“Sorry, Tot. You’re not getting the guesthouse. North lives there.”

Frustration blooms like a hot rash. “So? Didn’t Sam live there as well?”

Macon’s dark eyes narrow to slits. “You’re not Sam. You’re staying here.”

I can’t let it go. “Why?”

Red washes over his cheeks. “Because I said so.”

The words ring through the house, startling us both, I think. He blinks as if coming out of a fog. I, on the other hand, huff out a humorless laugh. “You sound like my mother.”

“Be careful I don’t spank you.”

Unwelcome heat touches my thighs, and I shift my weight to keep from clenching them. “Try. It.”

We glare at each other from across the way. I’m fairly certain we’re both playing a game of chicken with this arrangement, seeing who will cave first.

North claps his hands together. “Okay, children. I’m going to bring Delilah’s bags in. I want to see happy faces when I return. Happy. Faces.”

Macon doesn’t take his eyes from me. “Piss off, North.”

North shakes his head. “Your funeral, man.”

He leaves us alone.

Macon’s gaze darts over my face. “You gonna be a pain in the butt the whole time?”

“Only when you act like an ass.”

His lips quirk. “Kind of feeling the urge to pull one of your pigtails right now.”

I won’t smile. Nope. No way. “I’m not wearing pigtails.”

A husky note enters his voice. “Maybe tomorrow, then.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

He snorts lightly. “Come on. I’ll show you around.” He touches a knob on his armrest, and the wheelchair turns around.

I catch up and walk alongside him. Macon glances up at me and frowns. “Don’t know if I like you looming over me.”

“Now you know how I felt all those years,” I say happily. In high school, Macon was always at least five to six inches taller than me. He looks larger now, and I’m guessing he probably tops me by a foot when he’s standing.

He grunts and stops at a set of doors. “Hit the button, will you?”

I do as asked. “An elevator? That’s convenient.”

“It’s ridiculous in a two-story house,” he admits with a touch of self-deprecation. “But the previous owner was an artist. She painted massive canvases and didn’t trust them to be taken down the stairs. Her one request of the house was that it had an extrawide elevator.”

Ah, the whims of the rich. Want an elevator in your seaside mansion? No problem.

A small click and a light on the panel announces the car. I open the doors and slide back an inner door. Macon rolls in, and we’re soon riding upward.

“How long are you in the chair?” I ask.

“Another week; then we go to the doctor, and they’re fitting me with a walking boot.”

“We?”

He glances my way as the car stops. “Yes, ‘we.’ You’re my assistant now, Tot. You go where I go.”

He might as well have said, “Welcome to hell.”

Pinching the bridge of my nose to ward off a headache, I peek at him from under the curve of my hand. “So what does the assistant part of the job entail?”

“You’re asking that now, after you’ve offered yourself up on a platter?”

“Just answer the question, Macon.”

The edges of his lips curl. It’s not a smile. It looks more like victory. “Get shit done for me, no questions asked. And obviously help me out while I heal.”

I’m surprised at this. Macon never likes conceding weakness. The mere fact that he expects me to aid him is not only surprising; it’s shocking.

“Okay,” I draw out, feeling not relief exactly but as if there’s a tiny spot of light at the end of the tunnel. It doesn’t sound so bad.

It’s going to feel like a yearlong dental visit, and you know it.

“As for cooking,” he says as we move down the hall, “I expect healthy meals. No heavy southern shit.”

I don’t bother telling him that not all southern cooking is heavy. And it certainly isn’t shit. He knows all of this well. He’s just being . . . Macon, trying to get my goat.

“We start shooting again in June,” he goes on, either ignoring or not noticing my side-eye, “and they’ll have a fit if I gain an ounce.”

“Have to keep your ass in tip-top shape for all those screen flashes?”

He pauses, and the air becomes too close as his gaze glides over me, a smile oozing out—smug and heated. “Why, Delilah, have you been watching my ass on screen?”

“No. But Sam has. Can’t say it was enough to keep her around, though, eh?”

His gaze narrows.

What. Are. You. Doing? You can’t antagonize him!

But if I roll over for him completely, I’m as good as dead. It’s a delicate balance, dealing with Macon Saint. So I merely keep my bland smile in place and wait him out, pretend that my chest isn’t tight and that uncomfortable heat isn’t burning my skin.

Thankfully, I’m given a reprieve.