When Playing with Fire

Chapter 1 - Home Sweet Home

Emily looked around the entrance hall of the mansion and realized it was much bigger than she remembered, but she had only been a child when she had last been here. Her grandparents had been filthy rich for as long as she could remember. They had spent quite a bit of money on this mansion and never went on vacation without leaving someone to take care of it, which was exactly why Emily was here in the first place. For the next thirty days while her grandparents toured Italy, she would be staying here and making sure everything was kept clean and their cat, Louis, fed and kept out of trouble.

“Louis!” she called and soon felt a slim figure brush against the back of her leg. Louis was a Siamese and was small for his age but had the best temperament Emily had ever seen in a cat. She knelt down and scratched behind his ears and under his chin until she heard him purr. “Are you hungry?” As if to say yes Louis darted into the kitchen before Emily even took a step. “Well okay, let’s get some dinner…” She looked at her watch and realized it was almost eight thirty. “Well, breakfast anyway…jet lag is going to suck.” It was only two in the morning back home!

She gave Louis a bowl of food before pouring herself a bowl of cereal. It took her some time to find where her grandparents kept everything but after a few minutes she was sitting comfortably at the bar in the kitchen. She munched on her cereal in silence with only the sound of Louis’ crunching in the background. She looked down at the cat as he greedily attacked his food dish.

“So what do you want to do today?” she asked him and was given a long meow as a reply. “Yeah, I don’t know either.” She wanted to go to bed but knew she would never get over jetlag if she did. They both finished their lunches and headed into the living room. She pulled out her laptop and opened iTunes since her grandparents had no stereo to speak of. She selected “Hello” by Martin Solveig & Dragonette and cranked the volume. With her closest neighbors being in the nearby town there was no need to worry about disturbing anyone. She looked at the coffee table and noticed there was an envelope with her name on it. She ripped it open and found a letter along with money. She unfolded the letter and began and recognized her grandmother’s handwriting.

Emily,

Thank you so much for watching the house and little Louis for us while we’re gone. Help yourself to anything in the cupboards and the fridge. Please use the money to buy anything you might need while you’re here. We can’t wait to see you when we get home on the 20th.

Love,

Grandma and Grandpa

Short and sweet, Emily thought with a smile, until she realized there was more to the letter.

PS: We have a friend coming over to see you today. They have some very exciting news for you but I’ll let them tell you.

Emily made a face. She didn’t really like surprises and something told her whatever her grandmother was scheming would be interesting to see. She would have called her grandparents but she was too exhausted from jetlag to care much about her grandmother’s news. She set the letter down on the table and put the money in her purse. Her grandmother had told her over the phone that the guest room was at the end of the western hallway and up the stairs in what Emily affectionately called the tower room. There was another room just like it on the east end but Emily thought the color scheme of that room was too dark. The west room’s bedspread and drapes were done in touches of royal blue, Emily’s favorite color. The floor was hardwood with a rug at the edge of the queen-sized bed.

Emily hauled her luggage into the room and began to put her things in their proper places for the next month. When she reached the bottom of her suitcase she found she had packed something she knew she shouldn’t have packed but did anyway. Light pink ballet slippers tied together in a bow sat neatly in her now empty suitcase. Emily absentmindedly rubbed her left ankle but refused to dwell on the past. She dropped the slippers into the top drawer and shut it with an audible thump.

When she had finished putting her clothes away in the closet and had taken over the bathroom, she heard the doorbell ring. She hurried down the staircase and shut her laptop before she opened the door to find a handsome man, about her age, standing on the porch. He had blonde hair ad dark green eyes and wore dark jeans and a dark blue T-shirt that clung to his body and showed off a very nice looking chest and torso. Emily also realized he was leaning slightly on a cane.

“Emily Parker, yeah?” he asked with a smile and Emily noted an Irish accent.

“Maybe?” Emily replied slowly, a bit curious as to how he knew her name.

“Oh, sorry,” he said hurriedly as he gave a nervous laugh. “You don’t know me. Hello, I’m Harry McLaughlin. Your grandmother told me you would be here and asked me to come see you.” Emily remembered her grandma’s letter but she hadn’t mentioned the friend’s name.

“Well, I would love to hear why you were asked to visit but I’m not even sure who’s supposed to come see me so…”

“Right, better safe than sorry,” Harry finished for her. “I guess this means I can’t come in?”

“Nope,” Emily said with a small smile. “Sorry.”

“Not even for a minute?” Harry said hopefully.

“Now if I did that then I would have to let in every other handsome stranger that comes to the door,” Emily told him. “And the next one might have a chainsaw.”

Harry burst into laughter that made Emily laugh as well.

“Okay, fair enough.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He handed her a business card that oddly enough looked like it came from a dance studio. Harry must have read her like a book because didn’t give her time to tell him no. “Just call your grandmother, she’ll explain everything and tell you that I’m completely safe to be around.” Emily watched him walk out the front gate and disappear around the bend before she closed the door. She sat down on the couch and dialed her grandmother’s number on the house phone. It rang only once before her grandmother’s voice was on the other end.

“How is my favorite granddaughter?” she asked happily and Emily laughed.

“Grandma, I’m your only granddaughter,” Emily reminded her. “And we both know Cameron is your favorite grandchild.”

“He’s two, of course he’s my favorite right now. I can’t help but be sucked in by that smiling, chubby little face of his!” Emily burst into laughter as her grandmother did the same. “But seriously, how are you? Did you settle in okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Everything is put away and I just ate. But there is one thing I wanted to ask you about.”

“Oh?”

“Harry McLaughlin?”

“Oh.”

“He wants to talk to me but I think I already know what it’s about,” Emily told her.

“I know you told your mother you were thinking about dancing again so I thought you could get an early start while you’re staying in London.” Emily cringed. The truth was she had only told her mother that to make her happy. She was currently still thinking about whether or not she should burn her dancing shoes and start college life over with a new major. “Go talk to him, Emily. You will like him.” Emily smiled.

“Fine,” she agreed. “I’ll go see him now. But I’m not promising anything.”

“Yay! I’ll let you go then. Talk to you later sweetie!”

Emily said goodbye and hung up the phone. She knew her grandmother wouldn’t stop asking until she actually talked to Harry. She made sure Louis had finished his breakfast and had plenty of fresh water before slipping on her shoes, grabbing her purse and heading out the door not knowing just how complicated Harry was about to make her life.