

“He kissed me and I kissed him back.”

She grins. “I knew it.”

“You knew he kissed me?”

“Well, no, but I knew something had to be going on between the two of you. You can’t fight something like that. Y’all have a history.”

“History being the key word. We don’t have a present or a future,” I remind her. I fall back on her bed, closing my eyes when the mattress seems to suck me into it. “I want your bed.”

Piper lies down beside me, although she does it with a lot more grace. “You can have it. I’d switch places with you in a New York minute.”

“Sorry, doll, no deal. Your mother and I would kill each other.”

Piper laughs. “She’s not that bad.”

I eye her and she wrinkles her nose.

“Okay, so she can be, but violence should always be a last resort.”

“Says the daughter of a cop.”

“What if Seth wants to have a future with you?” Piper asks. “What if he’s here to make things up to you?”

I’m sorry. I was full of hate and anger. I’m sorry. I won’t let his words sway me. Only his actions have a chance of changing my mind. “I’ll let you know.”

“Don’t wait too long, Rowan. He might actually be worth falling for again.”

I tap her nose. “When did you become so knowledgeable about men?”

She sticks her tongue out at me, something she’d never do in front of her family. I’m pretty sure it’s because showing emotions aren’t allowed. “I don’t have to screw the football team to figure out that the boy on the sideline is who I should be with.”

“You slut!” I tease. “You’ve been screwing the football team. The underage football team.” I cover my mouth in mock horror. “Think of the children.”

She smacks me with a pillow. “You suck.”

“You love me.”

She snorts. “Only on the days that end in y.”

“Really, thanks for letting me stay with you. I don’t know what to do right now.” I hate admitting this to anyone, but I know Piper won’t use my doubts against me.

“You can stay for as long as you want. I like the company. I also took the opportunity to buy six grocery bags of junk food and bought all the angsty eighties movies I could find at Target.”

Closing my eyes, I send up a silent prayer of thanks for friends like Piper. “I call dibs on Duckie.”

“You’ve always liked the good ones,” Piper remarks.

“While you want to walk on the wild side,” I point out. That’s the oddity of us. She wants a man who’s the opposite of the men she already knows, while I want one with a steady job and a rap sheet that isn’t a mile long. But that’s not what’s expected of either of us.

My eyes open to catch her gazing wistfully at the ceiling. “Only if I had a badass escort to keep me safe,” she sighs.

Despite knowing exactly who Piper’s talking about, I just nod sympathetically. Odd how we both want what we can’t have.





Seth


Disappointment assails me as soon as I learn that Rowan isn’t at work. She didn’t come home last night, and I’m more than a little worried about it. But she’s a grown woman who has looked after herself for a long time. And I lost the right to worry after her a long time ago.

Still, the entire situation doesn’t sit right with me.

“Does she usually take off on Saturdays? You know, to get her nails done or something?” I ask, deliberately testing Gardner’s head mechanic’s loyalty to Rowan.