“Help.” I thought that’s what I heard coming from inside the house somewhere.

“Hello,” I managed to call out when I had composed myself a little. “Where are you?”

“Help.” The voice was a little louder and sounded increasingly distressed.

“Shit, shit, shit.” I ran my hands through my hair and sucked in some air, forcing it into my lungs. “I’m coming,” I shouted, trying to push away my own fears. “Where are you?”

A muffled female voice carried down from above. “In here.”

“That’s not helpful,” I muttered to myself, taking the stairs two at a time. I tried not to look around too much for fear of some kind of panic attack. I would just find her then get her the hell out of my house.

“Call out again,” I instructed so I could follow her voice.

“I’m really sorry. I’m trespassing again. I mean… shit. I just wanted to see inside this beautiful house and now I’m stuck in one of the bedrooms. A gust of wind must have blown the door closed and the door wouldn’t open from the inside and—”

I opened the door and walked into my old bedroom. Her rambling stopped mid-sentence and, for the third time in as many days, my heart stopped too. The sheer impossibility of the situation made me question my own sanity again. The fact she wasn’t speaking made me wonder if she was a conjured-up illusion of my messed-up brain. Was my mind playing tricks on me?

“What are you doing? You shouldn’t be in here.”

“I wasn’t going to steal anything” she said, gesturing around the sparsely furnished room. “It’s not like there’s anything much to take.” She visibly cringed at her own words. “I didn’t think anyone lived here and the door was open. I’m really sorry.”

“I’ll need you to get out,” I said through gritted teeth. I could feel the panic level rising.

She nodded, shrugging her shoulders the way she had when Richard reprimanded her. It made me feel like shit.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I shouldn’t have made a joke about stealing when I’m trespassing on your property. I’m just a bit shaken up about being locked in a room in someone else’s house that I shouldn’t have been in in the first place and then you appear. Again. I mean, who the fuck are you? Are you following me or something? Are you a crazy stalker?” She shook her head and shuffled from one foot to the other. “Sorry about cursing. I don’t usually curse. Well, not out loud, anyway.”

Her apology that had turned into an attack then back into an apology threw me off guard, and the ridiculousness of her accusations blew the tension out of the room. “Seriously? You show up to my fight. Then you show up at the function I was working at. Then you show up at my house. And you think I’m the stalker?” I could hear my own voice softening.

“Okay. I guess you’re not a stalker,” she conceded with the hint of a smile.

“Thank you. That’s big of you to admit.” Our eyes locked and we stared at each other with such intensity, I couldn’t look away.

“Right. Well, I’ll get out of your hair, then.” She shook her head then started walking towards the door. When she passed, I grabbed her slender arm. A shock of electricity hit me, and I snapped my eyes back to hers, where I saw what I imagined she was seeing in mine—dangerous lust.

“Wait,” I spoke in barely more than a whisper. Realising I was still holding her arm, I dropped it and took a step back. I didn’t want her to leave just yet. “I’m sorry I told you to get out.”

“Why?” She looked confused. “You had every right.”

“It’s not you. I wanted to see you again.” I paused, unsure how to explain it. “I don’t live here anymore. I haven’t been in here in five years.” I wanted her out because no one that beautiful belonged somewhere haunted by so much ugliness. But I didn’t want her to leave right away. “I could show you the garden.” It sounded lame, but I was clutching at straws.

A smile lit up her entire face, brightening her beautiful eyes “I love gardening. Apartment living doesn’t call for it much, but yours is incredible.”

I was in trouble. My desire to kiss her was overwhelming and completely ridiculous. Juliette was definitely spoken for, and that in itself was an absolute deal breaker. Despite that fact, there was something about her that gave me a deep sense of calm.

Chapter Twelve

Juliette

He touched me. Leo touched me. The fighting god with the icy stare and the rock-hard body I wanted to run my hands down and do all kinds of naughty things to, touched me. We both felt it. I would have bet my ticket to fight night on it. Was he the reason I’d felt so drawn to this house? Why did we keep running into each other? I didn’t believe in coincidence. I believed in fate.

The crushing pressures imposed on me by my mother were pushed to the furthermost parts of my mind.

I wasn’t lying about my love of the garden. It was overgrown and more like a jungle than a garden, but it had a tangible beauty, just like the house. Despite its neglect, I could still see that someone had gone to a lot of trouble establishing it. It just needed a lot of love. Seeing the garden also gave me an excuse to stay there longer—stay with him longer. I wanted to be there for as long as possible.

He gestured for me to exit the room ahead of him.

Standing at the top of the staircase, I examined my manicured nails and smooth hands. “I used to spend lots of time in my grandmother’s garden when I was young. I loved getting my hands dirty.” I paused. “I miss it.”

I looked up to find Leo studying me. When he realised I was staring back, he smiled, and I placed my hand on the bannister to steady myself. This man made me weak at the knees. It wasn’t just his hard-to-fathom good looks, bad-boy edge or ability to crush men with his bare hands. There was something deeply calming about being in his presence. He didn’t say anything further. He just bit his bottom lip and ran his hands through his hair. He was so sexy; I found it incredibly distracting.

We walked down the stairs in silence, a delicious tension hanging in the air between us. At the bottom, instead of going straight ahead towards the front door, Leo led me around to the left and down the hallway. I tried to look everywhere at once—double-height ceilings, exposed stone walls I was compelled to touch, the occasional spider web and a definite lack of any touches making it a home. I was looking at the bare bones of a house, built when time, skill and care were taken to ensure a quality rarely seen in more contemporary homes.

As Leo led me further down the hallway, I stopped outside an open door. Leo stopped too. I couldn’t resist poking my head through the doorway and taking a tentative step in for a quick look. It was the room I’d peered into when I dirtied my dress—I recognised the furniture.

“It’s a beautiful room,” I whispered. Despite the dusty furniture and the grimy windows not allowing the natural light in, it was still a beautiful room. Much larger than in contemporary homes, the room was given a focal point by a cast-iron fireplace with a slate hearth. Despite the size of the room and the high, decorative ceilings, I had visions of a warm and cosy lounge room where I could relax with a good book on cold winter evenings.

“It was.”

He was standing right behind me and the words sounded like breaths, kissing the air that separated us. I turned slowly, and what I saw in his eyes was pain. Deep, cutting, agonising pain. I could not only see the tension in his tight shoulders, but I could feel it rolling off him. There was something really off about this beautiful man in this beautiful house. I just didn’t know what it was. What I did know was that I had to get us out of that room and out of that house to diffuse the tension, so I stepped past him back into the hallway.