“Oh, for the love of God,” I mutter, moving forward and shoving both of them out of the way. “I’ll do it.”
So much for absolving myself of guilt. My need to know what’s behind this door has pushed my guilt to the backseat.
Without giving it another thought, I turn the handle on the door and step inside. Smacking my hand against the inside wall, I feel for a light switch and flip it on. The room is immediately bathed in the soft glow of a beautiful, crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and I can’t help it—my eyes instantly fill with tears as I look around with my jaw hanging wide open.
Ariel and Cindy shoulder past me, both of them coming to a dead stop in the middle of the huge room. It has a vaulted ceiling just like out in the living room, and I’m honestly surprised at the size of it. I’m guessing Vincent must have knocked down a few walls, because this thing is three times the size of both of our bedrooms combined.
“What in the actual fuck?!” Ariel shouts as she moves further into the room.
“This is . . . not at all what I expected,” Cindy adds.
I can do nothing but stand here in shock as my two friends move around the room.
“Why in the hell would he make it a rule that you can’t come in here and keep this room locked? This is like your mother ship,” Ariel says with a shake of her head.
It’s definitely my mother ship. It’s the most beautiful home library I’ve ever seen. And really, calling it a home library is a disgrace. It’s almost more beautiful than the library I work in. There’s floor-to-ceiling walnut bookcases covering each wall all around the room, every single shelf jam-packed with books. There’s even a ladder on wheels, and I start bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet, the need to climb that thing and have someone push me around the room so great that I almost can’t stand it. We don’t even have one of those things at my library. We have to use an old, crappy, regular ladder to get up to the higher shelves.
There’s a stone fireplace, similar to the one out in the living room, built in between the shelves on one wall, with several pieces of leather furniture in front of it.
“This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” I whisper in awe, moving to one of the walls and running my fingertips over the spines of the books.
He’s got everything from true-crime thrillers to romance to vintage classics.
“Why in the hell would he keep something like this locked up? It makes no sense,” Ariel wonders, flopping down in one of the leather chairs in front of the fireplace.
“Maybe he’s so crotchety and closed off because he used to be married and this was his wife’s favorite room,” Cindy muses, standing next to Ariel’s chair.
“Oooooh, maybe a bookshelf fell on her and she died, and he just can’t bring himself to step foot into this room!” Ariel adds.
“Oh, no. That’s so sad,” Cindy says with a frown.
“That’s so ridiculous,” I mutter, shaking my head at them.
“Not as ridiculous as what the hell you three are doing in here.”
We all let out ear-piercing shrieks, and I whirl around to find Vincent standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets and a murderous expression on his face.
“SHE DID IT!” we all shout, all pointing at one another.
Vincent shakes his head and sighs.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, holding up the bottle of the wine. “The wine made us do it. And also, I think we might have dented your door a little when Ariel slammed her shoulder into and Cindy tried kicking it down. I’m really sorry and we’ll buy you a new door.”
“Oh, my God, don’t tell him that!” Ariel whispers loudly under her breath. “Now he’s definitely going to kill us.”
Vincent pulls one of his hands out of his pocket, bringing his cell phone out with him as he dials and brings it up to his ear.
“Oh, shit. The jig is up! He’s calling the cops. I can’t go to jail!” Ariel wails, jumping up from her chair and clutching Cindy’s arm.
“There are drunk women at my house. Come get them,” Vincent growls into the phone.
“Fuck. I bet he called the mob. He looks like he hangs with mobsters. Or maybe a biker gang. Oh, no. We’re going to be taken away by bikers and never heard from again!” Cindy cries.
Vincent ends the call and shoves the phone back into his jeans.
“Your boyfriend will be here in ten minutes,” Vincent growls at Cindy, shooting me one last annoyed look before turning and walking down the hall.
I let out the breath I was holding, thankful that there would be no bloodshed tonight.
Cindy and Ariel quickly walk past me, both of them giving me a pat on the back. Ariel hands me the bottle of wine as she goes.
“Here, you might need this. We’re just going to go wait outside for PJ. If Beast starts yelling at you, just pretend to cry. Men can’t handle it when women cry,” Ariel tells me.
My friends leave me alone in the library and run as fast as they can down the hall. When I hear their muffled voices telling Vincent he has a lovely library before the sound of the front door slamming closed, I realize I won’t have to pretend to cry. Tears fill my eyes and my lips quiver as I hug the bottle of wine to my chest, slowly taking my walk of shame out into the hallway so I can accept my punishment for what I’ve done.
Chapter 18: Rules Are Meant to Be Broken
When I get into the living room, Vincent is standing with his back to me across the room, facing the door where the girls just left, his arms crossed in front of him.
“Did you have fun tonight?” he asks, his voice low and emotionless.
Which is unfortunate. I don’t know if I should apologize again and beg him not to kick me out, or act like it was no big deal. Maybe I’ll just pretend like it never happened.
“Oh, yes! We had a lot of fun!”
I watch his shoulders tense and realize I probably should have gone with another apology. I open my mouth to give him the best I’m sorry I can muster, when suddenly, there’s a loud knock on the door.
Vincent’s hands ball into fists at his sides, and I quickly look around the room, wondering if Cindy or Ariel forgot something. I really hope it’s just a door-to-door salesman or something. If my friends show back up here, he might lose it. Vincent takes a step forward and opens the door.
“Hi! I’m Dusty! I’m here to pick up Isabelle for a date. Are you her father? It’s very nice to meet you, sir.”
I groan as the man standing on the front stoop, who looks like he might still be in high school, holds one hand out towards Vincent. The other hand clutches a bouquet of wildflowers, with roots and mud still attached, that I’m guessing he just picked from somewhere in Vincent’s front yard. With the girls coming over and all the wine we drank, on top of finding out that Vincent doesn’t have a room filled with dead bodies but a library filled with books, I completely forgot about this stupid date.
Vincent takes a step back and slams the door in Dusty’s face without saying a word.
“Well, that was rude,” I mutter as Vincent whirls around and glares at me from across the room.
I take a few steps back until I run into the wall behind me. He’s more than twenty feet away from me, but that look in his eyes is a little frightening.
“You. Broke. A. Rule.”
Each word is clipped and spoken through clenched teeth. For the first time since I met him, I shiver with fear instead of excitement. Sure, I told the girls breaking into that room wasn’t right, but I should have put up more of a fight. I should have argued and put my foot down and never, ever let myself drink so much wine that I forgot all about the trust Vincent showed me when he told me not to go in that room.
“I-I-I-know,” I stutter. “I said I was sorry and—”
“I DON’T GIVE A SHIT IF YOU’RE FUCKING SORRY!” he bellows, his thunderous voice practically shaking the entire house. “YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO GO IN THAT FUCKING ROOM. IT WAS LOCKED FOR A GODDAMN REASON. YOU AGREED TO THE RULES, AND YOU
FUCKING LIED!”
He stands there with his feet spread and chest heaving, both of his fists still clenched tightly down by his thighs. I know I shouldn’t say anything to poke the beast even further, but it’s impossible for me to keep quiet. I know I’m in the wrong, and I know I should be groveling at his feet, but I also know that I’m no longer the kind of person who just lets someone talk to me that way, even if I did something to warrant it.
“What the hell is wrong with you?! Calm down and stop acting like a . . .”
He stalks across the room towards me, and instead of moving back even further to try and become one with the wall behind me, I put my hands on my hips and stand my ground.
“Like a what? Like a FUCKING BEAST?!” he shouts. “This is who I am, princess! How many fucking times do I have to tell you?”
“This is not who you are, this is who you choose to be! I’ve seen you be kind and sweet, so don’t even try to act like you’re nothing but an animal who can’t control his temper. I said I was sorry. I’m not a liar. I just wanted to understand you better.”
He takes another menacing step towards me, fire raging in his eyes as he stares me down.
“There’s nothing to understand. Stay out of that fucking room. I’m not a prince in one of those fucking fairy tales you read, so get that out of your goddamn head! I said I’d help you with this ridiculous idea of learning how to be sexy, but that’s as far as it goes.”
“So what the hell was that kiss for the other night?” I fire back. “And don’t you even try to tell me that was a lesson, because we both know that’s bullshit!”
“It was a momentary lapse in judgment and it won’t happen again, you hear me?”
I smack my hands against his chest and shove as hard as I can until he moves out of my way, stomping around him before I break down in tears.
“Oh, don’t worry. I got that message loud and clear!” I yell back to him as I make my way towards the front door.
“Where the hell are you going?”
“NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS!” I shout, flinging the door open, more than a little surprised to see Dusty sitting on the front steps.
When I slam the door closed behind me, he turns around and looks up at me with a smile.
Marching across the porch, I reach down and grab his arm, dragging him up his feet.
“Let’s go. And I’m telling you right now, this better be the best damn date you’ve ever taken anyone on!”
* * *
This is the worst date I’ve ever been on.
It could be my mood that has soured this date, but I’m guessing that even if I were having the best day ever, this date would still be atrocious. It’s sad, too. For the first hour or so, Dusty seemed exactly my type. He even wore a similar pair of black-rimmed glasses as me, which he continuously had to push up the bridge of his nose all evening. He likes talking about books and he knows more random, useless facts than I do.
But Dusty is . . . how should I put this? A little too handsy.
“I’ve never been here before. It’s a nice place, a little crowded, but it’s still nice,” Dusty says loudly over the noise in the packed bar, his hand immediately reaching out and grabbing my butt.
I swat his hand away and give him another glare, just like I’ve done ten other times since we got here. I know I should punch him in the face, but considering I already did that to one of my dates, and I really, really don’t want to go back to Vincent’s house anytime soon, I’m trying my hardest to keep my cool. Maybe a bar wasn’t the best suggestion, but I wanted somewhere busy with lots of people, considering I didn’t know this guy. But a packed bar where we couldn’t sit down and were forced to stand in between people sitting on stools at the bar where Dusty could easily grope me probably wasn’t my best decision tonight.
“Sorry! I’m sorry! I do that when I’m nervous,” he tells me, laughing apprehensively as he holds both his hands up in the air and I take a huge drink of my wine.
“I know. You’ve already told me that. There’s no reason to be nervous. Why don’t you tell me a little more about yourself? Where do you work?”
He starts rambling about his job in accounting, talking ad nauseam about spreadsheets, numbers, and math until I’m zoning out and not listening to a word he says.
Who the hell does Vincent think he is, acting like that? I know I did something stupid, and I know it was a horrible thing to do, breaking his trust like that, but how dare he speak to me the way he did! How dare he yell at me and throw a damn vase! I hope he feels like an idiot. I hope he’s sitting there all alone in that house, regretting every word he said to me. He’s going to have to do a lot of groveling to get me to forgive him this time.
I can’t believe I’m even thinking about forgiving that man after the way he behaved. But underneath all that anger was hurt. Complete and utter pain that I deceived him on purpose, and that’s what makes it impossible for me to just walk away from him and never go back. That, and the fact that I have nowhere else to live. I want to know why it made him so upset that I went into that room, aside from the fact that I picked the lock and went in when he strictly told me not to. It was more than me just defying his orders. I could see it written all over his face. I want to know why he would hide something as beautiful and amazing as a home library. It just doesn’t make any sense. There has to be more to it than just his stupid rule that I defied. And I want to know why he’d kiss me like that and say it would never go any further and that it was a stupid lapse in judgment. I may not have much experience with kissing, but I know I felt that thing down to my toes, and that’s not something that would happen if it were just a mistake.
“And there’s nothing more satisfying than when all the numbers add up, let me tell you,” Dusty says, bringing me out of my thoughts as he once again reaches over and rests his hand on one of my butt cheeks.
I open my mouth to tell him to remove it, when suddenly a low, angry voice right next to me cuts through the hum of conversation around us.
“Remove your hand from her ass before I rip it from your body and beat the shit out of you with it.”
My stomach drops as my head whips around to find Vincent standing a foot away, shooting a murderous look at poor Dusty. The man is intelligent enough to yank his hand off of me and take a few steps back, bumping into a couple seated on stools behind him.
“I’m sorry, sir! It’s a nervous twitch thing, I swear!” Dusty hastily explains, moving away from the bar and walking backwards, where he bumps into another group of people.
The shock at Vincent being here finally wears off, and anger takes over as I slam my glass of wine down on the bar and put my hands on my hips.
“What the hell are you doing here?!” I shout.
“I followed you. And clearly I’m saving you from this asshole,” Vincent replies, not even glancing over at me as he continues to glare at Dusty, whose face is now covered in a thin sheen of nervous sweat.
“I don’t need you to save me, and he’s not an asshole! You’re an asshole!” I reply in annoyance.
“Did you ask him to grab your ass?” he asks, finally looking over at me with one eyebrow raised.
“I . . . I . . . no! Of course not! But—”
“Then I’m saving you from this asshole.”
He looks away from me and takes a menacing step towards Dusty.
“Get the fuck out of here and never call her again,” Vincent growls.
Dusty’s right arm immediately flies out, grabbing the butt of a woman standing right next to him.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! It’s a nervous twitch!” he quickly apologizes to the woman when she whirls around and shoots him a dirty look as he backs away, tripping over his own two feet and bumping into a bar table, knocking over a few glasses.
Vincent growls at him again, and Dusty turns and runs out of the bar, pushing and shoving people out of his way as he goes. When he disappears out the front door, Vincent visibly relaxes and turns around to face me.
>
“I can’t believe you just did that,” I mutter.
“You’re welcome.”
“I wasn’t thanking you! You can’t just show up here like this when I’m on a date! Especially after the way you behaved tonight. You are such a jerk!”
I shoulder past him, making my way through the crowd of people until I finally get outside, pausing on the sidewalk to close my eyes and take a few, much-needed deep breaths of fresh air.
“I’m sorry.”
My eyes fly open when I hear Vincent speak behind me, so quietly that I barely hear him, but I refuse to turn around. I hear his footsteps thump against the concrete and a few seconds later, feel the heat from his body as he stands right behind me. My own stupid, traitorous body shivers. When he’s standing so close I can smell his soap and feel his warm breath against the top of my head.
“You drive me crazy,” he mutters.
Holding my breath, I remain perfectly still, waiting for him to say more.
“I never expected someone like you, and it’s . . . fuck!” he curses.
I can hear him slide his hand through his hair, and I slowly turn around to face him.
“It’s what?” I whisper, looking up at him.
“It’s confusing. I don’t trust people very easily. I know you aren’t a liar. I never should have said that to you,” he admits quietly.
“I shouldn’t have broken one of your rules. I’m so sorry, Vincent,” I tell him softly, not breaking eye contact so he can see how truly sorry I am.
He lets out a deep sigh, reaching a hand up between us and tucking a strand of hair that fell out of my messy bun behind one of my ears. His fingertips gently slide down over my cheek and then he shoves both of his hands in the front pockets of his jeans.
“Maybe some rules are meant to be broken. Come home.”
The way he says the word home makes my heart stutter in my chest. I should tell him I’m finished taking orders from him, but at least he apologized. I never thought I’d ever hear those two words out of his mouth. I know a sane woman would probably be scared to death of this man and his hair-trigger temper, but I’m clearly not sane when it comes to Vincent Adams. And even though I haven’t known him for very long, I do know he would never hurt me. Not physically, at least. My heart is a whole other matter.