Bachelor (Rixton Falls #2) by Winter Renshaw Page A

misty. If the circumstances were any different, she’d be asking me to phone or write, to keep in touch, to let her know I’m okay.
    It breaks my heart knowing I can’t.
    Times have changed.
    Trust has been shattered.
    “Goodbye, Eudora.” I slip my hand along the staircase railing, my other gripping the handle of my suitcase.
    “Wait.” Eudora waves her hands, frantic, and runs past me, down the hall. She returns moments later with two pill bottles. “Please don’t forget to take these. The instructions are on the bottle.”
    I take the pills from her but have no intention of swallowing them, and I’m not sure why she’s forcing them on me when she knows I won’t take them. Perhaps it’s so she can say she tried when Veronica flips out on her for not trying harder to stop me.
    But it’s not like she could stop me anyway.
    “Thank you.” With that, I’m gone, lugging my bag down the stairs, and breathing a sigh of relief when I spot Derek standing between the front door and the parlor.
    “You ready?” He reaches for my luggage. I’m immediately embarrassed at its weight, but I threw in everything I could ever need. I don’t plan on coming back to Belcourt Manor for anything, ever again.
    The next several seconds are a blur.
    But it’s just us.
    As we drive away, leaving a cloud of dust behind us, it occurs to me that I’m officially free.
    In this moment, no one controls me. No one is telling me how to live or where to live or holding anything over my head.
    I’m terrified.
    But I’m mostly excited.
    “How far away is Rixton Falls?” I ask.
    “Ninety-four minutes,” he says without pause, reaching over and pressing the classic radio preset. “ Coming Home ” by Cinderella plays softly from the speakers.

    * * *
    “ T he code is 5821 . Top secret.” Derek punches in the code to his door after a quick elevator ride.
    I cross my fingers like an honorable Girl Scout. “Won’t tell a soul.”
    He kicks his door open, and I’m greeted with a wide-open industrial loft with floor to ceiling windows overlooking a quaint downtown entertainment district and a small river to the west peppered with small boats.
    “It know it’s not what you’re used to,” he says.
    “No, it’s fine.” I swat my hand.
    “I need to go back to the office and finish out my day, but I’ll show you your room and give you a quick tour,” he says. “Just make yourself at home. Help yourself to whatever you’d like. Just, uh, stay out of my room.”
    My mind immediately goes to dirty places as our eyes lock, and my left brow twitches on its own accord.
    Derek smirks, neither confirming nor denying my raunchy suspicions, and I follow him down a hallway that splits off into two. We take a left.
    “This is Haven’s room.” He props a door open, and I’m blasted in the face with pale pink paint and posters of carousel ponies and mermaids. Her bedding is an abstract floral print, and there are way too many colors going on at once in there, but I smile and nod and tell him it’s adorable.
    It reminds me of the way a man might decorate for a girl. Completely clueless, but an A-for-effort.
    “Here’s the bathroom you’ll share.” He knocks on the door as we pass by. “Two sinks, so you won’t have to have the one splattered in bubble-gum toothpaste.”
    “Appreciated.”
    “And here’s your room.” He pushes my door open, and I’m greeted with a lofty bedroom with large windows, gray paint on the walls, mid-century modern furniture, and black concrete floors. The room screams bachelor. “Sorry. I decorated it.”
    “It’s fine,” I say.
    “You can change whatever you want,” he says. “I won’t be offended. This room doesn’t get used.”
    “I think it’s cute that you decorate.” I bite an entertained grin. “You don’t hear of many straight men who get into picking out colors and furniture.”
    “I literally just opened a West Elm catalog and bought everything on the first page I saw. But if