Suffice to say I wasnotgoing to be spreading my legs for a half-bald guy with a beer belly and bad breath who thought giving me a job meant owning my body—and for minimum pay, too. I could never afford to rent my own place in Roven if I worked at the restaurant or the grocery store.
Maybe if I took both jobs, though.
Or maybe…
“Please step back. This is private property, miss,” the guard dressed in an expensive-looking black suit said when I was still basically across the street from those large golden gates.
I blinked at the sound of his voice, distracted by my ghosts. So distracted that I hadn’t even noticed where I’d come or where I’d stopped—in front of the Paradise mansion, looking at it through the golden gates, taking in details I’d never seen before.
Holy shit, it really did look like a castle. Two towers poked at the blue sky, their roofs a deep pink. Every inch of the outer walls that I could see between those large trees in the front was perfect—a mixture of white and pale pink. Pink roses on thesides of the pathway and pink lanterns sprouting in between them like they were trying to impersonate flowers, too. I couldn’t really see much else, just the entrance doors in the front of the building, white and polished, shining like they were just dipped in lacquer.
Now I wanted to see the inside so badly.
How the hell had I ended up here, anyway?
The sun was still up. I hadn’t eaten anything, and I was starving. Fuck, I shouldn’t have been here at all.I stepped back and turned around to leave, go to Annabelle’s bar and crash on her couch before…what?
Beforewhat?
What exactly was I going to do after that?
I stopped walking, looking down at the wide road ahead of me as it went lower and lower until it reached the main crossroads of the town. If I just kept walking, kept putting one foot after the other, I was going to get to Annabelle’s. I could lie down in the back and close my eyes and sleep and forget there was a world out here at all. Just…forgetwhere I came from. Where I was. Where I was going.
The sound of rotor blades I’d heard plenty of times before was coming from somewhere east. I turned to look, trying not to feel so goddamn hopeless, and I followed the dark green helicopter with my eyes as it flew inside the gates of Mama Si’s Paradise, then began to land somewhere behind the building.
For whatever fucked up reason, it made me want to cry. For whatever fucked up reason, the sound of those blades spinning made me think ofadventure.
For whatever fucked up reason, I suddenly wanted to get on a goddamn helicopter so badly I could barely breathe.
My legs shook. They refused to take me forward. My body revolted against the thoughts in my head. It fuckedrebelledagainst the idea of going back to the life I knew. The life I had. The life that wasn’t a life at all, just what the fatesthrew at me and I accepted. None of what I’d done until now had beenmycall. I hadn’t decided to leave home on my own. I hadn’t decided whether I wanted to work or not. I hadn’t decided whether I had a say in what I would do for the rest of my life—nothing. I hadn’t decided anything for myself.
And now I wanted to. I wanted to decide to have a goddamn adventure.
My options were fairly limited—I could either turn back to those gates or I could be stuck on this sidewalk, staring at Roven, begging my feet to take me forward until they did.
I turned back.
It was almost like an out-of-body experience. Almost like I wasn’t in control of my limbs at all, but a moment later my ghosts were gone, and I was standing in front of the guard again.
I looked him straight in the eye. He was a handsome fella. Dark hair, dark eyes, square jaw and a broken nose that fit the rough expression on his face perfectly. He had wide shoulders, unlike Brandon, and he looked like he couldhandleme perfectly fine—and effortlessly.
“I’ll say it again, miss. This is private property. Please step away,” he said, and his voice was very low and very dark, too. Just like the rest of him—these things I’d never noticed before. These things I neverallowedmyself to notice before on other men because I was already taken.
My first boyfriend. My only boyfriend. Mysoulmate.
Fucking hilarious.
“I’m actually here for a vacancy in housekeeping, and I wanted to apply in person,” I said, and my voice came out strong. It didn’t shake. I didn’t stutter a single time.
At that, the guy raised one brow, looked down at my body like he was trying to see underneath my clothes.
I felt nothing.
“Please back away three steps. I’ll be right with you,” he said and turned his back to me.
I did as he asked, backed away exactly three steps, which put me in the middle of the street, but there were no cars driving near the Paradise. People who drove cars couldn’t afford to get through those gates. The ones who could flew here in fucking helicopters.
But the guard was talking to someone, one finger pressed to his ear, and his wrist close to his mouth. I waited, focused on the beating of my heart. It was steady.