Page 114 of Snowed In with Benefits

We snake our way across town until we reach Preston’s fancy condo complex. There’s street parking, but all the condo spaces are reserved for the residents. I pull up along the curb. Beau and Hunter pull up behind me a few seconds later. I squeeze Emmett’s hand before we get out of the car. I open my mouth to say something, to tell him that what he said in the car cracked something open in me, that I’ll carry those words for a long time, but nothing comes out. He squeezes back, and the look he gives me says he already knows.

“So, this is the place,” Hunter says, looking up at the building. He wrinkles his nose. “You were going to live here?”

“I was,” I admit, and I look up at the building and see it through their eyes. It’s all concrete and steel and glass, black and silver, sleek and unnatural. The tiny balconies show nothing about the people who live behind them, since the rule is that nothing should be seen over the little black wall. There’s a man at the door with a stern face and a black uniform. No plants. No trees. Just function and the smug architecture of money.

“We’ll have to get past the doorman,” I tell them.

Beau cracks his knuckles.

I roll my eyes. “Not like that.”

We all go up to the doorman together. I’m in front, backed up and flanked by three massive men. The doorman does a double take and turns a little pale. He steps in front of me as we approach the door.

“Unit number?” he asks.

“13,” I tell him.

“Think that would’ve been a red flag,” Hunter murmurs. I ignore him.

The doorman looks at his tablet. “Name?”

“Josie Marsh.”

“Josie Marsh… you were removed from the list ten days ago.”

The audacity. How dare he remove me from the list when all of my stuff is still there? Well… okay. After what he saw, I kind of get it.

“I understand that,” I say patiently. “We had a nasty breakup. All of my stuff is still in his condo and I’m here to get it.”

The doorman nods like this isn’t his first time hearing this kind of story. “Understood. Let me make a call.”

We wait as he steps aside and makes the call. I assume he’s calling Preston.

“I wonder if he’s telling Preston that three giants are here to take his ex-fiancée’s things,” I murmur out loud.

Beau snorts. “I hope not. I hope he just gives him your name.”

I grin at that, thinking of the chaos that would ensue if Preston thought he had the chance to corner me alone, only to be faced with his three greatest fears: that he’s not sexy enough, not tall enough, and not suave enough.

The doorman comes back. “He’s expecting you,” he says. He doesn’t say anything about the guys, but they don’t ask for permission before following me into the building. The doorman looks like he’s going to argue, then he steps aside and sits down, watching us go. If there’s one thing my guys don’t appear to be, it’s fuckwithable.

We get up to condo number thirteen. I knock on the door. Preston opens it, his face already arranged to lecture me. He spots the guys behind me and his mouth drops open, then snaps shut. He goes red in the face and scowls.

“What the hell are they doing here?”

“They’re helping me get my stuff,” I tell him.

“They’re not coming in here.”

Beau snorts. “Says who?”

Preston pales. “Just don’t touch anything that isn’t Josie’s,” he mutters.

“Thank you,” I tell him. There’s no reason to be impolite to the man I’m terrorizing, after all.

We head inside. The place is cleaner than I remember, which is saying something because it was always clean. More sterile than lived-in. There’s a black electric fireplace flat against one wall that I never once saw turned on. Black marble countertops in the kitchen, not a single crumb or coffee ring. Black and silver furniture in the living room, everything chosen by him, everything that I was supposed to live with when I moved in because it’s expensive and designer and uncomfortable in the way that lets you know that it cost a lot of money. There are no photos on the walls. No books on the shelves. Nothing in this apartment that would tell you a human being lives here, let alone two.

“I already packed your stuff,” Preston says, his voice coming out almost whiny. He steps back away from the guys as they turn around to face him, and points at the pile of boxes by the door. “There.”