“Not exactly.”
“Which means no.” Ruby floated closer and peered at the screen. “I charge double to do that. I didn’t know you were writing about a prostitute.”
“I’m not!”
Ruby would have read on but Sierra slammed her laptop shut.
“Why did you do that?” Ruby said.
“Because I don’t like people reading my work while I’m writing.”
“I can see why, if you’re writing pornography like that.”
“It’s not … never mind,” Sierra said. “I can’t work under these conditions. I’m going upstairs.”
Sierra let her anger carry her as she climbed the creaky steps and headed to the portrait of Hal. She made it halfway across the room when he materialized. He looked just like his photograph. The same receding hairline and sinister smile. As he stood before her she could observe his short and bulky build in his 1920s tailored suit, which was not apparent in his framed head shot. He looked like the mobster he was. Sierra didn’t have much time to focus on any of that because the most important thing about his appearance was that it had a dense darkness that was very unsettling.
“I want you gone,” Hal told her.
“I want you gone too,” Sierra shot back.
“Who are you talking to?” Ronan asked from behind her.
She whirled to face him. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here, remember?”
“You said you were going out.”
“I came back,” he said.
“And took a shower.” Which was why he was wearing a towel around his waist, a sexy smile, and a few droplets of water meandering down his bare muscular chest.
“Yeah, I took a shower. Is there some law against that? I didn’t see anything against that in the agreement.”
She could see too much of his body, and that towel was way too little to properly cover him. Not that he was flaunting his package at her or anything. Although after writing that hot love scene, she wouldn’t have minded seeing Ronan naked again.
“Who were you talking to?” he repeated.
“You.”
“You didn’t even know I was here, yet you were saying I want you gone?”
At a loss for words, she merely nodded.
“You do know that doesn’t make any sense, right?” he said.
She just shrugged and tried to move past him to the hallway and an escape. He took hold of her hand. That might not have been enough to stop her in her tracks but he used his other hand to trail his fingers up her arm. “Is this about our kiss?”
She nodded. What else could she do? Say she’d come to kick a gangster ghost to the curb?
“You want more,” he murmured.
She shook her head. “No, I don’t,” she added for good measure.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to be embarrassed.”
“No, it’s not okay.”
Ronan had one hand holding hers and his other hand caressing her arm. Which is why he wasn’t able to do anything when his towel suddenly fell to the floor.
Sierra was about to yell at Ronan for breaking the terms of their agreement when the startled look on his face held her back.
The sound of cruel laughter made her turn to find Hal puffing on his cigar and grinning. “If ya got it, flaunt it, boyo.”
Ronan released her and grabbed for the towel. “I smell cigar smoke.”
“That stinks. Not you,” she hurriedly assured Ronan. “I meant the cigar smell.”
“You smell it too?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I’m no fan either,” Sierra assured Ronan.
“Your friend looks a little green,” Hal noted with a huge puff.
She turned to face Ronan. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer her at first.
“Ronan?” She waved her hand in front of his face. “Are you okay?”
He pulled away from her and left without a word, slamming his bedroom door. A moment later, he strode out dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt with his black leather jacket in his hand.
“Where are you going?”
“Out.”
* * *
“There’s something going on at the house,” Ronan announced as he joined Damon at the bar.
“Let me guess. Sierra is asking questions again.”
“No. I smelled cigar smoke.”
“Sierra is smoking cigars?”
“No. You told me that there was something weird about the house that didn’t allow you to put your customary surveillance cameras in there.”
“We put them in. They just don’t work.”
“Why is that?”
“Don’t know,” Damon said. “Like I told you a few hours ago, we’re working on it. Neville thinks it’s a software problem. You do realize this is the third time you’ve come into the bar today, right?”