Claim

21

Kira left Rurik on the porch and entered the house. She made an immediate left into the front parlor and stopped in her tracks. She’d known the piano was being moved, but seeing the empty spot in front of the big picture windows was still a surprise after all the months when it had been occupied by the grand piano.

She exhaled her relief. The house was quiet. As she’d expected, the move had been made this morning. No need to worry about Jean-Luc. She would send him a final check and put him out of her mind.

She made a pass through the kitchen and was happy to see that the soapstone countertops had been installed on the back wall, the marble installed on the island. She ran her hands along each, loving the contrast between the raw surface of the soapstone and the polished marble, which stayed cool and would be perfect for baking.

The sink was in too, and the appliances were due to be delivered at the beginning of next week.

She turned around, taking it all in. It had been the most ambitious of all the rooms in the house and it was almost complete. Once the backsplash and appliances were installed, it was just a matter of the bedroom expansion on the second floor and some finish work.

She sighed with happiness and climbed the stairs, happy to discover the wall had been removed between what would have been her suite of rooms and Lyon’s, then continued back downstairs to check on the piano.

She couldn’t keep the smile from her face when she spotted it near the window in the music room. It looked every bit as perfect as she’d imagined, and the floral wallpaper and richly paneled walls, behind which lay the acoustic material that would muffle sound inside the room, worked together to create a cozy refuge from the world.

“That’s always how I picture you.”

She jumped and turned toward the voice to find Jean-Luc staring at her from the doorway. “Excuse me?”

What was he doing here? The piano movers must have left hours ago.

“When I think of you, it’s always standing against that window with the sun in your hair.” An internal alarm went off in Kira’s mind as he crossed the room toward her. He stopped only inches away, close enough that his cloying cologne threatened to overpower her. “And I think of you often, Kira.”

She swallowed her alarm and forced her voice steady. “This isn’t appropriate, Jean-Luc. I’ve enjoyed working with you, but that’s all this is — a working relationship, one that is now over.”

He moved to tuck a lock of hair behind one of her ears and she slapped his hand away. “Stop it.”

Something sinister creeped into his eyes, and his familiar smile suddenly looked more like a sneer.

She was trying to figure out a way to put distance between them, to slide out from between the window at her back and his body, when he grabbed her shoulders.

His grip was tight enough to hurt, and she winced as he shoved her up against the glass. “Don’t be coy. You’ve been flirting with me for weeks. Now you want to play the ingénue?”

He pressed against her and she was mortified to feel the length of his erection against her stomach. That this man was touching her, this man who wasn’t Lyon, turned her stomach, and she felt bile rise in her throat.

“Take your hands off me.” She spoke loudly and firmly, hating the note of panic in her voice.

But he only pressed harder against her body, his knee coming up between her thighs as his mouth slammed into hers, his teeth digging into her lip as he tried to force his tongue between her lips.

She shoved and smacked against him, but it felt futile. He wasn’t nearly as big as Lyon, but he was stronger than he looked and he had her wedged so tightly between the window and his body that there was no room for her to maneuver.

She bit his lip hard and he reared back, wincing and touching his fingers to the blood that had started to drip onto his chin.

“That’s okay,” he said. “I like it rough too.”

She tried to scream for Rurik, but Jean-Luc’s hand came down over her mouth as he reached for the hem of her skirt.

Panic had started to flail inside her chest as his fingers grabbed at her thigh.

And then, as if by magic, he was gone, his weight removed from her body, space opening up between them like a gift.

It took her a few seconds to register what had happened: Lyon standing a foot away, Jean-Luc crumpled on the floor.