“Mr. Stickler over there probably has a list of rules for me while I’m here. Probably wants me to sign a blood oath I’ll follow them, too.”
Jacob looked at Kyle, then the ceiling. Obviously she’d been right.
“It’s okay.” She hopped onto the pretty bed, stretched out. “Lay ’em on me.”
* * *
KYLE FROWNED. HE did have some ground rules for Grace, but even he wasn’t rude enough to bring them up the minute she arrived. Especially when she was staying with them for such...sensitive reasons.
But Grace embodied everything Kyle worked so hard to rise above. No, she didn’t just embody it, she embraced it. She flaunted it. He had a business to run in this house, and her image didn’t match.
And if he kept telling himself that, he could ignore that Grace always put him off-kilter. Always prompted more response out of him than he wanted to give.
“I’m sure you have something to say about my tattoo,” she offered. “You’re always sneering at it.”
He wanted to argue. He didn’t sneer at it, per se. It was just so bright and...visible. That was fine for Grace, it even kind of suited her, but Grace...Grace did not fit the ordered, muted world he wanted.
“Your tattoo is fine, but... Well, it’s an image thing. We routinely have clients taking tours of the house. While your room will be off-limits for the duration of your stay, we may ask you to vacate it for scheduled tours. The kitchen and TV room are within the common areas. It’s likely you’ll be seen. Some people are put off by tattoos.” Which was why no one ever saw his.
She lay back on the bed, resting her head on folded arms. The sleeve on her arm rode up so the tattoo was now almost completely visible. The faded T-shirt she wore had bunched up so that a smooth strip of pale skin was exposed.
Back in high school she’d been more curvy, but ever since her incident, as he preferred to refer to it, she’d changed. She was lean now, her body toned with muscle as if she’d spent a lot of time trying to purposefully bulk up.
Wasn’t that what he’d done after his own...incident?
Kyle focused on the tattoo. “Well?”
“Well, listening to you talk reminds me of Mr. Mallory’s boring science lectures. But I get it. Walk around in long sleeves to hide my off-putting tattoo. Next?”
He scowled. How did she manage to make his perfectly reasonable request sound so ridiculous? “Next...” Kyle paused. She’d started this, but he was coming off looking like the jerk.
And that was why he hated to be around Grace. She always flipped things on their side. He could never control the situation. He’d spent eighteen years in a volatile, uncontrollable environment. He’d fought tooth and nail to get out, to make something of himself enough so that he was in control of his life.
Grace had an easy way of making him feel as though he’d failed.
“If you don’t like my tattoo, I imagine you don’t approve of my hair, either.”
“It is rather colorful.”
“And that’s a problem?”
He tamped down his irritation. For whatever reason, Grace always pulled emotions out of him he usually found easy to repress. No one else in his life could do that even with their best efforts.
Well, except one person, but Kyle refused to acknowledge that little blip.
“Problem is a harsh word. Again, it’s about image. We want our clients to look at this house, at us, and see professionals. Whether it’s right or not, your tattoo, your hair, your clothes will reflect on us. It’s not a professional look.”
“Is this guy serious?” Grace demanded of Jacob.
Jacob fished his phone out of his pocket. “I should call Mom. Tell her I got you settled in.” He stepped out of the room.
“Coward,” Grace muttered. She looked over at him now, her brown eyes assessing and obviously not impressed with the result.
“Bet you never thought you’d be alone in a bedroom with me,” she said after a pause.
“No, I suppose not.” Which wasn’t exactly true. Before he’d left Carvelle determined to never, ever set foot in that hellhole again, he’d had a little thing for Grace. But like most things from his teenage years, Kyle had come to his senses and left it behind.
Grace let out a lengthy sigh. “I get it. You want me to be some business professional clone.”
Kyle doubted it was possible. “Just during business hours.”
She snorted, rolling onto her side and studying him. “Personality isn’t a crime.”
Personality Grace had in spades. She always had, but she’d changed over the past few years. Her personality had expanded, exploded, so that it was so big he felt choked when he was in a room with her.
“No, I suppose not.”
“You could use a shot of it now and then.” She grinned.
It was hard to take offense when she was right. He preferred not to have much in the way of personality. It was the best way for people to look at him as an efficient professional without wanting to get to know him better. Getting to know people always led to questions he didn’t want to answer.
“Well, I’ll leave you to settle in.”
She nodded, closed her eyes. “Thanks for agreeing to this, Kyle. Really.”
Kyle swallowed. It had taken some convincing on Jacob’s part to get him to agree, so her thanks only made him feel like an ass. “No problem. I may be lacking in personality, but you’re always welcome.”
She might irritate him to no end, but he knew what it was like to go through trauma. Though he’d managed to keep them at a distance, the McKnights had always offered to help him. He owed the same to Grace. Whether he liked it or not. So he’d agreed to Jacob’s one-month proposal, and hoped like hell that was all it took.
“Don’t be so nice. I won’t know how to act.” She flopped back on the bed and took a deep breath, her chest moving up, drawing his eyes down to the deep V of her T-shirt. Quickly he stepped to the door and moved his eyes to the ceiling.
The last thing he needed to be noticing was his best friend’s sister’s breasts. Even if they were nice breasts. Well, weren’t most breasts pretty nice? Good God, he needed to stop thinking about breasts.
He stepped out of the room before she could do anything else to put him off-balance.
Kyle walked down the long hall to his office. He didn’t believe in wasting days on leisure. There was always something to work on for MC Restorations, and nothing made him more balanced than work.
Jacob was sitting at Kyle’s desk, his battered sneakers resting on the gleaming wood. Kyle tried not to wince.
“So
