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murmured.
    No, actually, she didn’t.
    For an instant, the lid she kept closed on her memories vibrated and she heard a familiar roar in her head.
“Sophie, I’ve told you too many damn times…clean up your mess!”
Her hand lifted, brushing over her cheek, as she remembered the blow that always followed that refrain. She swallowed back the memory. “My father thought it was always important to keep a clean home.”
    But he was long gone. So why did she keep letting him haunt her? Sophie’s hand moved to rub at the back of her neck as she felt the tension thicken there.
    “Nice bed,” Lex murmured.
    Yes, it was. Her gaze cut toward him, but Lex wasn’t looking at her. He was carefully walking around her bedroom, moving slowly on the hardwood. There were no creaks beneath his feet. The boards in her room had never creaked.
    So that didn’t wake me.
    He paused in front of her closet. His fingers lifted, curled around the knob, and when he opened the door, the hinges gave a low, long squeak.
    For an instant, her heart seemed to freeze. No, no, the intruder
couldn’t
have been inside the whole time. That was…worse, somehow, than him breaking in and coming straight to attack her. The idea that he might have been in her home, watching her all along, when she thought she was safe—
no!
    Lex turned on the light in her closet. She found herself creeping toward him. It was a big, walk-in closet. Shelves for her shoes were on the right. All of her clothes were carefully arranged on the left, put in order by garment type. So neat. So perfect.
    Why do I still do that?
She shouldn’t be letting a ghost control her. Rage built within Sophie, twisting with her fear, and she wanted to grab those clothes and toss them onto the floor.
    Instead, she held her body perfectly still.
    Lex started pushing her clothes to the side, examining the wall behind them.
    She cleared her throat. “You don’t really think he’s still here, do you?”
He’d better not be.
    Lex paused in front of a small door, one that had been concealed by her clothes. The door only rose halfway up the wall.
    “That’s attic access,” she said quickly. “Storage space.”
    He opened that little door. A yawning darkness waited inside. Lex stared into that darkness, then said, “It would have been easy enough for him to wait in there, then come out when he knew you were asleep.”
    Her cheeks burned red hot, then turned icy cold.
Inside with me, the whole time?
    Lex crouched and headed into that darkness.
    “No!” Sophie grabbed him. “Let’s call the cops, let’s—”
    “This is why you hired me.” His voice was low. So confident. Too confident. “If the bastard is still here, I can handle him.”
    His fingers slid over her cheek in just the briefest of caresses, warming her cold skin. And then he turned away and slipped through that narrow opening.
    Hell. She went in right behind him.
    ***
    Sophie had been a busy woman.
    He stared at her house. At the car that didn’t belong near her curb.
    He’d known that she could come back, sooner or later. He just hadn’t realized she wouldn’t be coming alone. She was in the house now, with that blond guy who’d touched her far too intimately. What were they doing? Who was he?
    Sophie, if you’re scared, come to me.
    She’d misunderstood last night. Her fear had been so strong. Too strong. She hadn’t listened to him. He hadn’t been there to hurt her. He’d just needed to make sure she was all right.
    Sophie made the wrong choices in life. She always had. She lived too dangerously.
    She picked the wrong lovers. Men who were twisted, no good.
    She trusted the wrong friends. Friends who would leave her if they ever found out her dark secrets.
    She needed him, so very much. And she didn’t even realize it.
    But that was okay. Soon enough, she would. He knew it was time he stepped from the shadows. Her near-death had terrified
him
far too much. Now was his time of action.
    Sophie would soon