Something or someone had frightened him off and he’d dropped the goods. There was no help for it now. The choice had been taken away from her. She had to phone the police and turn it in. Her only prayer was that her mother wouldn’t hear about this. It was just the type of thing that would send Louise into a tizzy.
Her decision made, Hilary turned and came within two feet of the biggest man she’d ever seen in her life. He loomed over her, menacing and angry.
Hilary’s heart went into a panic.
“Who the hell are you?” he boomed in a voice that echoed like a Chinese gong.
CHAPTER TWO
“Who am I?” Hilary cried indignantly. “The question here is who are you!” It was a wonder she hadn’t fainted from sheer terror. How dare this…this bully break into her home—her very first home—and make demands of her. “Furthermore, what are you doing in my apartment?”
“You’ve got this all wrong, lady. I’m the one who lives here.”
Hilary folded her arms and gave him a look that suggested she wasn’t stupid, nor would she let him intimidate her. If she could deal with her mother, then she was capable of handling King Kong.
“I happen to live here,” she told him as forcefully as she could. He might outweigh her by a hundred pounds and tower a good ten inches above her, but she refused to be browbeaten. “Now I’d like to suggest you leave. Otherwise I’ll be forced to contact the authorities.”
The intruder’s eyes narrowed as he took in her best finishing-school voice. A slow, deliberate smile appeared. “Dave Krier put you up to this, didn’t he?”
“I assure you I don’t know anyone named Dave,” she informed him stiffly. “Now kindly leave and take that…that sandbag with you, before I call the police.”
“Be my guest.” He crossed his massive arms, his dark eyes cold and arrogant. “It should be interesting, since I have a lease on this apartment.”
“You couldn’t possibly have a lease,” Hilary responded tartly, “because I have a lease.”
“Prove it.”
“You prove it!” she demanded, refusing to be cowed. It was only too clear the man was lying, but for what purpose, she could only speculate.
“Fine, I will.” He stalked over to the bag that had been the cause of her curiosity earlier. He opened it, reached inside and withdrew a thick envelope. He shuffled through some papers, then peeled one away and examined it.
“I signed a six-month lease,” he said. “Allen Greer’s signature confirms it.”
“Allen Greer,” Hilary repeated slowly as she read over the agreement. “I…rented this place from his wife more than a week ago.” She had the papers with her as well, but they were in her room.
“Mrs. Greer rented you the apartment?”
“Apparently there’s been some misunderstanding,” Hilary said slowly, collecting her thoughts. She read over the paper and noted his name, neatly typed, on the top of the lease agreement.
“Then we should allow the Greers to settle this,” Sean suggested. “It’s apparent each of them rented out the unit without the other knowing.”
“Yes, but I’m afraid the Greers aren’t going to be much help.”
Sean frowned fiercely. “Why not? Once we contact them, we can settle this thing once and for all.”
“Because,” Hilary said, growing impatient, “the Greers aren’t here. When I last spoke to Mrs. Greer, she told me they would be gone for the next six weeks.”
“Six weeks!” Sean exploded, and Hilary swore his voice boomed like thunder through the living room.
“There’s no reason to yell.”
“Listen, lady, I’ve got every reason to be upset. I have no intention of moving.”
“But you’ll have to—you don’t have any choice,” Hilary said, as calmly as she could under the circumstances. “I moved in here first and possession is nine-tenths of the law. The least you can do is the gentlemanly thing and—”
“Forget that. You can do the honorable thing and move. By the way, who’s to say which one of us was here first?”
“Well, I was, of course,” Hilary claimed indignantly, “because you ate my leftover dinner.” He was frowning again, realizing, she hoped, that she was unquestionably right.
“Possession isn’t the only means to judge who’s entitled to the apartment. Get your lease and check the date of your receipt. It makes sense that whoever paid the deposit first should have it. The other will have to move. Agreed?”
“All right,” she said hesitantly. She brushed the long strands of dark hair from her face, a nervous trait that angered her. Sean would look upon it as a display of weakness, and she refused to give him a single foothold.
It only took her a moment to find the signed lease. When she returned, Sean was standing next to the stove. A pan of water was boiling away. He added coffee grounds to the water and then strained it into a cup. Hilary had never seen anyone brew coffee using such primitive methods, but she was forced to admit he was resourceful. She only hoped he’d be equally so when it came to his locating other accommodations.
“My agreement was signed the tenth of the month,” she said, handing him the proof.
Sean took the paper from her hand and carefully read it over while she reached for his lease. A deep sigh of gratitude went through her as she realized she had signed the agreement a day before Sean had.
“I’m sorry, I really am,” she said, having a difficult time disguising her relief. “But I have to tell you the apartment is perfect for me. My job’s less than a mile away.” He glared at her, suggesting the apartment was equally convenient for him. “I’ll be happy to do what I can to help you find someplace else,” Hilary offered weakly.
His frown darkened and deepened.
“Is there someplace else you can live?” Hilary asked, feeling mildly contrite. She wanted to be gracious about the whole thing, since it was clear neither of them was at fault. She was just grateful that she wasn’t the one who had to move.
“No,” he said thoughtfully after a moment. “I flew out from Fort Devens yesterday. My friend Dave met me at the airport.”
“What about this Dave? Surely you could move in with him on a temporary basis?”
“That’s not likely. He’s living with his in-laws as it is. If you’ll just write me out a check for the deposit and the first month’s rent, I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I can.”
“Your deposit?” Hilary repeated. “First month’s rent… I don’t have extra money like that just lying around.” Hilary’s heart sank all the way to her ankles. She couldn’t get into her trust fund and she absolutely refused to ask her mother for the money.
“I’d say we have a problem, then, don’t you?” Sean growled. “Because I’m not budging until I get my money back.”
“You’re being unreasonable,” Hilary said, swallowing down a sense of dread. “The Greers have your money, not me.”
“How do you expect me to rent someplace else without the cash to do it?” he barked impatiently.
Hilary blinked at the abruptness of his tone, then stiffened with righteous indignation. “I don’t know…and I don’t have the time to argue with you now. I’ve got to be at the music store in less than an hour. I’ll try to think of something while I’m there.”
“I suggest you do that.”
“And I suggest you do some thinking, too.”
* * *
This was one hell of a mess, Sean mused as he stood beneath the pelting shower. For weeks he’d been looking forward to the time he could be on his own again. He knew his family was disappointed that he’d opted to head west instead of returning to the Chicago area. His younger half brother had offered him a job, but Sean didn’t think there was much call for a helicopter pilot in the furnace business.
For the first time, he wondered if he’d made the right decision. His mother had died long before he could remember her and his father had remarried when he was five. Sean had felt oddly out of place within his own family.
r /> He’d enlisted in the army as soon as he finished high school and had been in the Special Forces for the past nine years. One of those years had been spent in Saudi Arabia. He now spoke Arabic well enough to pass as a national.
Dave phoned around ten that morning. Sean didn’t mention the mix-up with the apartment. No need to, since it was fairly obvious to him what was going to happen.
Hilary didn’t want to move. He didn’t, either. And it wasn’t likely she was going to be able to come up with his deposit and first month’s rent.
They had no choice.
Hilary had rarely had a more unnerving morning. Now her afternoon wasn’t going much better. Just when she was beginning to understand what Mr. Murphy expected of her, Sean Cochran casually strolled into the store.
Talk about a bull in a china shop! The man couldn’t have been more out of place.
With Mr. Murphy smiling serenely toward her, indicating she should assist this newest customer, Hilary walked purposefully toward Sean, doing her best to disguise her irritation. This entire situation irked her. It seemed that she was never going to be free. First her mother, and now…Rambo.
“How may I help you?” she asked calmly, although her eyes were spitting fire.
“Do you have my cash?” he asked.
Hilary briefly closed her eyes, calling upon every ounce of composure her mother had so laboriously drilled into her. “I’ve already explained that I don’t.”
“Any chance of getting it?”
Hilary had spent the majority of the morning pondering that same question. She couldn’t very well ask for an advance on her salary since she’d only been employed for three hours.
She’d debated approaching her mother for the money and decided it was out of the question. The bank wasn’t likely to give her a loan, either, since she was from out of state and had only recently established credit.
Hilary didn’t know what to do.
“Well?” he pressed. “Do you have a way of getting it or not?”
“Not on such short notice,” she admitted reluctantly.
“That’s what I thought.”
“I’m doing the best I can,” she said between gritted teeth.
“Is there a problem?” Mr. Murphy inquired.
“None at all,” Sean assured the music-store owner with a satisfied smile.
“Are you trying to get me fired?”
“Not when you owe me money.”
“I don’t owe you anything, the Greers do.” The man was becoming increasingly unreasonable. He looked even more intimidating now than he had earlier.
“But the Greers aren’t here. You are,” Sean reminded her casually.
“I’d give it to you if I had it.” Hilary knew that was little consolation, but it was all she could offer.
“Listen,” he said, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck. “I’ve come up with a tentative solution. For now it’s the best I can do.”
“All right,” she said, hoping he had more ideas than she did. As far as Hilary could see, they were deadlocked. She didn’t have the money and he wasn’t going to budge until he got it.
“We share the apartment,” he said, “just until the Greers are back.”
Share the apartment! So much for being independent. So much for freedom. She’d leapt from the frying pan into the fire. “But that’s six weeks,” she said, tasting defeat.
“I know how long the Greers are going to be gone,” Sean returned testily. “I’ll stay out of your way and you stay out of mine. It isn’t like I plan on sticking around there much. I haven’t got a job yet, otherwise I wouldn’t be so concerned about the cash.”
“I’m going to be busy, as well,” Hilary added, realizing they had no choice and might as well make the best of a difficult situation.
“Do you agree to sharing the apartment, then?”
Hilary hesitated. Things were not going as she’d planned.
“Well?” he demanded.
Feeling frustrated and miserable, she nodded. Glaring at him, she added, “But only on one condition.”
His jaw tightened. “Name it.”
Hilary glanced over her shoulder to be sure Mr. Murphy wasn’t listening. “Under no circumstances are you to answer the phone. My mother can’t find out about this… Is that understood?”
CHAPTER THREE
Hilary woke to the rhythmic sound of clapping. She didn’t know what Sean was up to now, but she guessed it was something unpleasant. Something specifically designed to irritate her. Heaven help her, she didn’t know why she’d ever agreed to this arrangement.
Struggling out of bed, she reached for her robe and traipsed into the middle of the living room. Sean was dressed in gray sweats and was down on the floor doing push-ups. Just when he’d levered himself off the carpet, he slapped his hands together and caught himself in time to keep from crashing into the floor. It was an ego thing, she guessed, to prove how strong he was.
Before she could comment, he twisted around and started doing sit-ups, moving so fast his upper body seemed to blur.
“Is this really necessary?” she asked, walking into the kitchen to brew herself a latte.
He ignored her, which was fine. She’d spent much of the previous day pretending he wasn’t there. Not that her game had helped any. Sean had assured her he’d stay out of her way, and naively she’d believed that meant they wouldn’t be seeing much of each other. They didn’t really spend long stretches of time together, but even thirty minutes was more than she could take. His presence in her home had quickly become a constant source of irritation. He apparently felt the same way about her.
“You left the radio on your country-and-western station again,” she remarked, not bothering to disguise her resentment. “In case you’ve forgotten, and apparently you have, I prefer classical music. Since it’s my radio, I’d appreciate it if you’d kindly change it back to my station once you’ve finished.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Stop calling me that.” Hilary hated the tag he’d given her. He seemed to delight in calling her names of royalty. If she wasn’t Fergie or Diana, she was Princess Grace. Hilary normally didn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how his name-calling annoyed her, but she couldn’t stop herself now. What troubled her most was that her mother’s pet name for her was Princess. She didn’t like the tag any better from her parent than she did from Sean, but at least when her mother called her Princess it was done with genuine affection. Sean did it to get her goat, inferring that she put on airs when all she was doing was protecting her own space.
“I’m only asking that you… Oh, never mind.” Talking to him was next to impossible.
“You left three pairs of panty hose hanging over the shower stall,” he said indifferently. “How am I supposed to close the shower curtain with a bunch of nylons dangling in my face?”
“You might have moved them.”
“As I recall, you asked me not to touch anything that belongs to you.”
“You ate my dinner.” She’d been furious with him and rightly so. After a grueling three-hour rehearsal with the symphony, she’d arrived home, hungry and exhausted, to discover Sean had eaten her shrimp salad. He claimed it was an honest mistake, but she didn’t believe him.
Somehow, someway, she suspected her mother had brought this man into her life to torment her. Since she couldn’t convince Hilary to move back home, she’d hired a Rambo to make her life miserable.
“You’ve got a memory like an elephant, haven’t you?” Sean asked, continuing his sit-ups with an intensity that irritated her even more.
“Okay,” Hilary said, inhaling a deep, calming breath and briefly closing her eyes. “As I see it, we’ve got a choice here. We can continue to insult one another all morning or we can call a truce. Thus far, all we’ve managed to do is make one another miserable.”
“You can say that again.”
Hilary shivered, then realized it was more than his continuous insults, more than the
fact they couldn’t be civil with each other. The apartment was freezing—literally. Her teeth were starting to chatter.
Fuming, Hilary walked over to the thermostat, then whirled to confront Sean with this latest atrocity. “You turned down the heat!”
“I couldn’t stand it. You had it set hot enough to grow orchids in here.”
“You have it set so low I could store ice cream in the living room,” she bellowed, losing all control. Before she had met Sean Cochran, she’d barely raised her voice. Now, inside of a week, she was a shrew. “Don’t you dare touch this thermostat again.” Ignoring his glare, she readjusted the temperature. No wonder she was shivering.
Adroitly Sean stood, reached from behind her and set the thermostat back to where he’d placed it earlier.
Hilary wanted to scream, but she realized it would do no good. “This isn’t working,” she said, close to breaking into tears of frustration and anger. They’d tried. They’d both given it their best shot, but they were never going to make this arrangement work.
“You’re telling me,” Sean said, his teeth clenched. “Living with you is like walking on eggshells. You have more rules than the Pentagon. We might have made a go of this if you weren’t so damn unreasonable.”
“Me? I’ll have you know, buster, I’m one of the most even-tempered, good-natured women you’re likely to meet. At least, I used to be until I met up with a bullheaded, illogical exercise freak.”
“You want to talk about excesses—fine, ” he shouted, crossing his arms over his massive chest. “I’ve never known anyone in my life who’s as compulsively neat as you are. I don’t dare leave a magazine open because you’ll close it and stack it under the coffee table.”
“I happen to like my home tidy. Is that such a sin?”
“Yes,” he returned heatedly. “Furthermore, you’re Mommy’s little girl. You’re so afraid of doing anything that will displease her.”
“You don’t know anything about my mother and me!”