Set Me Free Read online

  The cat meowed and moved closer to my pillow.

  “Oh, no, buddy, you are not welcomed here.” I pushed him away, but he only started meowing louder. “Fine! Let’s go find you something to eat.”

  I tossed the blanket away, looked at the clock on my bedside table and then stared at my furry ‘friend’. “Seriously? Seven in the damn morning… on a Saturday… and I’m going to sacrifice my sleep just to feed you? Unbelievable… Where’s your owner, by the way? Still at work or already at work?” There was no such thing as days off for Dillon.

  I took the cat in my hands and went to the kitchen, checking my uncle’s bedroom on the way, but, of course, he was no longer there.

  Before the day I moved into Dillon’s, his fridge had been on a junk food diet, with just a few cans of beer and an old microwave dinner in it. Now we also had milk and yogurt there. Not a big difference, but still much better.

  “Okay, let’s get you some milk,” I said to the cat. Then I opened the fridge and frowned – the milk jug was empty. “Damn it.” I hated it when Dillon left empty containers in the fridge.

  “Good morning, Stella,” someone said behind me. I swallowed hard, frantically thinking of how long it would take me to get to a knife, because whoever was standing behind me was not supposed to be there. Only Dillon and I had the key to the front door.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Have you ever thought about using a cat protection? Well, I have. Slowly, I turned around, bracing myself to throw the cat at the offending person so I could make a getaway. Once I finished turning, I saw a pair of rich whiskey eyes staring at me.

  I swallowed again. I knew those eyes, I saw that sly-fox look on the pictures.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  There, just a few feet away from me, James Collins was standing. And unlike me, he didn’t have a reason to look surprised or scared half to death.

  “I thought you were supposed to arrive at noon,” I said, shutting the fridge and letting the cat go. Neither of us was glad to see the unexpected guest invading our kitchen that early in the morning. He made a run for the living room. Well, at least one of us can hide… I thought to myself.

  “Barbara’s store rescheduled my book signing for noon, so I had to arrive earlier. I hope it was not the coffee machine that woke you.”

  I looked at the cup in James’ hands, my favorite cup by the way, and shook my head, saying, “No. It was the cat.”

  James nodded, still watching me carefully. Well, that made two of us actually. I shall admit it – the pictures didn’t give enough credit to this man. There was nothing special about his clothes, just a pair of jeans and a dark-blue shirt, with its sleeves rolled up to his elbows, but he still looked as if he had just stepped off one of those fashion magazine covers. And damn that face… One perfectly sculptured face, with high cheekbones, full lips, and sharp eyes seeing right through you. Amazeballs… Was that even legal to think about ‘face’ and ‘balls’ at the same time? I giggled mentally. But holy hell, I would gladly keep staring at James’ face forever... Wait, what? Where the hell did that thought come from?

  “How do you know my name?” I asked when my ability to speak returned.

  “Your uncle told me about you,” Mr. Collins said, touching the edge of my cup with those daring lips of his and then taking a long sip of his steaming coffee. As a matter of fact, his drink was not the only thing now steaming in the room.

  “I see… Well, make yourself at home then.”

  “I’ve already did.” He smiled with the corners of his lips curving just enough to look like a smile. There was something about the man that I couldn’t figure out. As if he were afraid of saying too much, or staying in the same room with me for too long. As if he was actually afraid of me, which I thought was more than just ridiculous considering everything I knew and heard about him.

  “Nice PJ’s,” he said finally, going to the kitchen table and taking a seat.

  I looked down at my outfit and froze, horrified. Apparently, I was too busy studying the man’s lips to remember what I was wearing at the moment, which turned out to be a pair of pale pink, lacy panties––thank God, they were not a thong, or I would have killed myself right then and there––and a matching shirt. I don’t think I had ever felt so mortified in my entire life.

  “I should probably go change into something more… appropriate for a talk with the star,” I said, turning to the door and hoping James didn’t see my blushing face.

  “Why? I don’t mind you wearing that…” He said behind me.

  “Oh… I’m sure you don’t.” I smirked, turning around. “But I’m not used to meeting guests in my underwear.”

  “Oh, then how do you usually meet them?”

  “Naked,” I snapped, and left the kitchen, hoping it would stop him from asking any more stupid questions. If he thought I would be ready to drop my panties at the mere sound of his voice – which I shall admit was a pants-dropping kind of voice – he was so wrong about me.

  I went back to my room and changed into a simple white dress that I was going to wear for the book signing later that day, and a denim short-sleeve jacket. Nothing sexy.

  I didn’t think Mr. Collins would still be sitting at the kitchen table where I left him about an hour ago, but when I returned to make myself a cup of coffee, he was still there, working at his laptop.

  “Do you ever stop writing?” I asked, coming to the coffee machine.

  “No,” he replied without even looking at me.

  I pushed the button on the desk panel, hoping to hear the saving sound of my coffee pouring into a cup, but something went wrong. No sound followed. What the hell?

  “Sorry, I must have drunk all the coffee you had.”

  I turned around and looked angrily at the cup sitting next to James’ laptop.

  You’ve got to be kidding me… Cursing mentally, I went to the cupboard where we kept the tea and took a bag out of the box.

  “You should probably go to the store and buy more coffee, I will need it later.”

  You have some nerve, Mr. Smart Balls…

  “Sorry, I have work today,” I said, smiling as fucking politely as possible. “Why don’t you go buy some coffee yourself?”

  Finally, he looked up at me and frowned, as if he couldn’t understand why a girl would suddenly be so unfriendly to him, a gorgeous package of sexiness and charisma, delivered right to my kitchen.

  “We could do it together.”

  Um, what?

  “You are a big boy, Mr. Collins. I’m sure you can find a grocery store without my help.”

  “But I thought you were going to interview me…”

  “So? Am I supposed to interview you in a store, while buying you coffee?”

  “Why not? I don’t think I will be able to find a better time to answer your questions, Stella…” He said my name so painfully slowly, as if he were tasting it, trying to decide whether he liked it or not.

  “I thought you were going to stay for one more day,” I said, taking a seat facing him. “But if you are busy later today or tomorrow, why don’t we do the interview now?”

  “I’m working,” he snapped, getting back to whatever it was that he had been writing before I came in the room.

  “Fine. I’ll wait.”

  Dillon said that not all famous people are the same, but a few minutes in James’ company were more than enough to confirm my assumptions – he was anything but the exception to the ‘you need to kiss my ass before you dare to talk to me’ rule.

  Again, James looked at me and then nodded, asking, “Have you read any of my books?”

  “I have. All six of them.”

  “Really?” Pure surprise crossed his face. “So what do you think about them? And please, don’t be afraid to be honest with me. I respect every reader’s opinion. If you didn’t like them, I’ll survive that.”

  “Well, good, because I didn’t like them.”

  He smirked,
as if I had just said the most hilarious thing in the world. “May I ask why?”

  “You make sex the point of every relationship. And I hate that. In addition to that, I hate your sex scenes. Don’t know why women find them hot.”

  “Wow… That’s the most honest opinion I have ever heard about my books.”

  “It was just a matter of time, Mr. Hi, I’m a Sexy AND Bestselling Author, nice to meet you. Sooner or later someone had to tell you the truth.”

  He didn’t say anything in response to my brutal honesty and I wondered if he would ever agree to give me a real interview after that. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t help myself. I hated men who thought they were Apollos, or something, when in fact, they were just stupid and too self-assured jerks.

  “What are your five questions?” James asked.

  I blinked, shaking my head in confusion. “Five questions?”

  “Yes, I always answer no more than five questions. Didn’t you know that?”

  “It’s the first time I have heard about that.” Normally, I wouldn’t stop at five questions. When interviewing someone, I tried to get to know as much as it was possible about the person I was talking to. Only this time, it looked like things wouldn’t go so smoothly.

  “Well, then why don’t you go think about the questions and come back when you know exactly what you want to ask?”

  My eyebrows rose in a silent ‘Why don’t you go to hell?’ retort. God knew, it took all of my self-control to not say that aloud. The man obviously had no idea about the existence of good manners. Well, maybe I deserved that. For the first time ever, I mentally thanked Terry’s grandmother for everything she had done while upbringing her grandson. I think I was too used to his gallantry, I forgot men could be just arrogant pigs.

  I rose to my feet and silently left the kitchen, giving the damn writer all the time he needed to finish his precious work. I bet it was another ‘romance’ that would hit the bestsellers lists even before the day of its release. Why the hell were women so crazy about James’ books? I just didn’t get it. He wasn’t Shakespeare, he was not even close. And his version of Romeo and Juliet would probably end up with another disgusting juicy scene, with a death of a man breaking his tool because of fucking the hell out of his date, which was James male character’s favorite way of spending time with women.

  I went to the living room and thought I would call Dillon, since he was the very person trying to reassure me that James Collins was not as much of an ass as I used to think he was.

  “Morning, Stella,” he said, answering my call. “Is everything all right? Have you met James?”

  “Oh, yes, I sure did.”

  “I don’t like the tone of your voice. I hope you didn’t do anything to make him feel uncomfortable in our house.”

  “Trust me, he doesn’t need anyone’s permission to make himself at home, or to feel comfortable.”

  “Did he tell you something that has upset you?”

  “No. But you were wrong about him – he knows no boundaries when it comes to demonstrating his attitude.”

  “He seemed really nice to me,” Dillon said, still refusing to believe my words, as if James were his new writing idol or something. Or maybe my uncle was simply secretly in love with James’ stories; I wouldn’t be surprised to know that it was true.

  “Well, then maybe it’s just me who he doesn’t feel like being ‘nice’ with,” I said, recalling James’ half-annoyed, half-bored expression when talking to me.

  “Okay, just try to be hospitable.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. By the way, why didn’t you tell me about his five-question rule?”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line, and then Dillon said, “I thought it would be better to let you come up with the questions that you want to ask.”

  “How thoughtful of you. But for that, I need at least ten questions, not five!”

  “You are a genius, Stella. I’m sure your five questions will be as good as ten, or twenty.”

  “Well, thanks for the compliment, but it’s still not fair. You should have warned me! Now I need to come up with five really good questions that would sum up everything that I won’t get another chance to ask about.”

  “You can do this, Doll. Now, I need to work. Talk to you later.” He hung up the phone before I would say or ask anything else.

  “Thanks for your help, Uncle Dillon,” I muttered, putting the phone down.

  What do I do now? Shall I go back to the kitchen and just ask James the first thing that comes to my mind? Or shall I take my time to think twice about my questions? Judging by how little the man talked, this interview was going to be a real torture.

  I waited for about two more hours, until I was sure James was no longer in the house, then I took one of his latest books, and went to Barbara’s, ready to face whatever challenge he was about to throw my way this time.

  I wasn’t quite sure about the things I was going to ask James. Somehow, I knew he wouldn’t tell me a word about his personal life which was the only thing most of his readers would love to hear more about. So I thought I would focus on his books instead. Maybe at least that way, I will be able to know more about him.

  As expected, the bookstore was overcrowded. To my great surprise, there were not only women there. Apparently, James was too popular for the men of our town to miss their chance to meet him. Unlike our morning meeting in the kitchen, James looked a lot different now. He was smiling at every reader while giving him one of his books to sign, and it didn’t look like it cost him much; his smiles and words felt so natural, as if he didn’t put any effort into being all nice and sweet. Then why the hell did I deserve such a special attitude? I couldn’t remember doing anything he might hate me for. He said he respects every reader’s opinion, right? He couldn’t be possibly angry at me for being honest with him. Unless he was too damn disappointed I didn’t jump on him the second I saw him, which was the only explanation for his weird behavior that I could come up with at the moment anyway.

  When my turn came to give him my book, I suddenly got a little nervous. A new plan formed in my head.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” I said, coming to his table.

  His eyes met mine, and for a moment, neither of us spoke.

  “About what?” He asked after that awkward pause.

  “About interviewing you. I don’t think five questions will be enough to satisfy my curiosity. I want to write an article about you, and for that, you will have to give me something bigger than five short answers.”

  “What makes you think I will change my five-question rule for you, Stella?”

  I smiled slightly, leaning closer to his face, and said, “Do you want all these people around us to know how far from being a sweetie you can be?” We both knew that it was not just a threat. I was capable of many things, and I was sure Mr. Collins had enough time with me to figure it out. I never gave up easily.

  “Okay,” he said slowly. “Wait until I finish signing books. Then, we will talk.”

  I nodded. “And don’t forget to sign the book for me.” I pointed to the copy of Making Her Mine lying on his table. “Be inventive. I want something special to be written there.”

  He smirked. “I’ll try my best.

  “You’d better.”

  I don’t know how much time passed before I saw the crowd finally leaving the bookstore. It looked like James’ readers were too excited to see him to let him go without asking him a few things first. Unlike my interview, he answered all of their questions. They were about his books mostly, so I didn’t pay much attention to what he was saying in response. I was more focused on James himself.

  Somehow, my arrival affected him. I could feel it even from the distance. Over and over again, I caught him looking at me, and I couldn’t stop wondering about the thoughts running through his head. Was he trying to figure out something about me, or he simply couldn’t stop thinking about the outfit he saw me wearing in the morning. No
doubt, it made his imagination go far beyond asking me to go the grocery store with him.

  Running one hand through his dark-brown hair, he thanked everyone for coming to the book signing, and then he moved my way, making my knees shake a little. I don’t know what the reason for my strange reaction to his presence was, but I couldn’t remember the last time I was so excited about anything, including my job. And considering how much I loved interviewing people, the sudden lack of rational thoughts in my head was a little scary.

  “Are you ready, Stella?” James asked, coming closer.

  “Ready for what?” I asked, as if I expected him to play out one of those naughty scenes from his books with me in middle of the bookstore.

  “To go coffee shopping with me.

  Right…

  “I am,” I said aloud, hoping I didn’t sound like a love-struck high school girl, dying to hear my name slipping his from lips at least one more time.

  “So what made you change your mind?” He asked as soon as we went out into the street. It was late in the July afternoon; the sun was shining brightly above our heads, and to my great surprise, I truly enjoyed my company, which in any other situation would scare the hell out of me, because I swore I would never fall for a man’s charm again.

  “I thought you needed a brainstorm,” I said. “You write so much, don’t you ever get tired of that?”

  “Is that your first interview question?”

  “No. It’s just a random question. We don’t have to walk in silence, right?”

  “No, of course not. As for your question, I do get tired of writing, sometimes. But it rarely bothers me. Writers need breaks too. So I just wait for another day or two, until my inspiration is back, and I feel like writing again.”

  “What does it feel like to be so popular? And I don’t mean your popularity among women.”

  He smiled, just a little. But it was more than enough to make me want that bright smile of his I saw a couple of minutes ago in the bookstore to return.

  “I hate it,” he suddenly said.