Page 75 of Most Eligible
He shakes his head. “She only knows you were in my room last week. Nothing else. I was worried,” he says, then breaks off. “She’s had it in for you from the start. At first, I believed her—that you were just here for your job.” He takes my left hand in his, running his thumb over my raw, bleeding cuticles. “But I hope no one would put themselves through this just for a story.” His eyes find mine, asking a silent question of me.
I look away, feeling monumentally foolish.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.” He gets to his feet, pulling a stool up beside the counter and helping me onto it. “Here,” he says, twisting out of his flannel overshirt. He puts it around my shoulders, and I shrug into the sleeves, letting the warmth calm me down.
“Where are the others?”
“They’re outside,” he says. “Olie’s on the roof and Addison is staking her out.”
If Olie’s hiding on the roof, things can’t be going according to plan. “I should help Olie.” I move to get off the stool, but Rhett sets a hand on my knee.
“Just wait a minute.” He rummages in the cabinet and pulls out a first aid kit. His forehead knits in concentration as he opens a bandage and gently wipes the drops of blood from my fingers.
“Jeez,” he whispers, eyeing the fake nail that’s hanging from my finger like a screen door after a storm. He peels it off and tosses it in the trash.
“It’s—it’s an anxiety thing,” I murmur. “I got better for a while, but being here… It’s really hard.”
“It is hard,” he says, nodding. “You’re doing great.”
My heart starts to slow as he turns to my face.
“May I?”
I nod, not daring to speak. With that same featherlight touch, he wipes the tears and makeup from my face.
“So serious,” I whisper, a smile tugging at my lips as his fingers skim my cheekbone. His face lights up, but he stays focused.
He turns my hand in his so he can see the new tattoo at my wrist. His thumb rolls over the bone, and I shiver as he murmurs, “I like it.”
We’re kissing distance now, his lips parted like they’ve just whispered a secret.
“Georgia,” he breathes. It’s a secret in itself, the way he says my name. Like a wisp of perfume slipping into me.
I lean closer, my knee bumping his hip. He sucks in a breath, his teeth snagging his bottom lip. He hooks his hand under my knee, tugging me forward on the stool.
Suddenly, a high-pitched scream rips through the air, and he leaps back like I’ve burned him. Then:Crash.
“She’s trying to kill me!” someone screams.
“Oh god,” I whisper. “Was that Addison?”
Footsteps pound through the living room and I see a flash of rust-red beard fly by before Norbert bursts out onto the veranda.
Rhett and I look at each other, then hurry to follow Norbert. Paintball be damned, I have to make sure Olie isn’t hurt—or hasn’t hurt someone else.
We make it outside just as Norbert leaps off the veranda and into the cluster of bushes beneath the terrace roof. A jumble of limbs pokes out of the top as the bushes shake violently.
Monica jogs up to the house from the gardens, looking less dewy than usual, her modesty bandanas askew on her hips. “What the hell—”
“I HAVE APPREHENDED THE CULPRIT!” Norbert bellows, his arms clawing their way out of the bushes. “ADDISON IS ALIVE!”
Addison crawls out from under one of the bushes, spitting leaves out of her mouth.
Rhett bends down and helps her to her feet. Damn him for being so gallant.
The bushes give one last shake, and then Norbert rolls out, entangled with someone else, and shouts, “THE ATTACKER IS DOWN, I REPEAT, THE ATTACKER IS—Olie?”
If there’s no champagne toast at the end of the night, you know things have gone terribly, terribly wrong.
