Free Live for Me by Erin McCarthy Page A

can go back to New York if I make you uncomfortable.”
    “It’s your house,” I said, shocked. “You have every right to be here. I can leave if you want me too. I can stay with a friend while you’re here.” How had we suddenly gotten there? I’d ruined the moment of closeness. Or imaginary closeness between us.
    “That hardly seems fair to you. Especially since I hate this house.”
    Who could hate a house that beautiful? “You do? Then why are you here?” It was none of my business why he did what he did. He was eccentric. I’d already established that. But for some reason, his hesitation, his stance on the second step, shoulders stiff, made me feel like he was wrestling with something. That he was hurting, not physically, but emotionally.
    “I don’t know,” he said simply. “Because fools rush in, I guess. And I’ve always been a first-class idiot.”
    “We all make mistakes.”
    “Somehow I doubt you do.”
    “There’s still time.” Because the truth was, I hadn’t made any mistakes because there had been no opportunity to make any. I had no money, no freedom. Until now.
    He gave me a smile. “I know you have no reason to trust me, but I won’t hurt you, I promise. The house is monitored by surveillance cameras. Even if you don’t trust me, you can trust that.”
    That was precisely what I was afraid of. Had he seen me doing searches on him online? How good were the cameras?
    He clearly misinterpreted my silence. I was worried about what he’d already seen, not whether or not he was being truthful, but he came back down the two stairs he had climbed.
    That made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure what ground I was trodding on here, but it felt uneven. “I trust you.”
    I did. Everything I’d read about him online had reassured me that he was a decent guy. He had zero arrests, no public confrontations. He wasn’t known to drink heavily, and while his ex-wife was often referred to as making a scene, he had spent a lot of time working with the Boys and Girls club, and donated a ton of money. I didn’t think he was in Maine to molest me.
    What I didn’t trust was my ability to be normal around him.
    I’d already almost cried and he’d felt the need to comfort me. What next? Would he see that I was attracted to him? Probably. Men like that knew. They could smell interest and use it to their advantage.
    “Why am I here though, if there are cameras?” I asked. “Just to keep you in doughnuts?”
    He smiled, standing very, very close to me, but not touching me. “You must think I’m such an arrogant ass. And in some ways you’d be right. But no, that’s not why you’re here. You’re here because there is over a million dollars worth of shit in this house and the insurance company won’t cover it against theft, fire, flooding, unless someone is in residence. So you’re here to make sure the art and furniture I don’t even like don’t go up in flames or drown under a burst pipe.”
    That would have never even occurred to me. A shiver rolled over my skin. I glanced around, as if I could see dollar bills bursting out of the sofa cushions. I hadn’t realized I was responsible for protecting so much.
    “Oh.”
    “You didn’t know?”
    I shook my head.
    “My assistant is usually more informative, so you take your duties seriously. On the other hand, Hattie likes to think she needs to keep all of my secrets.” He raised his eyebrows up and down in mockery.
    I remembered her comment about Devin not liking to come to the house, but no explanation as to why. “What secrets?”
    “What are my secrets. Hmm. I hate the color yellow.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “You don’t want to dig around in my secrets and regrets. Boring.”
    “But why don’t you like this house?” I asked again. If he hated it, why didn’t he sell it?
    For a minute he didn’t answer and I thought he was either going to ignore the question or give me some sarcastic and flippant response. He was close