“Don’t worry. Ian’s not like that. He’s down to earth.” She jerks her head at Jake. “He has a low tolerance for bullshit.” Then she sighs. “All his friends are amazing.”

The wistful tone makes me wonder which one of Jake’s friends she has a crush on. I’ll ask him later. For now, there’s just something amazing in being able to sit down in a new place with a new person and not be totally freaked out.

I’m a little anxious. My heart rate is definitely up, and one loud noise may have me scurrying upstairs, but overall? I’m pretty damn jubilant.

Life at Jake’s is so much easier than I thought it would be. The house is bigger and while I don’t go outside, ever, the different floors give me a sense of openness and freedom that I hadn’t experienced before. I feel like I accomplish something by going from my set of rooms down to the kitchen and back up again.

Sabrina flits in and out, going to classes and coming home to study. The only downside is that they have a lot of people ring the doorbell. Most of the activity is downstairs, but Sabrina gets deliveries to the house regularly. I hide upstairs and watch the delivery trucks on the computer monitor Jake has set up, and I don’t come out until they leave.

Other than that, the transition is a lot smoother than I imagined.

Four days after I’ve moved in, a blonde woman, slim and lovely, appears at the door. I take a break from writing and am sitting on the sofa contemplating my next scene when I hear the doorbell. From my vantage point, I watch as Sabrina goes to answer it. My office door is closed, but my heart picks up, just a bit.

Sabrina opens the door and allows the woman in. The woman gives her a warm embrace that Sabrina returns half-heartedly. They talk and Sabrina disappears. The woman removes her jacket and looks around. She smooths her hand over the iron-and-marble console table in the entryway and then moves toward the living room, out of view.

My breathing starts to escalate and I reach for my breathing bag, but my action is arrested when Jake shows up. I hear footsteps racing up the stairs and then a knock at my door.

“It’s Sabrina, can I come in?” she asks.

“Yes, it’s open,” I answer, but I can’t take my eyes off the camera. The woman, back in view, has her hand on Jake’s right arm and she’s standing really close to him. Too close for my comfort. She says something and strokes his arm. That’s my arm, bitch!

“Who is it?” I ask sharply when Sabrina settles into my desk chair. She double clicks on the video feed and it fills the big monitor screen. I’m not sure I’m happy about this new, improved vision because I see now she’s beautiful, and even in the grainy footage, her skin looks impeccable.

She has that very wealthy, very polished look of a woman who’s successful and well off. Her jeans are skintight and her tight top is short enough that a flash of skin shows between the tops of her jeans and the bottom of her shirt. She takes another step closer to Jake.

“It’s Laura,” she answers, as if I know what that name means.

“Who’s Laura?” I ask Sabrina.

“His ex. He was going to marry her before he joined the army and then broke it off. She got married, while he was deployed, to an old friend of his. Then like a few months ago, I heard she got divorced and was wondering if Jake was single. That’s what Megan told me, at least.”

“His ex?” The word tastes sour and bitter. “What do you think they’re talking about?”

“She’s probably wanting to know when she can get back into his pants and he’s telling her to go away—I hope.”

Me too, Sabrina.

The fear that’s spiking in my blood isn’t anxiety based.

It’s that I just found Jake and I’m not prepared to lose him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

JAKE

“Laura, this is a surprise.” When Sabrina came downstairs to tell me I had a visitor, the name Laura didn’t immediately ring any bells.

“Really? You told me that we needed to get together again sometime, and I was just in the neighborhood and thought I would stop by.” She holds out her coat and I take it. In the neighborhood, I think dubiously. Laura lives on the East Side and I can’t think of a thing that would bring her over here. It’s not like she’s taking the bus. I don’t think Laura has ever put her ass on a public transport vehicle ever.

“Do you need some help?” I ask. “My offices are downstairs.”

She laughs and presses a hand against my right arm. When she leans in, she looks like she wants a hug, or worse, a kiss. I step back slightly and turn to disguise the rebuff by draping her coat over the console table. She frowns and looks at the closet door.

Oh no, I’m not hanging her coat up. That would imply I wanted her to stay. Today’s been a frustrating day—I’m not getting any closer to finding Natalie’s tormenter. Whoever ordered the clown hasn’t reused the email address, and the note is a dead end. Anyone could have written it, including myself or even, hell, Oliver. We’ve followed her ex-boyfriend around—the most boring asshole on the planet. He’s not agoraphobic as far as we can tell; he just never leaves the house. He’s glued to his gaming console. Two of her former coworkers are living overseas, another couple are in San Francisco. The others are living normal lives. No one appears to be a threat there. We’ve even investigated Oliver to see if there were any credible threats against him. Right now any connection to him is tenuous. The notes, the clown, are all personal to Natalie.

The bright side is that she and Sabrina are bonding and that she’s happy here.

She’s even been up to my bedroom. I used sex in the elevator to lure her upstairs and now she associates the small box with good things like pressing her face against the glass walls and both of us coming like freight trains.

I want to broach the idea of her meeting with Isaiah instead of Dr. Terrance, but I don’t want to spring a hundred new things on her at once, or make her think that I feel she’s defective and I’m trying to fix her.

The last thing I want to deal with is Laura, a woman I’ve seen once in about six years and thought of even less. Unfortunately for me¸ I’m going to have to deal with this myself instead of hiding behind Natalie.

“I’m here to see you, Jake,” Laura trills. “Your place is lovely. Who decorated for you?”

While it’d be great to feign ignorance, her flirtatious smile and the touching are signals that are hard to miss. “My mom and sisters,” I answer as repressively as possible and shift so her hand falls away.

Belatedly I realize that my answer implied I had no woman in my life. Her eyes light up and she advances into the living room. I have no choice but to follow. “Well, I might have used a little less of a lemon yellow accent, but it’s still nice. Was it renovated when you bought it?”

I nod curtly, refusing to sit even as she settles into one of the brown leather chairs. “I’m working, Laura. If you need help with something, why don’t we go down to my office?”