Jericho grinned.
“I bet you bake for that weird guy with the tattoos, huh? What’s his favorite?”
“It’s none of your business, Braden—“
“Can I help it if I don’t like seeing my beautiful wife all chummy with another guy when I come to visit her? When I’ve been missing her?”
“First of all, I’m not your wife anymore. And second, if you missed me so much, how come you’ve never come when I needed you? For that matter, how come you showed up with a camera crew even after I told you not to?” Her hands slammed on the counter with a soft thud, and Jericho guessed she was baking something; Emily liked to have her hands in dough when she was frustrated.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t miss you,” Braden told her in a softer voice, and Jericho noticed he sidestepped all the questions Emily had lobbed at him. “And that doesn’t mean that I don’t worry when I see you slumming.”
So sweet, pretty Emily was slumming by being with him? He’d take that. It wasn’t like he’d never heard that sort of thing before.
“I’m not slumming, you dick,” Emily said. “And I’m not with him. We’re just…friends.”
Jericho frowned, not liking the turn the conversation took. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and continued to eavesdrop.
“That hug he gave you was pretty friendly.” Braden’s voice was laden with sarcasm. “Can we be friends like that again?”
“Very funny,” she said, pounding more dough. “It’s none of your business what my relationship with Jericho is, but we’re just casual. No one’s staking claims to anyone else.”
“Good,” said Braden. “Because I don’t know if I told you this, but I miss you.”
The slapping of dough stopped. “That’s twice you’ve said that.”
“I mean it. I do miss you. And I was wondering if you and I could try again.”
Silence. Jericho’s fists tightened.
“I don’t know if I want to try again,” Emily admitted after a long, long moment. “I don’t know that I can depend on you ever again. And goddamn it, Braden, you can’t just waltz back in here after two years and try and stake your claim because someone else is marking your territory. I’m not a fire hydrant and I won’t let you piss on me again.”
Jericho’s lips twitched at that.
“Just think about it, okay?” Braden asked. “All I want is—“
Enough of this wheedling bullshit. Jericho stepped out of the hall, letting his boots drag on the wooden floors as he sauntered into the kitchen. Both Emily and Braden got quiet as he entered the room, and he noticed there was a flush high on Emily’s cheeks. He didn’t know if she was upset or embarrassed.
“Fixed your leak,” he drawled, patting his wrench. “Just needed some tightening.”
“Thank you, J,” Emily said softly. She had wisps of her blonde hair floating around her face and blew at one corner of her eye to move it. “I appreciate it.”
“Don’t think I’ll stick around for lunch,” he said, giving Braden a meaningful look. He noticed the man seemed to be hovering closer to Emily than before. Fucking little cocksucker ass**le.
“I…oh. Okay.” Was that disappointment on her face? If it was, Emily hid it well. “Do you want me to pack you something?”
“Nah,” he said, and he should have just turned and let things go. But he just couldn’t. He strode forward and pushed past Braden, who was standing too close, and moved to Emily’s side. He brushed that piece of hair off of her brow and tucked it behind her ear, then leaned in to whisper at her. “Can I pick you up at eight tonight, though? For some you and me time?”
“Sure,” Emily breathed, looking up at him with that soft look that never ceased to make his dick hard.
“Great,” he said, smiling at her. “I’ll be back later, then.”
“I’ll listen for your bike.”
He grinned at her, turned and gave Braden a back-the-fuck-off look, and then strolled out to the front of the house. Then, he decided that being the bigger man was f**king stupid. So he turned around, walked back into the house, and gave Emily a hard, possessive kiss. Right in front of her ex. Suck on that, Braden. With a wink at Emily, he turned and left again.
Even with his boots resonating on the wooden floors, he still heard Braden’s disapproving snort. “Just friends, huh?”
Yeah, one way or another, Jericho was going to figure out where this was going with Emily tonight. Because he didn’t believe that ‘just friends’ bullshit either.
It was time to figure out what they were. Or if they were anything at all.
CHAPTER FIVE
By the time eight rolled around that night, Emily was ready to run out of her house, screaming.
It wasn’t anything big, of course. There were just a myriad of small things that were driving her up a wall.
Like Braden. He was being nice and polite and kind to her. He was also hovering and being a little possessive, and she didn’t know how to take that.
He insisted that her house was likely still haunted, and her ghosts were ‘dormant’. They just didn’t like visitors, he told her. And when she pointed out that the lights no longer flickered because the wiring had been fixed, he gave her a pitying look. He pooh-poohed her suggestion of the opossums and how she hadn’t heard any noises since.
His EMF meter, he said, was reading something, and therefore she still had ghosts. What Emily thought didn’t matter. That was typical, she thought with annoyance. With Braden, it had never mattered what Emily thought.
And then there was his crew. When they’d started to set up cameras, she’d put her foot down and protested. No filming in her house. She didn’t want to be on television. Braden had spent most of the afternoon trying to coax her into changing her mind, and when that hadn’t worked, reminded her that his name was also on the mortgage documents and theoretically, it was his house, too. And when Emily got angry at that, he backed off and suggested that they film another house in the area instead, and they’d just rent rooms from Emily.
Which was fine, and she prepared three rooms for his six crew.
Except…every time she turned around, someone was hiding a tape recorder or setting up a camera tripod. She’d heard the excuse “just testing equipment” so many times that afternoon that she wanted to scream. She knew if she left for five minutes, they’d start filming.