“Take a breath, Madison. You’re going to give yourself a stroke, and then I’ll have to save your life. We both know how much you hate owing people.”
“I don’t hate owing people. I hateyou!”
“No, you don’t,” he says, his voice dropping into that dangerous register. He takes a half-step forward, forcing me back an inch. “You hate that I’m the onlyperson in this building who isn’t intimidated by you, and you hate that I know you like the Spice Girls.”
I let out a gasp of pure outrage. “I donot—that was Celeste’s playlist. I was a victim of peer pressure.”
“Sure you were, ‘Woot-Woot’ girl.”
I want to hit him. I want to kiss him. I want to scream.
“I am going back downstairs,” I say, my voice icy. “I am going to put on my noise-canceling headphones. If I hear so much as a squeak from that belt of yours, I am calling the fire marshal and telling them you’re running a clandestine sweatshop up here.”
“I’m running at 6:00 a.m.,” he calls out as I turn toward the stairs. “A five-mile sprint. I’d suggest the earplugs, but hey, you do you.”
“I hope you trip!” I shout over my shoulder.
“You’ll be the first to know if I do. Sound issues, and well, you know the rest.”
Seventeen
Beckett
I’m pulling into the underground garage when I see her.
At first, my brain doesn’t fully process the image. It’s late. I’m coming off a double shift, and my day has been long enough to justify mild hallucinations. Then the frame sharpens.
The woman dragging a heavy, suspiciously bulging black bag across the concrete floor—muttering a string of curses that would make a sailor blush—is very real.
And very much Madison.
She’s hauling it toward the refuse area at thefar end of the garage.
Fuck.
Has she finally snapped? Is she disposing of a rival consultant? Is that Fred from the ground floor?
I park and get out just as she reaches the compactor. She stops abruptly, like she can feel the shift in the air, and turns. The second she sees me, she throws her head back and lets out a groan of pure misery.
“Oh, for the love of God.”
She blows a rogue strand of red hair out of her face and plants her hands on her hips. Her chest rises and falls, a flush high on her cheeks that might be from the manual labor or from the sheer annoyance of my existence.
This is the part where a smarter man would keep walking and value his own sanity. But I’ve already established I’m a glutton for punishment.
I shut the car door and walk toward her. “We hardly know each other,” I say, my voice echoing off the concrete. “Seeing me surely doesn’t warrant that kind of reaction.”
“You’re early,” she snaps.
“What?”
“You’re not due home until midnight.”
That stops me mid-stride.
The fuck?
But before I can process the creepiness of that statement, my gaze drops back to the black bag.
