“Damn, Pixie,” he muttered under his breath, backing out of the garage.
She glanced over at him. He met her stare. His was hot and searing. Priscilla smiled, hugging this moment to her. It did affect him. “And you say I’m the one who has to name everything, McGruff.”
He grunted.
She giggled.
Chapter 6
The memory of that kiss lingered in his mind and on his lips. Lethal was too mild a word to use for his Pixie.
Priscilla King had undone years of training, years of precision focus, years of building walls around himself and keeping people away. He couldn’t get hurt that way. Not again. His mission of revenge had fueled his desperate need to strike when the time arrived: not a moment too soon, nor too late. That time was now. But in less than fourteen hours, she’d found the cracks and wedged her way in. Now he had to guard himself from her shattering every little piece he’d painstakingly erected.
So why was he waiting for her to open her apartment door? Why did he care if she got hurt? He couldn’t answer that. He just knew he did care. That was the problem.
He hadn’t cared for anyone, not like this. Protecting her, even from him, reigned paramount in his mind. Her inexperience may play a part, but yet something deeper stirred in him, something honorable.
Griffin James did not like it, not one bit.
“Coming in?” she asked, opening the door and entering.
“How can I refuse?” Just a few minutes to see her place. He soothed himself with the promise it was for research purposes only. Entering, two things hit him: one, he shouldn’t have come here, and, two, the bright, cozy room was the complete opposite of his place. “Lilac? And, what’s that, mint green?”
She tugged on his arm to draw him in farther and closed the door behind him. “I’ll show you around.” Dragging him to the center of the room, she positioned him just so. “From here you can see it all at once. Well, if you turn, you get a three-sixty view.”
“This is it?”
“Yep. My humble abode.” She pointed to different areas, naming them. “Kitchenette, beyond there. Over that way, bathroom. Beside us is the living area, of course. And over there is my daybed.”
“I think my bathroom is bigger than this,” he murmured, stunned that this King daughter had so little when he knew the wealth her mother rolled in.
“It’s all mine, now that Francie married and moved out.”
“Your sister and you lived here together?”
She nudged him toward a chair. He shook his head. “For a few months. It’s all we had when we left Mother’s. But it didn’t come with strings attached.”
“More like freedom,” he guessed.
“You do get it.” She beamed. It sucked the air out of his lungs.
“So this is what your heart looks like?” He referred to her statement last night: your home reflects what’s in your heart.
Waving a hand, she said, “I redecorated once Francie moved out. What you see, is all me. Sunshine and roses.”
“Pixieland,” he countered. His middle sank. He should not have come here; he’d never get the image of her here out of his mind and maybe not even out of his heart.
***
Hours later, Griffin stood, knocking on the door to the King-Royale residence. He looked forward to the distraction from thinking about Priscilla. If only he could exorcize the lovely strawberry blonde’s essence from his house, his car, his senses…
“Back to business.” Clinging to a one-word mantra, he murmured, “Focus.”
The door flew open. “Well, look at you, you hunky man,” the older woman said. “I betcha you’re Griff. Come on in, honey.”
Taken aback at the warm welcome, he cautiously entered the large home.
“I’m Dolly.”
“Charlie’s friend,” he recalled.
“That’s right. And cook.”
“And mother hen,” Charlie inserted as she came to his rescue. “I’m glad you could make it.”
“Thank you.” He wondered who the other candidates were. Did they bring their families? And would that hurt his chances in the long run?
A buzzer went off. “Oh, that’s my timer,” Dolly said, rushing out of the room.
Charlie smiled. “Oh, our Dolly! I don’t know what we’d do without her.” She hooked an arm through his, guiding him down the hallway and into a large room filled with people and laughter.
His gut twisted. He tended to stay away from large groups. And lots of noise, he added to himself, as a baby, cradled in an unfamiliar woman’s arms, cried and refused to take a bottle. Two elderly gentlemen, seated at a round table near the floor-to-ceiling windows, played dominos. He recognized one as Alex’s grandfather from a brief introduction years ago.