Page 26 of Tempting the Player
“Was this here earlier?” he asks, tone brisk as he holds an arm out to stop me from moving any farther into the room.
The walls are covered in red spray paint and some of my things have been tossed from the desk and nightstand onto the floor. But it’s the big, red letters above my bed that steal the air from my lungs.Go back to Cali, bitch.
There are dirty footprints on my white comforter from whoever stood there while they wrote the awful message.
“Jane,” he says my name roughly. “When was the last time you were in here?”
“I went downstairs for the party around eight-thirty.” I take a step closer to my bed and my stomach lurches. Who would write that? And why?
“And you haven’t been back up here?”
I shake my head. The thought of someone being in my room without me knowing it makes me feel sick all over.
“What about your roommates, were they all already downstairs?”
“They didn’t do this.”
“No shit,” he mumbles as he pulls his phone out of his jeans pocket. He taps the screen a couple of times and then puts it to his ear. “Don’t go anywhere.”
He steps out into the hallway. Is he calling the police? I guess maybe I should file a report, but I can’t have a bunch of cops show up with the party out back. And I don’t want this to get out. Paparazzi aren’t currently staking out the house, but one call and I’m sure they’d be swarming my front yard.
I start to go after him to tell him not to call the police, but he’s already down the hall and talking into the phone. I can just make out his words as I approach. “Hey, it’s Hendrick. We have a situation at the house. She’s not harmed, but someone was in her room. They trashed it and left a nasty message on the wall in red paint.”
A knot starts to form in my chest and my mind spins to make sense of the one-sided conversation. He must hear me approaching because he swivels around. His expression shifts, softening a little as he continues to hold the phone up to his ear, listening to whomever is on the other end of the phone.
He nods. “I’ll take care of it.”
Take care of what? And who is he talking to?
“Yeah, she’s right here.” His face twists, somehow looking tortured and still completely confident and controlled.
Before I can think too hard about the answers to those questions, he holds out the phone to me. I don’t reach for it, still having no idea who is on the other line. “Who is it?”
He sighs quietly. “It’s your dad. He wants to talk to you and make sure you’re okay.”
9
HENDRICK
I watchJane’s expression morph from terror to confusion to shock to anger to betrayal in the span of a few minutes. I had two orders: keep Jane safe and be discreet. I’ve failed at both.
She turns her back to me as she talks to her parents, and I’m thankful I no longer have to see all that hatred and mistrust glaring back at me. I follow her back to her room. While she talks, I case the room, looking for any clues as to who was here and why. Red graffiti covers all the walls, but the only words are the ones above the bed.Go back to Cali, bitch.It could have been some asshole at the party or someone that slipped in while everyone was too busy to notice.
Neither possibility sits well with me. They were here in her house. Her fucking room.
Spinning on her heel, she faces me and flings out an arm to give me my phone back. As soon as I have it in hand, she crosses both of her arms across her chest.
I open my mouth to say I’m sorry, but she doesn’t let me get the words out.
“Save it. Whatever you’re going to say, just don’t.” She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment. When she opens them again, those sparkling green eyes pierce through me. “You’re mybodyguard?”
Was. I doubt her parents are thrilled about tonight’s turn of events. “Your parents hired me to make sure you were safe. They were worried,” is my weak response. I know they tried to get her to hire someone on her own, but when she wouldn’t, they took matters into their own hands. “And rightfully so, by the looks of it.”
“No, you don’t get to use this to make yourself feel better like you swooped in here and saved me. You lied to me. You made me think you were hanging around because you...I don’t know, liked me or something. Does everyone else know?”
“No one knows. Not even my brothers.”
“I almost kissed you!”
