A Kept Man Read Free Page B

man, but not that she hadn’t had any advanced warning.
He’d probably more than paid for his keep by now. “You’re
right. I’m sorry. This is your home, not mine. I’ll stay
out of your way, and I hope you’ll do the same in return.”
    He appeared distinctly amused. “That doesn’t sound very
sociable.”
    “I’m afraid I didn’t come here to socialize. I
don’t know how much Felicity told you, but I’m here to
work. I’m working on a book and I only have a month left to
finish it. I’m going to need every day of that.”
    “And I am here to help you in whatever way I can.”
    “I’m really not interested—”
    “Do you really want to cook for yourself? Worry about shopping?
Take care of the mundane aspects of day-to-day life? The dishes? The
laundry?”
    Jess frowned at his words. She hadn’t even thought about any of
that, she’d been so intent on getting here and starting on the
manuscript right away. He was right. She didn’t want to have to
deal with any of that. If she got consumed in her work, chances were
she’d even forget to eat, and given the state she’d left
her apartment in New York in, housekeeping wasn’t high on her
to-do list either. Was it possible Felicity’s surprise wasn’t
such a bad one after all?
    “You cook?”
    “I do everything. I’m here to wait on you.”
    “Let me guess. Hand and foot?”
    He gave her a flash of those brilliant teeth. “And everywhere
in between.”
    She tried not to notice how the dimple carved in his left cheek made
him look even more impossibly sexy. “Let’s get one thing
straight, Charlie. No funny business.”
    “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, utterly serious.
As though someone had taken an eraser to it, his face was wiped clean
of every trace of humor and innuendo. The eyes that stared back were
solemn. Her reaction to them was no less devastating.
    “I’m here to give you want, not what you don’t.”
    And suddenly Jess wasn’t at all sure she knew the difference.

Chapter
Two

    He knew within seconds of opening the front door that the apartment
was empty. An utter stillness hung over the flat, a sense of
abandonment. No one had been here for days.
    She wasn’t home.
    Thomason returned his weapon to the shoulder holster inside his
jacket before stepping into the apartment. He wouldn’t be
needing it. Not now. Not yet.
    Soon though.
    A quick check of the apartment’s rooms verified what he already
knew. There were signs that she had left in a hurry. The drawers in
her bedroom dresser were only half-shut. Clothes were strewn
haphazardly across her bed. A few dishes remained in the sink. He
sensed she was not the most diligent housekeeper under normal
circumstances, but there was a particular quality about this chaos
that indicated a hasty departure.
    He briefly considered the possibility that she knew he was coming,
then dismissed the idea as unlikely. Not that it mattered either way.
She could not escape him.
    The papers on her desk were in a similar state of disarray as the
rest of the flat. He found nothing among them to indicate where she
had gone. The rest of the room proved similarly unrevealing. Whether
or not she had tried to cover her tracks, she had done a thorough job
of it. Fortunately, there were other ways of locating her. No one
could completely disappear, especially if, as he suspected, she
wasn’t trying to. There would be a trail somewhere.
Transportation tickets. Credit card charges. He had the resources to
track her down wherever she had gone.
    He felt the anger simmering within him and held it at bay. He’d
been so certain his quest would come to an end here, this night. Only
to find the woman had eluded him.
    He swallowed his rage, used it to fuel his determination as it had
for the last long year. Her exodus had granted her a brief reprieve,
nothing more. It would not be long now.
    He would find her. She would give him what he wanted.
    And then she would die.

    “YOUR GODMOTHER IS GREAT.”
    The