Page 67 of A Little Broken

“Roman,” he repeats.

“Have a great evening, Roman,” I murmur, moving around him.

He follows my movements with his eyes while the same smirk from before tugs at his lips. “See you around, Tatum the maid.”

19

PAXTON

The sun is gone, having dipped below the horizon while I was at Judge’s. I consider stopping by my old gym to see if I can sign up for some training but decide against it. For now. Even if Iamdesperate to clear my head. My headlights cut through the darkness as I drive home. Noticing the lights slipping through the curtains, I frown. The maid must’ve forgotten to turn them off when she left. I pull up the winding path leading to the garage, but my brows pull down. There’s a car out front. Sleek. Black. Toyota Supra with a straight six engine.

Only one guy I know owns this car.

What is Roman doing here?

I park in the garage, climb out of my car, and head inside. Tossing my keys onto the kitchen counter, I catch Roman by the unlit fireplace. “Hey, man.”

“Hey. I like the place. It’s nice.”

“It belongs to Judge’s family,” I explain. “What are you doing here?”

“Checking in.” With his feet propped on the coffee table, he thumbs through a worn copy of one of my books. It’sThe Count of Monte Cristo.

“Where’d you get that?” I demand, surprising us both with my possessiveness over a book. It’s probably because I just saw Tatum, and the wound is still fresh, but it’s not like I actually care.

Right?

Roman closes the book, drops his feet to the floor, and sets it on the coffee table. “Your maid was reading it.”

My brows dip. “What?”

“I said, your maid was reading it. Up in your music room,” he clarifies.

“What was my maid doing reading on the job?”

Cupping the back of his head, he leans back on the leather couch. “No idea. She’s cute, though. Pretty sure I woke her up from a nap.” He chuckles softly. “You might wanna check the tape to see if she touched anything else.”

Frustration flares inside of me, but I try to keep it in check, scratching my temple with my forefinger. “She was…sleeping?”

“Like a hot, black-haired Goldilocks,” he confirms.

What the hell?

I unlock my phone and pull up the footage from earlier today, scrolling through the past few hours until a clear shot comes into view. When I see her, my stomach bottoms out, and I rest my ass against the kitchen counter to keep from falling.

There she is. Tatum Taylor. Curled up on the window seat in my music room like a fucking ghost.

“See?” Roman prods from the couch. “Cute, right?”

My attention shifts to him as I try piecing together why the bane of my existence was in my house earlier today. “What’d she say to you?”

“Only that she was the maid.”

The maid?

Visiting, my ass.

I’m gonna kill her.

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