“Open the fucking door!” the surprisingly persistent bastard demanded.

She really thought he would have given up after she’d managed to facilitate her escape by cleverly deceiving him into believing that she was going to be sick. Within seconds she was on her feet and he’d put a good fifteen feet between them. It hadn’t been much of a head start, but it was enough for her to make it to her apartment and slam the door shut just in the nick of time.

He’d been fast, very fast, but thankfully luck had been on her side for once. She’d made it into her apartment, gasping for air and managed to slide the deadbolt shut before he could shove the door open and drag her back to his apartment where he’d planned on holding her hostage until it was time to leave for an appointment that he had no business making.

She was done with doctors, tests and all that bullshit. She might be a hypochondriac, but she wasn’t a masochist. There was no way in hell that she would ever willingly put herself through that kind of hell ever again. Twenty-nine years had been more than enough as far as she was concerned.

“What did you do now?” Melanie demanded, looking exhausted as she stumbled into the large open kitchen.

Blinking innocently, she asked, “What are you talking about?”

“Open the fucking door!” Lucifer yelled as Rebecca continued to stand there, looking innocent and pretending that she hadn’t noticed Lucifer’s psychotic break.

“Why is he banging on our door at eight in the morning?” Melanie asked, really not looking all that concerned or really interested as her attention zeroed in on an unopened box of Pop Tarts sitting on the counter.

“Oh, that?” she said with a shrug. “He wants me.”

Melanie nodded absently as she pulled out a fresh pack of Pop Tarts and headed for the toaster. “That’s nice.”

“I thought so,” she said in agreement as she grabbed her iPad off the table and headed for the couch, determined to get her mind off of everything for a little while and figure out her next step.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” Melanie asked as she sat down next to her on the couch and pulled one of the many blankets that covered the couch onto her lap.

“Got fired,” Rebecca said as she searched through job listings, wondering if she had what it took to be a bouncer. For fifteen dollars an hour, she was willing to find out.

“So? That doesn’t explain why you’re not at work,” Melanie pointed out as she grabbed the remote and started her morning ritual of flicking through over two hundred channels until she finally gave up and signed into Netflix.

“I decided that I needed a change,” she said with a shrug, deciding that it was for the best not to mention her confession to Lucifer last night or the fact that she wanted a fresh start so that she could start over somewhere new where nobody knew her and she could pretend, even if it was just for a little while, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her.

“But, you love the Fire & Brimstone,” Melanie reminded her, which was something that she didn’t need this morning.

“And I’m sure that I’ll love the next place just as much,” she said with a small smile as she continued to scroll through all the job listings that she wasn’t qualified for.

“Maybe you could-” Melanie started to suggest, but whatever she was about to say was cut off when the persistent bastard ruined everything by opening his big, fat mouth.

“You’re going to this fucking Doctor’s appointment!” he shouted, sealing her fate, because if there was one thing that she knew about her best friend it was that Melanie would never give up on her, no matter how much it pissed her off.

Chapter 8

“Move,” the ungrateful woman said as she glared up at him, probably trying to intimidate him, not that he really cared, because he didn’t.

“No,” he simply said, reading the texts that his supervisor was sending him and wondering if he should make a quick trip over there to make sure that things were running smoothly.

He probably would have done that if Rebecca hadn’t already tried to make fifteen escape attempts, selfishly trying to ruin his attempts to solve this medical mystery of hers. Inconsiderate woman, he thought with a sigh as he sent a text back to Adam, the supervisor that was probably more hated than him, letting him know that he wouldn’t be able to get back there for a few hours.

“Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, I really do, but this has absolutely nothing to do with you. If I want to leave, then I’m going to leave and it’s none of your business. So, I would really appreciate it if you would move out of my way,” she said, sounding completely rational as she stood there waiting for him to comply. If she had been anyone else, he probably would have reconsidered holding her hostage in this exam room, but this was Rebecca Shaw he was dealing with here and it was for her own good.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he said, wondering if he should change meat venders.

“I really am,” she said evenly as she glared up at him.

“Think again,” he said, deciding that the overall cost wouldn’t justify the switch.

“Look,” she said, getting in his face, or at least she’d tried to, but since he had a good ten inches on her it was an epic failure on her part, “I don’t like you and you don’t like me. So-”

“Wait,” Melanie, who’d demanded to tag along and had been surprisingly helpful during Rebecca’s failed escape attempts, said, interrupting her friend’s tirade, “I thought you said that he was in love with you.”

Cocking a brow, he looked up from his phone, curious to see how she was going to talk her way out of this one only to discover that the furious expression on her face had suddenly turned calculating. His own expression shifted from curious to suspicious when he recognized that look. It was the same look that most of the women who’d foolishly married into his family got right before they fucked over the love of their lives.

He really didn’t like that look.

“He is,” she said with a forlorn sigh, looking so damn innocent that he almost bought it, but thankfully he remembered who he was dealing with.

“I’m not,” he bit out as he glared down at her, wondering if his brother or father had a barrel of holy water lying around the office somewhere that he could borrow.