Page 6 of Falling for the Beast

“I needed something I could bring with me,” she said, her own giggles coming out now.

After Thaddeus stopped laughing, he said, “You don’t have to bring a lunch. You can eat whatever I have.”

She sobered. This was the first semi-kind thing he had said to her. She stared at him, his gaze softening as he looked back.

“Okay,” she said, her shoulders relaxing.

He gave her a small smile and then turned back to his food.

She unwrapped her sandwich and took a bite. Maybe working for him wasn’t going to be as horrible as she had first thought.

Chapter 3

Thaddeus sat back down onhis recliner and glowered at the blank television screen. Why had he done that? Told the girl to bring her lunch in and eat with him? That had been his first mistake. No. He was wrong. His first mistake was letting her in the door at all. And now she was smiling and laughing. What a mess he was creating.

He couldn’t form any kind of relationship with her. He was crazy if he thought he could. She couldn’t be anything more than just his housekeeper. And even that wasn’t a good idea. He preferred the old ladies the agency sent. They couldn’t see well and didn’t care that much about his appearance. They didn’t notice much.

He reclined back and closed his eyes. He should have gone to sleep right after letting her in, instead of waiting to catch a glimpse of her. He knew better. Allowing her into his life would only complicate things. He had to keep a distance.

Sleep finally took him, and when he awoke it was dark outside. He walked over to the window, confirming what he suspected. She was gone.

Good. He probably should fire her tomorrow and call the agency to chew them out for sending her. Even as the thought formed in his head, he knew he wouldn’t do it. He was already looking forward to seeing her again.

Her laugh rang through this head, a happy sound. She had guts, and he liked that. She wasn’t afraid to confront him, wasn’t scared off by the way he’d yelled at her yesterday.

Guilt cut through him and he wished he could do yesterday over. He would control himself better. Unfortunately, self-control was not one of his strong suits.

He climbed the stairs to shower and get ready for the night. An hour later, the wind whipped past him as he sped down the highway, listening. A woman’s scream tore through the quiet night and he increased his speed. When he found her, she was lying unconscious in an alley. He looked for whoever might have done this to her, but no one else was in sight. Probably a mugger. Maybe she’d put up a fight. He knelt beside her to look at the damage and sucked in a breath. It was worse than he’d thought. Someone had beaten her until she was a bloody mess.

Aribelle stood on Thaddeus’s doorstep, waiting once again for him to answer. Was he even home? She peeked to the side of the house and saw his motorcycle. Yep. He was home. She pounded again. What was taking him so long?

The door opened and she froze. Thaddeus could barely stand. His leather jacket’s hood was down, revealing a cracked lip and puffy purple bruises where his cheeks used to be. One eye was swollen shut. Dried blood covered most of his face. It looked like someone had beaten him with a baseball bat. She gasped and rushed to help him stand. “What happened?”

“Leave me alone,” he mumbled, but it had no force to it. His one good eye rolled back into his head and she struggled to keep him from falling over.

Somehow, she managed to get him over to the couch, and she eased him down onto it. Her heart pounded as she wondered what she should do. Who had done this to him? Did he get in a bar fight last night? Was that how he hurt himself before?

She ran to the bathroom to get a wet cloth. What was going on? Who was hurting this man? She held the washcloth under cold water and then wrung it out. She rushed back into the living room and knelt down by the couch.

He moaned as she wiped the blood from his face. “Stop.”

His injuries looked worse as she tried to clean them. “I think I need to take you to the hospital.”

His eyes flickered open and a panicked look crossed his face. “No.”

“But you’re—”

“I’ll be fine. Stop interfering.” He snatched the washcloth from her and pressed it to his split lip. “If you can’t just do your job, I’ll find someone else.” He closed his eyes again.

She wanted to yell in frustration. Why was he so stubborn? And what was happening to him? She stood and turned on her heel. “Fine. I’ll leave you be.”

“You can start with the laundry,” he said, his voice muffled by the cloth.

Seriously? She wanted to tell him where he could stuff his laundry, but remembering her rent, she bit that back. Instead, she clenched her hands into fists and walked out of the room. If he was going to be this way, there wasn’t anything she could do about it. He was a callous, hostile man. Any pain he caused himself was his own business.

She busied herself with the laundry, taking a lunch break around noon. As she ate, she thought about her employer. She could tell a lot about a person by what he had in his home. Thaddeus’s home was filled with antiques, pieces passed down from generation to generation. They were carefully taken care of. Family paintings and portraits hung on the walls. He valued family, yet there were no recent photos of anyone, which told her he was alone in the world.

Like her.

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