I strode into the room with my back straight and my head held high. It took me a moment to realize I had entered a gym. It was full of weights and equipment and had the distinctive locker room smell of disinfectant with an underlying odor, not entirely unpleasant, of sweat. Huh. I had been expecting a study or a library, okay, or possibly a dungeon with a torture chamber.

The clang of metal on metal brought my attention around. Supine on a bench press, with Jackson spotting him, was the hot guy from the window. My gaze swept the room, looking for an old retired guy, a Tony Soprano type, who clearly felt the need to have muscle-bound bodyguards at his beck and call. I had the panicked thought that maybe Mr. Daire was in the mob. There was no one else in the room, just Jackson, hot guy, and me.

This was bad. Were they going to break my fingers or something? What sort of torture was trending these days? Maybe I shouldn’t be watching crime dramas before bed. While I stood there plotting my escape—could I make it to the door?—the hot guy used the barbell he had just dropped into the rack above him, to pull himself up into a seated position. Beneath his gray sweat-soaked tank top, his every muscle was defined. Wow. I had to forcibly drag my gaze from his chest to his movie star–worthy face, where my brain sputtered like a candlewick in a strong breeze.

“Hello, Tenant,” he said. His voice was a gruff growl that scraped deliciously along my spine.

Wait . . . what?

“Tenant?” I repeated like a half-wit.

One perfectly arched eyebrow rose while he waited for me to figure it out.

“Oh my god, you’re Mr. Daire?”

14

“You expected someone else?” he asked.

Jackson smiled at me in acknowledgment and handed Mr. Daire a towel. I watched as he wiped the sweat from his brow. I resisted the urge to fan myself as I processed the fact that hot guy was my landlord. My landlord!

“Uh . . . um . . . no,” I said. “I mean, sure, Miguel said you were retired, which using any sort of deductive reasoning would make a person assume that you were of a certain age . . .”

My voice trailed off. I was babbling. Mr. Daire was the hot guy in the window. I had not seen this plot twist coming. And now I had to defend my egregious disregard of the rules to the hot guy who rendered me mute instead of the old duff I had expected to charm silly. Why you gotta do me this way, universe? Why?

“You thought I was a half-dead fossil,” he said.