Free The Perfect Stranger by Jenna Mills Page A

it was him who stood outside. Not someone who wanted to hurt her. “It’s me. D’Ambrosia.”
    She didn’t move, didn’t blink. He wasn’t sure she breathed.
    “Belle amie.” He wasn’t a man to use endearments, but damn it, in that moment, it felt right. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
    No matter how hard she pretends otherwise, Cain had said, she’s still broken inside.
    “You can trust me,” he added, and the words scraped. “I just want to—” See you. Make sure you’re okay. Make sure you stay away from Lambert. That he never has the chance to touch you again. To hurt you. To break you.
    Chest tight, John crushed the ridiculous internal dialogue and focused on the one promise he could make. “Talk.”
    Through the shadows, he saw something hard and ragged flicker through her expression.
    “Tell me what to do.” He kept his voice low, calm, much like he used with victims of domestic violence. Tell me where it hurts. “Tell me what you need.”
    Finally she moved. With the gun still held in front of her, she lifted her free hand to shove the hair from her face and stepped forward, kept her movements slow, measured. In control.
    Because of her family, he told himself. She’d grown up a Robichaud, an impressionable young girl among a family of powerful men. It made sense that she would have learned and absorbed, becoming more dangerous with each day that passed.
    He wondered if her family realized.
    Somehow he doubted that they did.
    “Step away from the window and put down your gun,” she called, and he smiled. He also obeyed, shifted to the old rail.
    “Done,” he told her, hating the fact that he could no longer see her, not even her silhouette against the window. But she was moving into position to look at him, he knew. So for effect, he lifted his hands.
    Light then, bright and glaring, exposing him standing next to a thirsty fern like a suspect in a lineup. “Just me. No one else.”
    Slowly, the door opened. Light glowed through a narrow crack, revealing a chain, but not her. “What do you want?”
    “I told you,” he said. “To talk.”
    “It’s after midnight.”
    “Your brother was here. I didn’t think you’d want an audience.”
    Silence then. For just a moment. Then the door closed and the chain jingled, and there she was, standing in the open doorway.
    Flannel. The knowledge twisted through him. The too-big pajamas were off-white, with a parade of penguins scattered about. In them, with her hair tangled around her face and her eyes huge and dark, she looked about seventeen years old.
    And goddamn it, he wanted to kiss her anyway. Kiss her hard. Pull her into his arms and put his mouth to hers, pick up where they’d left off that morning in the kitchen.
    “You can put down your gun,” he said instead.
    Her chin came up. “You realize I don’t want you here, don’t you?”
    It took effort, but he bit back the dark laughter. “I kind of noticed that.”
    “Did Cain send you?”
    “Would that make you feel better if he did?”
    Her eyes flared in the brief instant before she glanced toward the quiet street behind him. Left, then right. Left again.
    She was good, he couldn’t help but think. Thorough. Disturbingly cautious. No one behaved that way without reason.
    “Get in,” she said, returning her gaze to his.
    The contrast between the point-blank words and the cuddly pajamas tightened through him. “Would you like to pick that up?” He gestured toward his gun. “Or shall I?”
    Never taking her eyes from his, never changing the aim of her 9mm, she squatted and retrieved his semiautomatic, then straightened and motioned him inside.
    More disturbed by the second, he kept his eyes on hers and moved slowly toward the open door. She backed away when he almost touched, closed the door as soon as he crossed the threshold. Never releasing him from her gaze, she turned the bolt but did not fasten the chain—he didn’t want to wonder why. But did.
    She looked at him as