Mitchell nodded, looking chagrinned. “Thanks for saving me, though.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You would have been okay, wouldn’t you?”
Those lips turned up, and there—that was the thing that was making me stay. A man of his wealth should have been a stone-cold asshole. Profits. Shareholders. Servants in every corner. But that wasn’t him. That shift in his expression, theemotions dancing in those sea-glass eyes—there was more there than what he showed the world. A damaged soul. An ass.
A little boy, shocked that someone would care.
I cared the way I would about a wounded animal, I told myself.
But that didn’t ring entirely true.
“This way,” Mitchell said. We’d been standing there assessing each other. Staring, and up so close.
I was glad for his back being to me as I followed him up the stairs. I was blushing furiously.
As it turned out, it was his bedroom he took me to. “I have something you can wear in there while you wait,” he’d assured me on the stairs.
His room was dark when we got there, but I could see in the shadows that it was massive; well-appointed, of course, with a platform bed and matching low dresser. The cream wool carpet was soft as butter under my bare feet. But besides the walls, which were adorned like the downstairs with massive abstract oil paintings, this room was stark, the surfaces bare. You could bounce a quarter off the pale gray bedspread, and there wasn’t so much as a paperback novel on his nightstand.
“Anita,” Mitchell said, “low lights, please.”
The room lit with a soft glow, though rather than visible lights, everything was backlit. Was this a rich person thing?
And he said ‘please’ to his house robot. I found that strangely endearing.
Mitchell disappeared into his closet. A moment later, light spilled out onto the floor. I hovered by the door, feeling suddenly awkward.
“Your cleaner does a bang-up job,” I said.
Mitchell appeared in the closet door. All I could see was the shape of him. The curl of his hair right at the spot wherehis shoulders sloped. The cut of muscle on his arms where his still-soaked shirt clung to him. Without being able to see the unkempt beard and wild hair, he looked almost like a statue. A marble statue shaped with a chisel over decades.
“Did you say something?”
Jaysus, Winona.He may have shown some vulnerability, but hewasstill an asshole.You just need dry clothes so you don’t freeze to death.That was the only reason I was staying.
It wasn’t that cold outside. It was only September.
“It looks like no one sleeps in here,” I said to drown out the rational part of my brain.
Mitchell inspected the room for a minute, as if this news surprised him too. Then he disappeared again without a word.
Irritation flashed in my chest, my previous thought validated. “Asshole,” I muttered under my breath. “And you’re an idiot, Winona.” As had happened all night, since the moment I left O’Malley’s, I wanted to kick myself.
You could still leave.
That smart voice inside of me was correct. I should. But each time I listened to that voice, something happened that made me ignore it. There was something about this man that messed with my logical mind.
“The thought of you leaving feels like something scraping out my insides.”
I turned around, unable to even look in the direction he was in.
That was just some flowery line; something a writer made up.
Just until my clothes dried, that was all. Then I never needed to see him—and grapple with this weird way his presence seemed to rewire my brain.
I stared at the painting over the bed, a swirl of confusing colors and patterns. It felt like my insides.
“These have a tie thing.” His voice made me jump.
