Marry Me, Bellamy

CHAPTER ONE

STRANGER DANGER

❦ ─────── ❦ MAYA ❦ ─────── ❦

Three weeks after Aunt Evelyn died, her solicitor called to tell me she had left me the townhouse and everything inside it.

I spent eleven days rereading the letter, waiting for someone to realise that a woman whose savings regularly dropped into double digits wasn’t supposed to inherit property. Nobody did, so I arrived on the first evening of spring break with Evelyn’s key, one suitcase and the ridiculous hope that the house might remember me.

The front door stuck as it always had. Damp spring air followed me inside, carrying the smell of wet soil.

Nothing in the narrow hall had changed. Wallpaper curled near the skirting boards, and family photographs climbed the staircase. Evelyn’s umbrella stand leaned toward the wall as though slowly losing the will to live.

For a moment, I forgot the rain dripping from my braid. Evelyn had kept the photographs, books and room she promised would remain mine. After years of temporary addresses, I finally had somewhere to set down my suitcase.

Then I noticed the man’s coat hanging beside the stairs.

It was black, rain-damp and expensive. A hard-sided suitcase sat beneath it, and wet footprints crossed Evelyn’s floor. Something hissed in the kitchen.

The house was supposed to be empty.

I pulled Evelyn’s heavy wooden-handled umbrella from the stand. It was better than an inheritance letter.

A man stood at the kitchen counter, transferring eggs onto a plate. His shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows, rain dampening his hair and broad shoulders.

He was very large, very male and absolutely not supposed to be making breakfast in my house.

“Oh my God! Stranger danger!”

I charged.

He caught the shaft with one hand. I lurched forward as the umbrella snapped open between us, sending a spoon clattering to the floor.

Then Arthur Bellamy lowered the black fabric enough to look at me.

“Maya?”

“Don’t Maya me.” I pulled hard, but he barely moved. “You’re standing there like a squatter in my house.”

Surprise became familiar amusement. “You tried to hit me.”

“You’re in my kitchen.”

“I was making breakfast.”

“Yes, I can see that. Like this is a perfectly normal thing for you to be doing.”

Arthur looked toward my suitcase in the hall. “This is going to be awkward.”

“For you.” I tightened my grip. “Didn’t the best-man duties end a few months ago?”

Dove and Silas had been married since winter. Arthur had graduated from Saint Orla; I had returned to classes and tutoring. Neither of us had turned some flirting and one neon-green stuffed gremlin into a friendship. We hadn’t spoken since the wedding reception, although my body remembered him with irritating speed.

Arthur tugged the umbrella. I held on, lurching closer as it collapsed sideways. My hand landed against his chest; his caught my waist.

He was warm and hard beneath my hand in a way that had nothing to do with personality.

His gaze dropped to my fingers. “Are you finished?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“You can decide without the umbrella.”

“It’s the only thing stopping you from stealing the silverware.”

“There is no silverware. Evelyn had six spoons and three forks that don’t match.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Why were you checking her drawers?”

“I live here.”

That made me forget his hand at my waist. “No, you don’t.”

Arthur released me, took the umbrella with insulting ease and leaned it behind him. “I bought the house.”

I waited for the smile. When it didn’t come, I laughed. “No, you didn’t.”

“I signed the papers six weeks ago.”

“My aunt left this place to me.”

His amusement disappeared. “Then someone has made a serious mistake.”

The keys and leather folder on the table were his. Someone had told Arthur he owned the house.

I poured his coffee out of Evelyn’s blue-and-white mug and placed it beyond his reach. “Who sold it to you?”

“The administrator handling the estate.”

“He didn’t own it.”

“He believed he had the authority to sell it.”

“He clearly didn’t.”

We spread our papers across the table. His name—not Bellamy Holdings, his father or a family trust—appeared on the purchase agreement. He had bought the house himself.

“Why?” I asked.

“I needed somewhere to live.”

“Don’t you already have several somewhere-to-lives?”

“My family does.” Arthur held my gaze. “I wanted my own.”

He hadn’t bought the house for a Bellamy portfolio. He had wanted a home apart from his family, and someone had offered him Evelyn’s.

That didn’t make me willing to surrender it.

The dates explained everything: the administrator had sold the townhouse before anyone found Evelyn’s final instructions. Arthur had paid for it; I had inherited it.

Neither of us was lying. Deeply inconvenient.

After four calls, the solicitor confirmed the estate office was closed until Monday. Meanwhile, neither of us could change the locks, remove belongings or make permanent alterations.

“What about tonight?” I asked, watching rain blur the windows.

The solicitor hesitated. “Both of you appear to have lawful access. I can’t order either party to leave.”

“So there’s a strange man staying in my house.”

Arthur glanced at the umbrella. “You know my name.”

“That doesn’t make you less strange.”

“Please avoid escalating matters,” the solicitor said before ending the call.

I pocketed my phone. “Does charging someone with an umbrella count as escalation if you sincerely believe he’s a burglar?”

“Almost certainly.”

“Nobody asked you.”

Arthur gathered his papers. “I’m staying tonight.”

“I’m staying because this is my house.”

“I’m staying because I bought it.”

“I hate how easily you say that.”

“It remains true every time.”

I carried my suitcase upstairs, Arthur catching it when a wheel snagged, and stopped outside my old room.

The faded quilt remained on the bed. My parents’ photograph stood on the desk, my father’s Jane Eyre waited on the dusty window seat, and his grey shirt lay where I had left it. Evelyn had kept the room. Arthur watched from the doorway.

“This is your room,” he said quietly.

“Yes.”

He nodded once. “Then I won’t touch it.”

His papers claimed every room, but he surrendered this one without argument.

That was inconveniently decent of him.

A drop struck the hallway floor. An old ceiling stain darkened as the dripping quickened.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I opened Evelyn’s folding stool beneath the attic hatch.

Arthur examined it, then me. “No.”

“You don’t get a vote.”

“That thing looks older than the house.”

“It isn’t.”

“That isn’t reassuring.”

I climbed because he had told me not to. The stool shifted, and his arm caught my waist.

His palm spread across my stomach, his chest warm against my back. My breathing quickened.

“I said get down.”

“I heard you.”

“That’s what concerns me.”

I reached again, mostly to see what he would do. His arm tightened and drew me down a step.

“Stand still, Maya.”

Quiet authority moved through me in a warm, direct line. I obeyed before pride intervened.

Arthur noticed. His fingers pressed into my side, and I felt every place our bodies touched.

His hand lingered at my waist when my feet reached the floor. I turned; the stool blocked my easiest escape. His gaze settled on my mouth.

“You hate being told what to do,” he said.

“I hate you telling me what to do.”

“That isn’t what just happened.”

Heat climbed beneath my sweater. “I stood still so you wouldn’t drop me.”

“I wasn’t going to drop you.”

He simply waited, perfectly aware that I could see his interest.

Naturally, I pushed. “You nearly lost a fight with an umbrella.”

His mouth curved. “You screamed before charging.”

“It was a warning.”

“To me.”

I laughed, and the tension shifted without disappearing.

We found the attic pole, two basins and a plastic sheet. Arthur covered the loose roof tile while I caught the drips. When he climbed down, I wiped dust from his cheek.

Arthur went still. His fingers closed gently around my wrist. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Seeing how far you can push.”

The answer landed too close to the truth. I liked provoking him. More troublingly, I liked the moment his patience sharpened into control.

“Maybe I’m curious,” I said.

His thumb moved once over my pulse. “That can get you into trouble.”

Something neon green slid from my open suitcase and bounced down two stairs. Tax Fraud landed facedown on the landing.

Arthur released me and stared at the stuffed gremlin. “You kept him.”

“He lives with me.”

“You packed him for spring break?”

“He gets lonely.”

“He’s fabric.”

“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have feelings.”

Arthur picked him up by one uneven arm. “He looks worse than I remember.”

“He’s had a difficult year.”

“He sits on a shelf.”

“You don’t know what he does while I’m at class.”

His laugh warmed something beneath the attraction that I had no intention of examining.

The storm settled the night. Neither of us would abandon the disputed house with rain coming through its roof. I gave Arthur the room across from mine without recognising his alleged ownership.

We stood between our open doors while he loosened another button at his collar. “Lock your door if you’re worried.”

“I’m not worried about you.”

“No?”

“I have an umbrella.”

“You left it in the kitchen.”

“I know where you sleep.”

Arthur’s gaze travelled over me, slow enough to warm my skin. “Good night, Maya.”

“Don’t good-night me in my own house.”

He smiled as he stepped into his room. “Lock the door.”

“I’m not taking orders from you.”

“I know.”

His door remained partly open when I closed mine. On my first night home, Arthur Bellamy slept only a few feet away. I told myself the house was the only reason my heart beat too quickly.

My body had never been interested in reasonable explanations.