Page 8 of Tempting Fate

“Let’s show you around,” Nick says before I can get another question in. “See if you like the place before you agree to anything.”

Nick takes the lead on the tour, though Em looks at me just as much as him. My stomach flips again and again. Oh, this is no good. He’s the most promising potential housemate yet—I can see that even through this silly crush I seem to have immediately formed. All his questions are quick and intelligent, and though he doesn’t seem to care about football, much to Nick’s chagrin, he pivots the conversation to cricket, which none of the others have done so far.

The final room we show him is Vince’s. Was Vince’s. Might soon be his. The bed is still there, but Vince took the wardrobe when he left. Fair enough; he paid for it and built it.

Well, he and Nick did, apparently. Nick looked lost when he first walked in here after it was gone.

“Not huge by any means,” Nick admits with a little shrug. “But if you need to work from home, the walls are pretty soundproof, and you’ve got a nice view over the garden.”

I glance out the window, swallowing hard. Nick and Vince secured all the fence last summer. The fence and the doors and the windows… And I’m fairly sure there’s some magic on the house, courtesy of Kieran’s pack, even though Nick’s outright against it and I said maybe they shouldn’t.

“It all looks great to me,” Em says easily. His sunny smile banishes the swirling darkness creeping up on me, and my face heats. Okay, I need to get over this. He really is the best of the bunch, and that means that no matter how attracted to him I am, I can’t sleep with him.

Not even once.

Nick gives me a sceptical look. Can he read my mind? Ugh, maybe. I shake my head in response, and he huffs before he looks at Em again. “Come on. Let’s chat again downstairs.”

I retreat to the kitchen to make us all tea—Em’s a milk, no sugar kind of guy, and for a second, I feel bad that all we have to offer is supermarket brand tea bags, but that feeling passes quickly—and listen to the low murmur of Nick’s and Em’s voices from the other room.

Sure, Em doesn’t look like he could really hold his own in a fight, but I don’t need that. Tim was the only threat to me, and he was one of my own making, in a sense.

No. What I need is someone who doesn’t look all sad and pitying when I tell them I’m fine. I need someone, really, who doesn’t know about any of that at all. Someone I can start a relationship with—any kind of relationship—on an equal footing.

Em’s fingers brush mine when I hand him his mug and my stomach flutters. I drop on the sofa next to Nick, as far from Em as I can be in our cramped living room.

“Is there anything else I need to know?” Em asks. “Rules, tips, warnings…”

There’s a laughing kind of lilt to his voice on the last word, though I know the request is serious. We live in a nice part of London, but a city is still a city and Em sure as shit doesn’t know about the extra protection this house might have.

“Well,” Nick says and looks at me.

I press my lips together and glare. Dickhead. There is no need to tell Em about Tim. None.

“Something happened?” Em asks, gaze ping-ponging between us.

Nick’s expression doesn’t budge. I sigh. A loss. “Yeah. Last year. This guy… I had a stalker.”

Em’s eyes widen, but otherwise, he gives nothing away. I can’t hold his gaze for too long, so I stare down into my mug instead.

“It’s all fine now,” I say quickly. “All taken care of. You’d be safe here.”

“I’m not worried about that. Are you?”

“Worried?” I risk a look up and swallow at the shift in Em’s eyes. They’re darker, somehow, and there’s a firm set to his jaw that tells me he wants an answer to his question.

“No. Safe.”

“I—” My face floods with heat, tongue heavy in my mouth. The sympathetic tilt of the head I’ve become so accustomed to seeing with everyone else who asks isn’t present at all. He stares at me head-on, and I might have thought he’d be unable to take anyone in a fight before, but now I’m not so certain.

It’s not that he seems aggressive. There’s just… power in him. Confidence.

“Yeah, I’m safe.”

“It’s really all fine,” Nick says, sounding as unsettled as I feel. I watch as Em blinks that confidence away, curling into his chair again with a soft smile as he turns his eyes on Nick. “We don’t get trouble here.”

“That sounds just perfect,” Em replies.