Page 59 of Irresistibly Dangerous

I can’t move. I’m hardly able to breathe. My trembling hand stays locked over my mouth as emotions I can hardly get a grip on spiral through me. “I can’t believe you built it.”

My sophomore year of college, I took an architecture elective. Our semester assignment was to design and build on the computer our dream home. Mine was a massive farm-style white house with a huge front porch, and that’s exactly what I’m staring at. It’s as if Lenox took the schematics I designed and used them exactly.

Then something occurs to me.

“Did you hack my college computer for this?”

He pulls up in front and presses another button on his phone, and some of the interior lights turn on, but then he’s pulling around the side of the house and straight into the four-bay garage with an attached barn. Just beyond the house, a little more than a hundred yards off, I catch a glimpse of what I assume is Lake Lavender.

Lenox shuts off the truck, immediately closes the garage door behind us, and hops out. He never answered me, but as I climb down and then follow him inside, trailing behind Alice, who seems overjoyed to be home, I can’t seem to catch my breath. It’s caught high in my chest, only to tumble out in a whoosh when I step inside.

Dark wide plank hardwood floors sweep throughout the entire space. The kitchen, great room, and dining room are open to each other, and the family room is two-level with matching dark pillars above and a towering stone fireplace. The kitchen is, well, my dream kitchen since it’s exactly as I designed it. Huge center island, all top-of-the-line professional-grade appliances, beautiful marble counters, and a white farm sink. Even the lighting is what I picked out.

I can see there are other rooms off the great room, including one with a slightly different door and a touchpad above the handle.

The furnishings are all beautiful and expensive-looking but also cozy and inviting. A lot of soft leather and gray and cream fabrics. Five chairs surround his dining room table, and I don’t have to ask why there aren’t six. There are five Central Square boys and no Suzie.

Lenox is making himself busy, bringing in the bags from the back of his truck and getting Alice food and water. “I pictured all black. More like your shop. I didn’t ever imagine… this.”

Silence.

I turn, ready to challenge him, only to find his eyes on me from across the room, standing over by the stairs. “Do you want to see your room? I obviously didn’t have time to set anything up for you, but we can do that. We can make it anything you like.”

No. I’m not sure I can take it. “How many bedrooms are here?”

“Five,” he says, but I knew that answer before he even said it.

I cross the room to him and stare up into his cautious blue eyes. He’s so closed off. Shuttered up tight. “Did you hack my computer in college?”

“Yes,” he says simply, and fury strikes a path through me.

“When?”

“After.”

My fury morphs, taking on a new form. An anger so sharp and pervasive it infuses itself into my every cell. I want to pound on his chest and shake him, but I hold myself steady, holding firm to the few feet of distance I placed between us. “Why?”

“I can’t tell you. Not yet.”

Now I start to lose it. “Fuck you, Lenox! You hacked my computer and built my dream home. I’m entitled to know why.”

He runs a hand through his hair and closes his eyes. “I hacked it for this. I wanted to build this.”

Again, I go with, “Why?”

His eyes flash open. “What good is the answer, Georgia, when you’re not yet ready to hear it?”

I shake my head and cut the distance between us by half. “Tell me,” I demand. “You brought me here. You had to know I’d remember the house. You had to know I’d question you.”

His blue eyes darken. “I already told you I liked it.”

I shake my head. “Not good enough. Did you go through my laptop? Read anything else on there?”

“No. I may have morally gray ethics, but I never invaded your privacy. Not once. I never hacked your phone, and I never searched for your location, and I never went through your computer. This was the only thing I took when I left you.”

“Why?” I grit through my teeth, and I don’t even know if I’m asking why he left me or why he built the house or why I wasn’t important enough to him to snoop around.

“Georgia,” he says my name like a warning I have no intention of heeding. Only he has no intention of breaking. I see it in his eyes. The most frustrating part of this man is that I never know what he’s thinking unless he directly tells me and wants me to know.

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