He turns to level me with a look. “Do you want me to have something else to do today?”
I hesitate, before admitting casually, “Well, not necessarily, but—”
“Then shut up and stop trying to get rid of me.” He pulls out of Dakota’s driveway.
I press my lips together to keep from smiling.
“I would reco white. A nice, crisp one, like . . .” Fausto, a thirty-something-year-old guy with slicked black hair hiding beneath a baseball cap and a heavy New York accent, pulls out a deck of paint colors, fanning them out on the dirty floor in front of me. “. . . Ghost or Ice.”
“White for Black Rabbit?” I don’t bother to hide the skepticism in my voice. I spin slowly around, taking in the main room. Without all the clutter to hide the dinginess, this place looks atrocious at best. As a customer, I’d take one look in here and turn around, with thoughts of hep C screaming inside my head. Fair enough.
But white?
“As a starting off point, yeah. You can weave in some bold colors—a nice jammy red over on that wall there, an indigo or peacock blue over here. Maybe hammered-bronze ceiling tiles. Tons of possibilities. I’ll help you make your shop stand out.”
“We’re selling this place,” I’m quick to say.
He shrugs. “All right. Fine. Then leave it as a blank canvas for whoever comes in, because everyone has their own spin. Just get rid of this black. The grunge look is dead. People want a nice, clean environment.”
I chew my lip in thought. I’m always so sure of colors and design when it comes to my sketchbook and a skin canvas, but for some reason I can’t see past Ned’s version of his shop. He’d be rolling in his grave over this.
“But, hey, if you don’t want to listen to someone who actually knows what he’s talking about, then, sure, we can go with your plan and you guys can lose a boatload of money,” Fausto adds.
He’s a cocky bastard.
He sounds just like me, when I’m convincing someone that my design is better than whatever they have in mind.
I turn to Sebastian, who stands with his arms folded over his chest. The other painter already stripped the window of its shade in order to prepare all the work surfaces—filling holes, patching cracks—so the front of the store is wide open and bare. He looks every bit the guard that he said I didn’t need, surveying the street. I’m starting to think he was lying to me.
“What do you think, Sebastian?”
He turns at his name, his eyebrow pops up from behind dark sunglasses. He has no idea what I’m talking about. He’s barely paid two seconds of attention to me since we stepped in here. The flirtatious guy from last night, who had his hands on me at every chance, has disappeared, replaced with this cool, detached replica of the first day we met.
“I was going to have him paint everything black again but he said—”
“Go with Ice.” He turns back to watch the street again.
I smirk. He’s probably always listening, and watching, even when I don’t know it.
I heave a sigh. “All right, Fausto. I’m going to trust you on this.” What do I care? Ned is dead and repainting it black isn’t going to bring him back. Stripping it of all character and personality might give some closure.
Fausto claps his hands together. “Buono! I’ll get this mixed. Jimmy will stay and prep.”
I dangle the spare key on a finger and then toss it to his waiting hands. “How long do you think this will take?”
“Depending on how many coats it takes to cover the black . . .” His face twists into an exaggerated frown with his thought, reminding me of Ned. “With two more of my guys to help, give us three days and we should be done.”
“All right. You have my number if anything comes up.” I glance at Sebastian. “Ready to go, driver?”
He nods, not acknowledging my dig with so much as an eyebrow spike, now focused on Fausto. “If anyone shows up here and starts asking questions or is poking around, I want you to take down a physical description and call Ivy immediately.”
Fausto snorts. “What the hell do I look like? I’m the painter, not your fucking secretary.”
Sebastian slides his glasses off and takes several steps forward, peering down at the short Italian man. There’s a shift in the air. I can feel his dominance radiating; he somehow seems taller, stronger, his presence more ominous. I think I’m going to have to dive in between them. Sebastian can’t go breaking my painter’s arms. “This is important. I would appreciate the help.” His tone is always on the clipped side. Now, though, it’s laced with a threat.
“Yeah. Okay. Either me or Jimmy will relay to Ivy if something comes up,” Fausto mumbles, adjusting his baseball cap several times as he takes a step back.
I slip a hand around Sebastian’s arm and tug his arm. “Ready?”
He slides his glasses back over his eyes. With a hand on the small of my back, he leads me out without another word to the guys.
“What was that?”
“That was your painter being smart.” He opens the passenger-side door for me, his eyes veering to the left and right. Everywhere but to me.
I sigh and climb in.
The broom handle clatters loudly against the tile floor and I gasp at the sudden noise.
Sebastian simply props it up in the corner again without a word. I’ve been jumpy since the moment we climbed the steps out front, and I’ve done a terrible job of hiding it.
I hate that the assholes who did this have made me nervous to simply be in this house.
Shaking it off, I right the wooden end table in the living room and focus on the silver lining. “At least this makes cleaning the house out and getting it ready to sell easier for me.” Pretty much everything—right down to the Raisin Bran and mac & cheese from the kitchen pantry—is now trash. I need to rent a Dumpster.
“What did the insurance company say?” Sebastian asks, leaning the smashed flat-screen TV against the wall, giving me a good view of his muscular backside.
“It said, ‘We’re sorry that your uncle didn’t pay his premiums in time and have fun with this giant mess, suckers.’ ” After a moment, I look up to see Sebastian simply standing there, staring at me.
“What?” I snap, though I don’t mean to.
He gives his head a quick shake and then calmly says, “You’ll need new locks on these doors right away.”
“Yeah, I’m aware of that.” I sigh, tossing the broken lamp onto the torn-apart couch. “I guess I’m going to hire a locksmith.”
“I can put new locks on for you.”
“You’re a bodyguard and a locksmith?”
He smirks, like there’s some sort of inside joke. “No, but I know a lot about locks.”
I’m not going to ask. Maybe it’s something he picked up in the navy. Besides, refusing his help hasn’t even crossed my mind today. Since stepping into this house in broad daylight, I’ve been nothing but quietly relieved that Sebastian didn’t drop me off and leave, that he feels the need to stay with me, for whatever reason.
A loud, abrupt holler of “Hello?” from the doorway makes me jump again.
I curse and spin on my heels to see Detective Fields stepping over the threshold, sliding his sunglasses off his clean-shaven face to hook the arm in the front of his olive-green dress shirt, his gaze taking in the destruction.