Ruthless King

Idiot.

“Temperature feels all right.” He removed his hand. “Where’s the stepladder?”

Jilly took him to where it was and he drew it out. Was he really going to change the batteries in her smoke alarms himself?

She was pretty certain that he didn’t do this at his house. Nope, he definitely had people to do that sort of thing.

Which made her feel all warm and fuzzy about him doing this for her.

He sees you as a sibling. Someone to take care of.

Not as someone sexy. Someone interesting. Someone whose bones he wants to jump.

“I have this. Go get ready for bed. You look done in.”

Great.

Just great.

15

Jilly looked down at her ramen noodles.

Damn. Noodles were so dull. It didn’t help that she was tired. And that Margaret was getting worse at work, not better.

Jilly knew she should concentrate a bit more, but she always got her jobs done. She simply became distracted by all the pretty books.

With a sigh, she studied her finances. Her water bill was due. So was the electricity. And she still had to pay off the rest of the debt that Lowell had racked up.

That was going to take her a few more months.

It won’t if you do some private dances.

But no. She couldn’t. Not even to fast-track her way to being in a better financial position.

Fucking Lowell. She should have let Dan and Scott track him down and teach him a lesson.

Well, Scott would have.

But Dan would have been there to cheer him on.

Rubbing her forehead tiredly, she knew she had to get ready for work at the club. It was Friday night, and she’d worked a full day at the library. Finished at five, then gotten home by six.

And she had to be at the club by nine-thirty.

Normally, her energy levels weren’t this bad, but she was just exhausted.

Probably due to a week of ramen noodles.

Or is it because you haven’t heard from Regent this week?

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She’d gotten several texts from him to inform her when workmen would be there to fix the house.

So far, he’d had someone fix the dripping faucet in the main bathroom, install several more smoke alarms that she was sure she didn’t need, and someone had even quoted what it would cost to replace all the fixtures in both bathrooms.

She’d thought about telling him that she didn’t need any of that stuff. But it seemed a bit rude. However, she was confused.

She guessed this was proof that this was his house and Jilly and her mother were just tenants who didn’t pay.