A knock at the door.
I froze, my blood turning to ice.
It was past midnight. No one knocked on my door past midnight. Not Layla, who would've texted first. Not my neighbors, who barely acknowledged my existence. No one.
My heart slammed against my ribs as I grabbed the baseball bat from beside the couch and crept toward the door on silent feet. I pressed my eye to the peephole, my breath coming in short, shallow bursts that fogged the glass.
A man stood in the hallway.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dark hair and his face was turned downward so I couldn’t see it. He wasn't wearing a uniform, but that didn't mean anything. Lang and Briggs hadn't been in uniform when they'd murdered Chris Greene, either.
I tightened my grip on the bat, my palms slick with sweat.
The man shifted, turning slightly toward the peephole like he knew I was watching, and the dim hallway light caught his face.
My heart stopped.
No.
No, no, no.
It couldn't be.
"Betty." His voice was low and rough, muffled through the door but unmistakable. A voice I'd spent ten years trying to forget. A voice that still haunted my dreams, no matter how hard I tried to exorcise it. "Open the door."
The bat slipped in my sweaty grip, and I had to catch it before it clattered to the floor.
"I know you're there," he continued, his voice carrying that edge of command I remembered too well. "I can see the shadow under the door. Open up, Betty. Please."
Please.That one word almost broke me. Hudson Cole didn't say please. He demanded. He took what he wanted without asking permission.
Except when it came to leaving me. He'd been pretty damn polite about that.
I undid the chain with trembling fingers, then the deadbolt. Took a deep breath that did absolutely nothing to calm my racing heart. And yanked the door open.
There he was.
Hudson Cole. In the flesh. Standing in my hallway like it hadn't been ten years since I'd last seen him. Like he had any right to show up at my door in the middle of the night, looking like every fantasy I'd ever tried to burn out of my memory.
He looked older. Harder. The boyish softness I remembered from our early twenties had been carved away, replaced by sharp angles and rough edges. His jaw was more defined, shadowed with a few days' worth of stubble that made me want to run my fingers along it. A thought I immediately shoved into a deep, dark hole and buried. His shoulders were broader, his chest wider, straining against a black t-shirt. He'd put on at least twenty pounds of muscle since I'd last seen him, and there was a new scar cutting through his left eyebrow, a thin white line that hadn't been there before.
He wore dark jeans that hugged his thighs in ways that should've been illegal, and worn leather boots that looked like they'd seen combat. A duffel bag hung from one shoulder.
But his eyes. God, his eyes were exactly the same. That dark, stormy blue that had always made me feel like I was drowning. Like I was falling into something I'd never be able to climb out of.
They were locked on me now, sweeping over my face, my body, assessing every detail like he was memorizing me. Like I was something precious he'd lost and finally found again.
It made me want to slam the door in his face.
It made me want to throw myself into his arms.
I did neither. Instead, I raised the baseball bat and pointed it at his chest.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
His mouth twitched, not quite a smile, but close. "Nice to see you too, Betty."
"Answer the question."
