The silence was going to kill me.
And since the power was out, no TV, no Netflix, no anything.
Finally accepting my fate, I grabbed my laptop and sat cross-legged on the nice leather couch and opened up my writing program.
The cursor blinked at me from the empty page, waiting for the words that wouldn’t come, words that I needed if I was going to actually turn in something worthwhile in the next month.
I closed my eyes despite the stranger in the room drinking heavily and silently fighting whatever demons he had, and I thought of Noah.
Ever smiling.
Always comforting.
Noah.
Where he had been warm, this rich stranger was cold.
Where he had been optimistic, this guy made me feel like he was seconds away from screaming that the sky was falling.
Why was I even comparing them?
I opened one eye and then the other. He was staring at me intently.
I could see the piercing green of his eyes from my spot on the couch, the fire helping illuminate his sculpted face. I wondered what he looked like when he was actually amused, when he didn’t feel the need to talk down to a person he’d just met.
I refused to look away, assuming he would back down.
He didn’t.
Instead, he lifted the coffee mug to his full mouth as a wicked grin curved his lips. “What’s your name?”
“You won’t need to know it since you’re leaving in the morning,” I said with all the enthusiasm of someone who just got a flu shot in the eye.
His blink was slow as he lowered the mug and set it on the coffee table in front of him. We were maybe five feet away from one another. For such a huge house, the living room was oddly inviting and warm, with the furniture strategically arranged to make the area cozy—a bit too cozy to spend with someone who viewed you as the help.
“I take it you haven’t looked outside.” His right brow shot up a bit, and then he sucked in his bottom lip and sighed. “This is what meteorologists call a blizzard. I’m just praying my car isn’t buried in the morning, and since we’re stuck together I’d at least like to know what name to give my family when they find my cold corpse buried beneath the snow.”
I would not laugh.
He wasn’t charming.
I swallowed a smile and tilted my head. “You planning on being even more insulting in the future? I mean you must, since you think I’m over here plotting your death.”
He just shrugged. “I’m pretty sure my breathing annoys you.”
“You didn’t ask, you told me to build a fire, like I was some hired help, plus you tried to throw money at me when I wouldn’t go away, so kind of annoyed yes, more disappointed in mankind than anything, though.” I flashed a grin then glanced back down at my laptop.
Focus.
Honestly, he hadn’t done anything horrible in the last hour, he’d even helped with the fire, but something about him rubbed me the wrong way, even his silence made me want to throw something.
He was ruining my solace.
And up until that point, I hadn’t realized how badly I needed to just sit and think and be alone.
A person like me was never alone; constantly surrounded, whether by social media, photographers, or my parents’ insane amount of staff. There was always someone. My parents were A-list celebrities, my mom an actress and my dad an award-winning director. Growing up in the limelight meant everyone was always willing to bend over backward for you—even if they hated you. When Noah died, the noise around me made the choking sensation in my throat worsen, because when people don’t know what to say, they say they are sorry, and they ask if you’re okay, and I didn’t trust myself not to break down. Social media used to feel like an escape, and now it felt more like a dungeon because I couldn’t grieve the way I knew I needed to, not in front of millions of people and not with someone asking me if I needed anything every few seconds. Every single time they tried to be nice, I had to fake a smile.
And I was fresh out of those.
I think I used my last one on him.
See? Selfish!
I typed “Noah.” My fingers shook.
And then my laptop was slowly being shut. I moved my hands to keep from getting them caught and glared up at the guy responsible.
I had no choice but to scoot over as he sat down on the couch next to me, his whiskey cup in his hand. “I’m Julian.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Tennyson,” he finished.
And I couldn’t not react.
Tennyson?
The Julian Tennyson?
The one who was in the coma and all over the news? His brother and his former fiancée were expecting a child. It was like a bad soap opera.