“It’s all good. For your mate.”
All Jinx could say was “Thanks.”
“Obviously lay low,” Stray added.
“She’s got to run.”
“Fill her in when she wakes,” Stray said. “You can’t ease her into this.”
Gillian had been watching TV in the bedroom. She sat up, hugging the covers to her body, her eyes glued to the screen of the channel that prepared to run the news on a continuous loop. She didn’t acknowledge him at first, until he said, “I didn’t know you were, ah . . . you know . . .”
“An heiress?” she answered without tearing her eyes from the news conference.
“Rich as shit.”
“That too.” He’d wrapped a towel around his waist, as all his clean clothes were actually in this room, washed by whatever vampire cleaning fairies Jez employed. He never saw any of them, but everything was always pretty damned impeccable and there was always a ton of food, including a lot of meat, so he had no complaints.
Now, he grabbed a pair of jeans and dropped the towel to yank them on. She was glued to the TV screen, so not the biggest confidence booster.
He took the remote from her and turned it off. She grabbed it back from him and turned it on. “I have to know what they’re saying about me.”
“Why?”
“Because.” She shoved the covers aside, frustrated, and he tried not to stare at her long lean legs. “You don’t understand. My family is so fucked up.”
“Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t understand fucked-up families,” he muttered.
She was staring at him because she’d heard him. Goddamned wolf hearing. “All I’m saying is—”
“Am I?” she interrupted.
“Are you what?” Jinx braced himself as she asked the next part of the question.
“Dangerous. They kept telling me how sick I was. But they never tried to find me when I left. And I don’t remember trying to hurt anyone, but I had blackouts.”
“What kind of blackouts? From the drugs?”
“Maybe. I lost time. Days—weeks, one time. But the doctors always told me that things were fine.” She gave her parents on the TV a hard look. “I shouldn’t have believed any of them.”
Jinx was studying her. She wondered if this was the point where everything that had been so wonderful and easy between them would break down, that he would reconsider hiding her.
Five million dollars was nothing to sneeze at, and ghost hunting couldn’t pay that much, if at all. Granted, she had no idea how he afforded this place, but maybe Jez paid for it.
Another doctor was on-screen now, discussing Gillian’s diagnosis without saying the exact word schizophrenia, because that would violate all kinds of HIPPA policies. Instead, he talked generally about what happens to a mental patient who stopped taking meds suddenly.
He had no clue the daily meds did nothing for her. She didn’t even bother spitting them out any-more because she was convinced they were sugar pills. And she certainly wasn’t suffering from any kind of withdrawal symptoms as far as she could tell.
She would, however, kill for a nice, stiff drink. And a rare hamburger. She wanted to go to a bar and dance on tables and kiss Jinx all night, end up in his bed.
She’d settle for not being put back into the hospital at this point. Moved nervously under the covers until Jinx finally spoke.
“You said last night that your family could be difficult. Didn’t you think it might be important to tell me who they were?”
“No,” she said coolly. “I liked that you didn’t know.”
“I could’ve been lying.”
“But you weren’t. I would’ve known. I lived my entire life growing up around people using me for that damned last name.” She fisted her hands on her bare thighs as she watched her mother daintily wipe her eyes, her father’s comforting arms around her. “This is the most they’ve touched each other ever, and I’m counting their wedding night.”
“Wow.”
“They’ve slept in separate bedrooms as long as I can remember.”
“Maybe they have, like, conjugal visits?”
“In separate wings. My father’s lovers sleep over.”
“Ouch.”
“I’m adopted,” she said suddenly. “They didn’t want to tell me, but I hired a detective to find the lawyer they got me from. At least my father’s money did me some good.”
“You’re their only kid.”
“Yes. And no, I don’t want any of their money. They can keep all of it.” There was a time in her life she couldn’t have imagined saying that, never mind meaning it. But she had and she did.
She was angry—at Jinx, herself, her parents. All of it.
“I don’t understand why they’re even doing this. It’s got to be for show.”
“Maybe they’re sorry?” Jinx asked.
“They haven’t even come to see me in years. People don’t change that much.” Granted, even before that, her parents had never really taken a huge interest in her. Like most of her friends, she’d been raised by staff, rarely seeing her parents except for important functions where she’d been shown off to the society she was supposed to become a part of.
Poor little rich girl.
“Look, Gillian . . . if you decide to go home, I don’t want you to think you’re not free to do that,” Jinx told her.
“There’s no point. There’s nothing to go back to—my parents don’t even want me inside their house. And I’m not going to live in a psych ward for the rest of my life. So no offense, but you’re not helping this at all.”
But what was she going to do? Hide out here forever?
It seemed, at least for the foreseeable future, that was the best thing for her to do. “I’m sorry, Jinx. I’m being a bitch.”
He didn’t seem worried or offended. Concerned a bit, yes. But he didn’t seem to mind her, moods and all. It was an enlightening and completely new feeling. “I’ll bring you in some breakfast. Best you stay inside for the time being, okay?”
She nodded and he closed the door halfway. She could see the big TV was on in the living room, of course, on the news station. She was causing a lot of trouble for both men now.
Apparently, they’d somehow signed up for it.
She looked around Jinx’s bedroom. It was furnished in clean, modern lines like the rest of the penthouse. Very few personal touches, she mused as she looked around.
It was then she noticed the books on the shelf.
The books . . . the titles she’d kept in her room at the hospital. They were here, neatly lined up on the bookshelves. Not the same books, mind you. No, these were brand-new, no creases on the spine.
He hadn’t been able to get hers back in time, because they’d probably thrown them out once they realized she wasn’t coming back. But he’d gotten her every single one and left them here. It was the only explanation.
When he came back in with a tray filled with bacon and eggs and toast, among other things, she was up rifling through the books, smelling the pages. “How did you . . . ?”
“I have a good memory,” he said. “It seemed like you really liked them.”
She put one to her chest. “They were all I had.”
“I didn’t want to bring back bad memories.”
