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She opened her trunk and took out what was inside, testing the tool’s weight. Then she approached the door and willed herself to do what was necessary. She’d never broken into a building before. The only lock-breaking experience she had was when she’d busted the little silver one on her older sister’s diary. Admittedly, not the same.

She took one last glance around the grounds to ensure she was alone, shoved the crowbar into the rusted U of the padlock, and gave it a sharp pull. The lock popped open and thudded onto the warped wooden porch.

“Ha!” Adrenaline coursed through her veins. She bent to retrieve the lock, tossed it into the air, and caught it in her palm. “See? I’m not uptight.”

Which was exactly what she’d been trying to prove to Marcus the night she’d gone to the bar to celebrate the contract. He thought she had a stick up her ass, and she’d intended to prove him wrong. While she often went home after work, to a frozen pizza and her pet fish, he was dating half the town. Maybe three-quarters.

But two days ago, after Joanie and Clive had called it a night, Lily had let Marcus’s harmless jabs at her power suit roll off her back and had accepted his challenge to a game of pool. She’d shed her fitted blazer and tossed it over a torn leather stool in the dive bar.

Game on.

When she’d first started working at Cameron Designs, Marcus had caught her eye. There was no denying the perfect way his stubble surrounded his lips, or the tumble of dark hair begging for her touch. She’d been there a few short weeks when he’d asked her out. He’d sidled up to her, sat one chiseled butt cheek on the corner of her desk, and had invited her to dinner.

Not drinks.

Not coffee.

“This new Italian place,” he’d said. There was a part of her that would have said yes before she’d dated Emmett. But she wasn’t that woman anymore. She’d given Marcus a curt “No,” which he’d taken surprisingly well.

Or so she thought.

The jabs had started shortly after—like a boy on the playground pulling her pigtails. He hadn’t let up since.

As the months wore on, they settled into a sort of compatible rivalry. Marcus teased her and continued to date other women. She pretended not to care that he treated dating like a sport. She knew now that he’d asked her out because he asked everyone out. He was a dating machine.

She…wasn’t.

So, she was the more rigid and rule-following of the two of them. Which had made her want to show him that she wasn’t. How was that for logic? On Wednesday night, after two tequila shots followed by a couple of beers, she had not only been baited into this lamebrain bet, she’d insisted on it.

“I’m not as uptight as you think, you know,” she’d said, one hand wrapped around her pool stick, the other propped primly on her hip.

Marcus, who had been racking the pool balls at the other end of the table, paused to grunt before moving the eight ball to the center position and rolling the triangle into place.

That smug sound never failed to raise her ire. Chapping her ass seemed to be a talent he’d mastered. She didn’t want him to think less of her. She wanted to impress him. He impressed her all the time without even trying. Like when he lifted the triangle off the balls and not one of them wiggled out of place.

She’d searched her memory for one thing she’d done in her life that might make her seem less prim and proper. The moment she thought of one, she snapped her fingers. “When I was in the eighth grade, my friend Valerie and I hiked up to Willow Mansion.”

Long believed to be a local haunt, the mansion was a hotbed of paranormal rumors and teenaged debauchery. Everyone in Fantom knew of the story of the mansion—the tale of the woman who fell to her death from a second-story window. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t. But everyone believed it was, which made it seem real.

Instead of being impressed, he’d spared her a slow blink, his hooded eyes wholly unconvinced.

Figured.

“On Halloween,” she’d lied, attempting to amp up her street cred. “Night.”

He’d considered her, and her bullshit story, as he flipped the triangle end over end in a smooth, annoyingly graceful motion. She bet he never fumbled anything. Meanwhile, she had a coffee stain on her skirt. She’d admired his strong hands—capable of precision and artistry, but rough enough to make her wonder what they’d feel like on the soft skin at the back of her neck. A fantasy that could have been a reality if she’d said yes to Italian food.

She couldn’t totally blame her reaction to him on tequila. The man was too attractive for his own good. He had a natural bad boy swagger, defined forearms, and his voice was low and gravelly with a hint of humor, which he showcased when he spoke next.

“Yeah, right. You wouldn’t last an hour in that house.” He’d raised one dark eyebrow. “What did you do? Run up, touch the front door, then giggle down the driveway?”

She’d given him an exaggerated eye roll she hoped was convincing. The scene he’d described was exactly what her friend Val had done. Lily hadn’t been as brave. She’d stayed a good fifty feet away from the house, her fair skin baking under the bright noonday sun, and had shouted to Valerie to hurry up before they were caught.

Which technically made her more of a chicken than a buttoned-up good girl.

But the one time she had broken the rules and dated a coworker against workplace policy, she’d paid dearly. She’d since learned that following the rules was smart. There was no reason to make herself a laughingstock again. Especially when she knew she was one of the best designers in the business.

She had guts. She had moxie. She had…freckles. And she’d felt each one of those dots vanish under a blush of embarrassment when Marcus approached her and stood really, really close.