Now You See It by Cáit Donnelly Page A

chin in a truculent tilt and eyes challenging. Did she even know what she could do? Just what could she do?
    Shit! Everything had just become a lot more complicated. By a factor of a zillion or so. That must be why her energy had felt so clear to his touch .
    Now what? “I’ll leave as soon as the locksmith gets here. You shouldn’t be alone in this house until the locks are changed.” He straightened and glanced back at her. “We can work on the password later.”
    She pulled out her cell phone, flipped it open and listened for a second. “I’m fine, Mike,” she said.
    There was another pause, and without answering, she handed Brady the phone.
    “Yeah,” he said abruptly.
    “Gemma sounds pissed.”
    “That, too. Listen, Mike, I’ve got cops coming to the office at four. I’m installing a couple of extra layers of security, and as soon as that’s done I’m out of here.”
    “Ouch. She’s that mad, huh?”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    “But she’s okay? Let me talk to her.”
    “Right. Maybe we should take a rain check on tonight. Tomorrow okay?”
    Gemma’s chin came up another notch at that, and when he held out the phone, she snatched it from his hand and turned her back.
    * * *
    An hour after Brady left, Gemma was still furious, and that told her just how close she was to the edge. She never stayed mad after she’d blown off steam. Almost never , she amended.
    The locksmith had come and gone, and the security company had reset her alarm codes. The whole time, Brady had behaved as if nothing had happened. She’d been half hoping he would do something outrageous so she could yell at him again, but he’d been courteous, professional, cool and detached. By the time he finally left she wanted to throw things at him, or say something devastating, but he never gave her an opening.
    “Get a grip, Gemma,” she muttered. She was through packing for today—in this mood she was likely to start smashing things, or worse, spiral back into the grief and resentment she’d been feeling earlier.
    And nothing that serious had happened, after all. Just schoolyard posturing, like two boys arguing over a ball. She resented being the object of their contention.
    She also hated feeling so out of control. Up, down, sappy, furious. And why did Brady trigger so much rage? He hadn’t done anything to deserve it. Was she that afraid of trusting him? Not with her life—that was easy, and he came well-recommended, seemed hard and competent. But with herself.
    It wasn’t his fault she was so attracted to him. That her nipples got hard and her core got soft and ready whenever she thought about him. She barely knew him, they’d only just met, but the pull she felt was undeniable—and frightening. What was the threat he represented? To her peace of mind? Her independence?
    She was just learning again to function as a person, not half a couple. To make her own choices, follow her own heart. Did Brady threaten that tender new sovereignty? He hadn’t done or said anything to make her think so, beyond a little flirting and a lot of bossiness. But seeing him facing off with Doug...she’d never been one of those women who enjoyed being fought over. It was damned insulting to have two strutting males assume she would be “won,” like some tawdry prize at a street fair, by whichever of them succeeded in beating the stuffing out of the other. Just thinking about it started her temperature heading upward again.
    As she set her dishes in the sink and started the hot water, she remembered Brady had taken his cup up to her office. Inconsiderate, too, she fumed as she stomped up the stairs. Jerk!
    The cup sat on her desk where the little Pegasus had been, but the statue wasn’t there, or on the worktable, the bookshelves, the floor—what had he done with it? Had he taken it into one of the other rooms? Why would he? Why go into them at all, where he had no business being? Why would he do that?
    Gemma’s mouth went dry. She was probably