13
Andy
“Don’tyou dare walk away from me, you evil bitch,” a male voice bellowed just as I rounded the corner away from mine and Kit’s room.
I’d just woken up from a nap and braved the halls to look for Kit, who’d said he’d be with his dad if he wasn’t in the room when I got up.
My heart leapt into my throat as I saw a tall, dark-haired man who looked like Kit would have if he became a Bond villain stalking toward Kit’s mom, backing her up to the edge of the stair railing.
She looked terrified.
“Hey,” I called out, rushing over to get between them.
Maybe I didn’tlikeher, but I didn’t want to see her hurt.
“Who the hell are you?” Mr. Villain asked as I stepped in front of Kit’s mom, forcing him to back up a step.
Like Kit, he was taller than me. Unlike Kit, he wasn’t even a little awkward about it.
“I’m Andy,” I said. “Who the hell are you?”
Mr. Villain’s face went red. Obviously, he was used to people knowing who the hell he was.
It was just dawning on me that he had to be a relative. Robert? Kit’s mom said he’d be arriving today.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I said before he could respond. “It doesn’t matter who you are.”
His face went redder still.
I had a knack for getting under these people’s skins, and I wasn’t even sure how I was doing it.
“I’m not from around here,” I said, as though that wasn’t obvious. “But where I’m from, we’d consider it unacceptable to threaten a woman.”
Even if she is an evil bitch, I didn’t add.
Probably-Robert blinked at me, straightening up to his full height. “I was doing nothing of the sort,” he said.
I crossed my arms over my chest, not about to back down. “Then you won’t mind cooling off somewhere else,” I said. “It’s a big house. I haven’t even seen all the rooms yet. Maybe you’ll find something interesting.”
He looked at me, then at Kit’s mom. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, glared, and then sighed.
Whatever he’d been about to say, he obviously couldn’t do it with a witness. Which meant I’d done the right thing getting between them.
Even if my heart didn’t want anything to do with the situation and was still trying to beat its way out of my ribcage and escape.
“We’ll continue this later,” he growled to Kit’s mom, then stalked off, straight-backed, head held high.
I watched him go, then turned to Kit’s mom, who was fiddling nervously with a chandelier earring glittering with what had to be a few grams of real diamonds.
“Are you okay?” I asked, unsure what to do now that the immediate threat was over. We still weren’t friends, but…
I wasn’t about to just stand by while whoever that was yelled at her. Whatever she’d done, that kind of reaction wasn’t okay.
“Quite,” she said, but the hand fiddling with her earring trembled as she lowered it. “My brother has always been… forceful.”
So thatwasher brother.
And he’d always been like that? No wonder she was… like she was. I was an only child, like Kit, so I couldn’t imagine having a sibling I was clearly afraid of.
