Page 15 of Riordan's Revenge

I curled my lip at the screen. “I don’t know anything about the game.” Hockey for me had been played on a muddy field in winter with sticks and a ball.

“Me neither. I’m just watching for the hot guys and yelling because everyone else is.”

She beamed, and something tightened in my chest. So much, I didn’t turn back to my morbid find. This attraction made no sense. I’d wanted Cassie from the first second I saw her. She was pretty. More than a little dangerous. I wanted to scoop her up and hold her. Even after she’d drugged me.

I had to be as fucked in the head as her skull ornament.

And I was still staring. She tilted her head in question, her interest in the sport lost, and her focus fully on me. It quickened my breathing. Sent my blood south.

Her ringtone blared out, breaking the moment and releasing me from its grip. Cassie fumbled her phone and swiped to answer, cutting off the music that was the theme tune to a police procedural TV show.

“Skeleton Girls Detective Agency, Cassiopeia speaking, how can I help?”

Everly’s laugh came over the line. “I like that greeting. Genevieve and I want to talk about exactly that.”

“Ooh, I’m so down.”

“Have you got the note to hand?”

She jumped up. “I left it in my bedroom when I got changed. One sec.”

Cassie trotted away, still chatting with my sisters. I moved over to the sofa, intending to mute the TV for her. But as I reached for the control, my gaze fell on her notepad.

I’m not obsessed with him. It’s hyperfixation, she’d written.

I swallowed and skipped my gaze off it, unintentionally focusing on her paperwork instead. At the top of each scattered page was the name and office address of a therapist, and there were notes beneath which Cassie had annotated.

She’d been working through this? And had reached a conclusion about me?

No way would I read those, but I was an asshole for jumping back to her notepad list to see what else she’d decided.

I’m probably just sex-starved.

At some point, it will be over. I just have to ride it out.

Do nothing permanent.

Don’t hurt him.

The strange sensation in me expanded. She was trying to fix herself and the impulses that had led to her actions towards me.And I was even more fucked up for the hit of disappointment that her obsession wasn’t real.

She returned, and I dropped the remote and resumed propping up the wall. Cassie’s gaze drifted over me as she talked with the women.

Everly’s gentle voice came over the line. “What I don’t get is why the note is signed in Riordan’s name.”

Genevieve answered. “Alisha’s note was signed off by Convict, who she’d had some kind of relationship with previously. Maybe a one-night stand, but it was enough to draw her in. Why would they think the same would work on you, Cassie? Why Riordan?”

Cassie’s dark eyebrows furrowed. “That’s easy. Because I have a thing for your brother.”

I palmed my forehead.

Genevieve choked. “Since when? And how would anyone know?”

“I told Dixie, and she said she’d inform all the other women so no one made a play for him. That wasn’t fair of me, though. It’s all one-sided.”

“Does he know?” my sister spluttered.

Still focusing on the phone, Cassie jacked her thumb at me. “If he didn’t before, he does now.”

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