The Billionaire's Rescue novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: A Lock on Your Side

Torben takes her to his lake house with no terms; a gossip site calls her a gold digger, and Lance texts a threat about her mother's job.

The house sat on the Wisconsin side of Lake Geneva, behind a gate and a line of bare maples.

It was long and low and made of glass and grey stone, and the lake behind it was the color of a nickel at seven in the morning.

I had slept in the back of his car with my head on a folded coat and my hand on my belly.

Torben carried my bag to the door and did not offer to carry me.

I liked him for that more than I wanted to.

"The west wing is yours," he said. "Bedroom, bathroom, a kitchen nobody's used. No stairs."

He showed me the bedroom last.

It had a bed the size of a dinghy and a wall of windows that looked straight onto the water.

The door had a brass bolt on the inside, new and bright.

I turned it, and it slid with a solid clack.

"I called the housekeeper from the car, and a locksmith put it on this morning," he said. "Nobody comes in unless you open it. That includes me."

I looked at him.

He was standing in the hallway with his hands in his pockets, six foot four of tired man, and he did not step past the doorframe.

"I'm going to say something, and I want you to hear all of it," I said.

"Go ahead."

"I don't know you. I don't owe you anything. If you think I'm going to pay for this room with something other than money, I'll walk to the road."

His face didn't change.

"Nothing here is a trade," he said. "I watched a man put his hands on a woman who couldn't fight back. I'm not going to ask for a thing in return, and that includes your gratitude."

"Everybody wants something."

"Then you can wonder what I want," he said. "While you sleep."

I snorted.

It came out of my nose, and he looked startled, and then pleased.

"Two weeks," I said. "Doctor's orders. Then I find an apartment."

"Fine."

"I'll bake for the house. I can't sit still."

"The kitchen has an oven," he said. "I have never turned it on."

"That's a crime."

"I've heard."

I slept eleven hours.

When I woke, the lake was gold and there was a tray on the floor outside the door with soup, toast, and a note in blunt block capitals.

EAT. THE HOUSEKEEPER SAYS THE SOUP IS HER MOTHER'S AND DOES NOT FORGIVE LEAVING IT.

I ate all of it.

By afternoon I had found flour, butter and a half bag of cardamom the housekeeper kept for a Swedish coffee cake.

Torben found me at the counter in his borrowed sweatshirt with my sleeves pushed up, kneading dough with my good arm.

He stopped at the island and watched without speaking.

"Don't hover," I said.

"I'm not hovering. I'm looking at my kitchen."

"Your kitchen is a showroom."

"It has a sink."

He leaned against the counter and picked up a lump of dough that had fallen off the board.

He ate it raw, and I pointed a rolling pin at him.

"That's gross."

"It's good."

"It has raw egg in it."

"It's still good," he said, and he looked, for the first time, like someone who had been a boy.

My phone lit up on the counter.

Then his did, and then mine again.

He picked up his first, read the screen, and put it down without a word.

"What?"

"Chicago Lantern," he said. "It's a gossip site."

He turned the phone to face me.

The photo was from the hospital doorway.

I was in a wheelchair with his tuxedo jacket over my shoulders and my mouth open, mid-word.

The headline said, Billionaire's Pregnant Mystery Woman: Who Is She and What Does She Want?

Under it, a quote from a "family source close to the Strouds."

"She's a disturbed ex-employee who has been harassing Lance since the engagement was announced. We're praying for her."

I read it standing up with flour on my arms.

"I was never his employee," I said. "I was his girlfriend."

"I know."

"I made his birthday cake. Two layers. He cried."

"I know," Torben said quietly.

The phone buzzed again in my hand.

A new number.

Lance's, from another phone, because he'd blocked the old one.

I read it, and the flour on my hands turned to paste.

"Drop the police report by Friday. My mother sits on the St. Anne's board. Your mother has thirty years there and no pension. Think about her."

I read it twice.

Then I put the phone down very carefully on the counter, so I would not throw it.

"What does it say?" Torben asked.

I told him.

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