Page 44

I’d just about drifted off to sleep when the front door opened, startling me awake. I sat forward eagerly, grin spreading wide across my face. I pulled my phone up, opened up my camera app, and then zoomed all the way in on Vaughn.
The image went grainy, but it was enough to see the general direction his fingers moved over the lock pad. “Seven, three, seven…” I chuckled, pretty sure the last number had been a three too. “Thank you, Bart, for not having a fingerprint or eye scanner. That would have been a real pain. Now if your son could just skedaddle…”
Like he could hear me, Vaughn tucked his wallet in a saddlebag and lifted his arms to tug on his jacket.
I refused to notice the flash of abs I got when his T-shirt rose.
The jacket settled around his shoulders, and he pulled the helmet on too, masking his face.
“Good,” I muttered, before I’d even thought about why. I was so damn distracted by the chiseled jaw and the dark stubble and the deep-brown eyes I was forgetting Vaughn was now the enemy.
A stupidly sexy enemy.
Finally, he got on the bike and zoomed out of the driveway. I slunk right down in the driver’s seat, barely peeking over the dashboard, and thankful my short legs allowed it.
“Go time.” I turned on the car and drove straight into the driveway like I owned it. Since I sort of did, according to Bart’s will. I hummed the Mission Impossible theme song as I darted to the door in the darkness and punched in the number combination I thought I’d seen Vaughn use.
The door popped open on the first go. I felt like calling Vincent and telling him. He’d be proud.
I walked tentatively inside, eyeing everything in the grand entranceway with awe. The ceiling had to be twenty feet high with ornately carved cornices and a huge chandelier dangling from the center. The black-and-white checkered tiles seemed like they went on for miles. My apartment could indeed fit in this space. Maybe twice over.
Family photos hung on the walls, in amongst expensive art. I wandered it like I was at a gallery, too taken in by it all to hurry, even though for all I knew, Vaughn had just ducked out to the store to get a bottle of milk and would be back at any minute.
I paused on a photo of Vaughn in a classic black suit and bow tie, a blond woman in a pure-white wedding dress wrapped around him. My mouth dropped open. “All that talk of pussy licking, and you’re married? Shame on you, Vaugh Weston. Shame. Does she know you’re a cheating, lying, house-stealing, scumbag?”
I turned the photo down, not wanting to see his wife’s smiling, open face after I’d pictured her man with his head between my thighs. Irritation prickled at me. Fuck Vaughn for putting those ideas out there when he had a ball and chain and was doomed to lick only this woman’s vag for the rest of eternity.
Lucky bitch.
I stomped up the grand staircase that seemed to be a staple in houses around here. Bliss’s place had one too, and so had her dad’s. I supposed you had to get up the stairs somehow when you had a house this size. Might as well make a statement out of it.
At the top, I clutched my dying potted plant in one arm and looked both ways. “Houses that are big enough to have north and south wings should be illegal. Who needs so many rooms?”
But then I thought about the fact this house could be mine and decided that maybe I did. It was better than my shoebox of an apartment anyway.
I opened the door closest to the stairs and found what had to be the main suite. The bed was neatly made with soft cream sheets and bedspread, and above it on the wall was a ginormous framed photo of my mom and Bart. She smiled into the camera in a way I’d never seen her smile before.
She was absolutely beaming. The perfect picture of happiness, showing off her engagement ring for the camera.
A lump rose in my throat, and I shut the door quickly, all of it too fresh and raw to deal with. There was so much sadness to come. The official will reading. Funerals. A whole damn life without her. I didn’t want to think about any of it.
It was a lot easier to focus on this little feud with Vaughn and stealing his house.
My house.
Same, same.
I hurried down the hall to the next bedroom. “Oh, boy.”
It had to be Vaughn’s room. It was done up in deep navy blue, from the walls with their white trims to the silky bedspread. It was neat and tidy, apart from a duffel bag stashed in the corner, overflowing with clothes, and a glass on the bedside table with an inch of bourbon still in the bottom.
I bit my lip, looking at it. Had the man been drunk since it had happened? He was out riding right now. I’d slap him upside the head if he was driving drunk. I had no patience for that shit.
Not that he was my man to do that with, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t fly with anyone.
If I’d been a bigger person, I would have walked out of the room and left Vaughn to his privacy.
I wasn’t. I was tiny in stature, and I guess that carried over to my morals too. At least when it came to snooping through Vaughn’s bedroom.