Fall to You (Here and Now 2)

“Uh…wow…um…” I blink at her and search my brain for those things, the, um…words. Yes. I need words. Maybe a few of them. In a row.

Janelle raises a brow and shifts her gaze to her brother. “She looks smarter than your usual conquests, yet she doesn’t seem to know how to speak in complete sentences.”

“Don’t be a bitch,” Nate warns, but his tone is light.

My cheeks burn. “I’m just…a fan.” I swallow so hard you can hear it in the quiet room.

She sighs heavily. “Roommates, right?” she asks, referring to the popular sitcom my friends and I watched through college.

I nod stupidly. I mean, I’m here with Nate Freaking Crane, a celebrity in his own right, but I’m going all speechless over his sister.

“Hanna is a twin too,” Nate tells Janelle.

I snap my head in his direction. “You two are twins?” The night we met, he said that his curiosity about my twin didn’t come from a sexual fetish. Now I understand what he meant.

“I’m not trying to interrupt your romantic weekend or anything,” Janelle says. “I just couldn’t take another minute in his house.”

I bite my lip to make sure I don’t nose in where I shouldn’t. But seriously, it’s all I can do not to tell her that I was totally Team Janelle through her nasty, way-too-public divorce from actor Tom Comer. (Okay, so maybe I do sometimes check out the headlines on Mom’s gossip rags.) Whatever. He was blatantly cheating on her, and if three out of four nationally distributed publications sold at my grocery store are to be believed, the ass thought she should be okay with his infidelity.

“Why don’t you just move in here for a while?” Nate says. “You can lie low. You know I have more than enough room.”

Most of the sneer falls off her face and her eyes fill. “You mean it? I don’t want to get in the way of…” Her scrutinizing eyes try to figure me out. “Whatever this is.”

“Oh, no.” I shake my head. “This isn’t anything. I’m just a friend. I’ll be out of here in a couple of days.”

Nate tugs me closer, holding me against his chest. “Of course I mean it. Make yourself at home.”

“Nathaniel Crane, you did not invite company into this house without even giving me a word of warning!”

The three of us turn to see a large, muscular man step into the foyer, his ebony face a mask of disapproval, his hands on his hips.

“Hanna,” Nate says, “this is Jamaal. He’s my groundskeeper and head of security.”

Jamaal rolls his eyes. “Fancy title, but it really means I pick up Nathaniel’s dirty underwear and keep the screaming fangirls from breaking in to steal it.”

Nate grunts. “Will you please show Miss Thompson to my room, Jamaal? I need to talk to my sister for a minute.”

Jamaal takes my bags, and I follow him up the stairs and through the long hallway to the west wing of the house. The room is as magnificent as the rest of the house, and I can’t help but take in all the little details—the crown molding, the polished wooden floors, the marble-faced fireplace across from the giant bed.

Too late, I realize Jamaal is watching me. “Sorry,” I mutter. “I’ve just never seen a house like this.”

He only grunts in response. It doesn’t take a genius to see that he doesn’t trust me. “How long do you plan on staying?” he asks, clasping his hands in front of his body.

“Only a couple of nights.” I told my family I was going out of town to make a wedding cake for a college friend whose baker had to cancel at the last minute. They bought it, but the excuse only buys me two or three days if I don’t want anyone finding out about Nate. And I don’t. He has to be my secret if Max is going to get that grant.

My stomach twists at the thought of Max, but it’s a different kind of tummy twist since he pulled me in front of that mirror and said those things to me. Did he mean what he said or is it all part of his plan to win me back? Is he still trying to give me that confidence boost he set out to give me in the beginning? He seemed so…sincere. And hot. Since when is the idea of a guy thinking about me when he jacks off so freaking sexy?

“She can stay as long as she wants,” Nate says from the doorway. Guilt has me spinning around and turning off my thoughts of Max. Nate grins at me as he enters.

“Right,” Jamaal says. “Please let me know if you need anything.” He turns to Nate. “Could we speak in the hall?”

Nate nods, and the two file out into the hallway. I’m not trying to listen, but I’m not trying to not to either.

From Jamaal, I hear “bad idea” and “dealing with grief,” and Nate spits, “This isn’t about him.” Then there are murmurs and the door is opening again as Nate returns.

“How are you doing?” he asks, closing the door behind him.

“What was that about?”