Fallen Angel Read Online Free Page A

straight for the belfry, because Angel can’t have just referred to me as pretty. That’s crazy, is what that is.
    Only, I’ll never know, because I’m too shocked to ask and he’s busy taking the canvas from me and walking out of the room with it.
    “Wait. Where are you going?” I call, already moving in the same direction.
    “You said we needed to hang it on my wall. I’m going to find a wall.”
    I stop in my tracks at the revelation, then turn back to get the box with the rest of the canvases.
    When I find him again, he’s downstairs in the formal living room, holding the sax up over the fireplace.
    “What do you think?”
    I drop the box I just lugged down the stairs onto his sofa. “I think you should have let me carry that one single painting while you did the manly thing and hoisted the rest of the load down here.”
    He smirks. “I was coming back for it. And for the record, in the future, I’d prefer you didn’t hog the manly tasks just because you get there first.” He leans over and tugs at my dress to pull me to his side. “Now, tell me what you think of it here?”
    I tip my head from shoulder to shoulder. I don’t like it. “It doesn’t go with anything else in here. Where’s your dining room?”
    He brings the painting to his chest and starts walking again. I’m about to grab the box when he turns back, his finger pointing at me accusingly. “What did I just say?”
    “Fine. Jeeze.” Empty handed and feeling slightly useless, I wander after him until we wind up on the other side of the kitchen, in a huge room housing nothing but a chandelier.
    “Well, we won’t have a problem matching the rest of the décor in here,” he remarks dryly.
    “No shit.” I laugh. “Okay, that’s it. I can’t take it anymore. You have two perfect bedrooms upstairs you treat like storage units. You have boxes and boxes of stuff you need to unpack, and the bulk of your house is either partially or completely unfurnished.”
    “I’m barely ever here. And there’s just one of me. What do I need a dining room for?” He’s about as amused by me as I am flustered by him.
    “If you didn’t want to use it, why buy a house that has it? You could be living in a one bedroom studio.”
    He shrugs. “Your sister thought this place was a good investment.”
    “Yeah, well, starting tomorrow you’re going to invest in some more furniture. I don’t care if I have to take you shopping myself. This house is going to turn into a home even if I have to dig through every box upstairs myself. Your ass is moving in.”
    Angel laughs. “You know, that feisty thing used to be cute. Now it’s just scary.”
    And all of my internal fire rushes to may face again. Damn him and his unintentional charm. And damn me for taking something so stupid as a compliment.
    “Whatever gets the job done,” I mumble, hurrying from the room before he can see my bright red complexion, although I’m pretty sure the glow of it is visible from here to Ava’s house.
    After that, I don’t come venturing back out of the room of boxed doom again. I also don’t point out any more wall art. I just start stacking and organizing the keeper boxes on one side of the room, while dismissing the rest in a trash pile I haven’t yet identified as such out loud. I’m assuming Angel’s not attached to anything in here since he hasn’t bothered to look at any of it in five years, but you never know how people really feel about their crap until you tell them it is crap and belongs in a garbage dump.
    I’d really hoped the awkwardness I’d brought upon myself downstairs had been completely one sided and entirely missed by Angel, but since he never came back up here to help me like he was doing all morning, I’m thinking maybe that’s not the case. And it’s only feeding my anxiety over this stupid announcement I made about becoming his personal decorator, whether he wanted one or not. I don’t even know what persuaded me to say those words