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“What are you doing right now?”

Carys looked at the text message, sitting up straighter on her sofa.

She looked around self-consciously, noticing how messy her apartment had become as well as the fact that she’d immediately pulled on sweat pants and a sweatshirt upon arriving home.

And done nothing else but watch television.

She wasn’t even sure what she’d been watching since she hadn’t really been paying attention.

Carys picked up her phone, her heart pounding against her ribs as she typed, “Thinking about you.” But she didn’t send it. Instead, she deleted the words and tried again, “Having a lazy night.” That was the truth, although not the whole truth.

“What’s going on in your mind?” he texted right back.

“Not much.” Another lie. “What’s going on in your world?”

“Missing you,” he replied right back.

Darn it! Carys felt like a coward. She remembered how sweet he’d been after she’d been so jealous.

And how hurt he’d been that she didn’t trust him.

So here she was, her heart pounding practically out of her chest as she considered her next words, her next revelation.

Would he accept what she was about to say? Or would he laugh at her?

Carys thought about the way she’d felt over the past few days without him, knowing that she’d wounded him with her words. So here she was, about to attempt to trust him.

But before she could type out the words that she missed him too, he texted back, “I know that you miss me, but you’re too scared to admit it. That’s okay. Eventually, you’ll trust me with your heart.”

Carys’s eyes welled up as she stared at the message. He was so…confident and amazing! Why couldn’t she just…trust him?

“I do miss you,” she typed out, then pressed send before she lost her courage.

Then she tossed her phone down on the couch beside her.

Before she could berate herself for opening herself up to being hurt by his rejection, the phone rang.

For a long moment, she stared at it, not daring to answer because she knew it was him.

But the thought of missing his call, not hearing his voice, was too painful. So she grabbed her phone and answered it.

“Was that so hard?” his deep, sexy voice asked.

She hesitated, closing her eyes and tilting her head back. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Then your words means all the more,” was his deep, velvety response. For the next few minutes, he asked her what she’d done today and she learned that he’d flown to Rome for meetings. In the end, he sighed. “I have to get back to work. Will you have dinner with me when I get back to Philadelphia?”

“Of course,” she replied without hesitation. “When is that going to happen?”

He groaned. “I’m flying out to California tomorrow, then New York the following day. So…in three days? Maybe four?”

She grinned, snuggling deeper into the sofa cushions. “Make it three, Rafi,” she whispered to him. Then ended the call before he could.

Carys jumped up and rushed to her bedroom, almost as if she were trying to run away. But before her feet hit the carpeting in her bedroom, her phone pinged with another message. “Three Days. Be Naked!”

Carys laughed as she padded barefoot into her bathroom, preparing for bed. It was after ten o’clock and it was nice to anticipate a full night’s sleep. Not that she wouldn’t love having Rafi’s arms around her, she thought as she reached for her toothbrush.

It wasn’t there!

Carys stared at the spot where her toothbrush usually stood in the cup.

She never put her toothbrush anywhere else.

In fact, she’d been rushing this morning and tossed her toothbrush into the cup too hard.

The cup had toppled over. Carys vividly remembered straightening the toothbrush holder this morning, even muttering to herself about how she needed to move to a building with a bigger bathroom.

So, she knew her toothbrush had been there this morning.

Looking around, Carys noticed a few other things out of place.

Her bed was made again. The pillows on her bed were out of order.

When Carys took the time to make it, she preferred the flowered pillows to sit in front of the plaid ones.

And she always placed the pillow that she’d embroidered in front of the rest.

As she frowned at the pillows on her bed, she noticed the embroidered pillow was on one side with the flowered pillows, peeking out from behind the plaid ones.

Someone had been in her bedroom. And her bathroom!

But…why? Why would a burglar steal someone’s toothbrush and rearrange pillows?

Her television, the only thing in her apartment that had any value, was still sitting in her living room.

Were items missing from her kitchen? Carys hadn’t bothered to cook recently, so it was possible someone had stolen her pots and pans, but nothing else in her home was worth much.

“This is so weird!” she whispered, sitting down on the edge of her bed.

A moment later, she jumped up and walked through the apartment, checking the locks on her doors and windows.

Her windows were all locked and she’d connected the chain to her front door.

The only other way in was through the balcony door and Carys always put one of those wooden bars in the way, so the sliding glass door couldn’t open.

Everything was in place. Still, she’d feel better once the camera she’d ordered arrived because it would be nice to know what kind of person was coming into her home and cleaning stuff.

Or even weirder, who the hell would steal a toothbrush!

That was Goldilocks meets “get out” level creepiness, in Carys’s opinion.