There’s no second-guessing if someone has broken into my house.This is Joel, the landlord, and he could still be here.
I’m calling the police.
Just then the shrill ringing of my phone kicks my pulse into overdrive and I nearly drop the device as I release a hair-raising scream.
Zachary Rothwell’s name lights up the screen and I feverishly hit the button, blinking back the tears threatening to slide down my face.
“Paige, it’s Zach—” I cut him off before he has a chance to say another word.
My insides are a jumble and my body trembles with the threat of Joel Hummel jumping from the shadows at any moment.
“Help me.”
11
Zach
Iwander onto the terrace, drink in one hand and phone in the other, immediately grateful for the quiet.Male jeers and laughter, the sounds of bottles clinking, and music emanate from the living room.My ears still throb from the chaos inside, otherwise known as monthly poker night.
Seeking solitude, I left the group of men—some colleagues but mainly guys I grew up with, and some I even call friends—to come outside into the muggy night air.But truth be told, I only wanted silence to gather my thoughts.
Paige is on my mind.
She has been for the better part of the day.She was phenomenal with the board last night.A natural.She fit in like she’d been doing those kinds of dinners all her life.So much so, a few board members have reached out to comment on my brilliance in dating such a woman.
I’ve wanted to call her many times today but have been smart enough to think better of it.It isn’t that I worry what she’ll think if I do call.I have the perfect reason to—a legitimate excuse—Nan has invited her to lunch.
But I don’thave tocall her.I have options.I could just as easily have Karen, my assistant, extend the invitation, even on the weekend, and that would be the best thing to do.
The truth of it all is I want to hear her voice.
And this is a foreign concept to me.I’ve always enjoyed the company of women, but not to the point of needing to speak to one just because.
Paige is different from the women I’ve dated and I think that’s what it is.This thing we’re doing isn’t conventional or even dating.Maybe that’s why I’m so intrigued.
Now, as the day draws to an end, that need—to hear her voice—is greatest.
And absolutely insane.
With the phone to my ear, I’ve got my banal greeting ready to go the minute she picks up.I will play it cool and aloof.
Only my façade crumbles at the breathless panic coating her two shaky words.“Help me.”
“Paige, what’s wrong?”Something grabs hold of my throat and it feels like an agonizing eternity before she responds.
“He was here and…and…I-I-I don’t know if he still is.”
My heart spasms.
Joel Hummel.
He was in her house.
Again.
“Call the police.I’m on my way.And Paige.”I pause, placing a hand over my exposed ear to lessen the noise now that I’m back inside.“Is he still in the house?”
Words and paragraphs from the report the investigator put together on her landlord flit through my mind.Dammit, she doesn’t know who she’s dealing with.
