Alle Kapitel von My Idol Lives Next Door (And He's Pretending to Hate Me): Kapitel 1 – Kapitel 10

Julian glanced toward the ceiling, then lowered his voice."Eight months ago, our fathers were buried on the same day. Four coffins, four sons in black suits." He turned his teacup slowly in its saucer. "The fourth young master never shed a single tear. Not at the funeral, not at the grave, not after. And the next morning, he put on that mask."Elara's fingers tightened around the cabinet door. "Why?""No one knows. He won't say, and he won't take it off." Julian gave a short, humorless laugh. "I'm his cousin. I'm a doctor. And I haven't seen his whole face since that day."A cold, strange ache settled in her chest. She thought of the warm hand at her waist, the unsteady heartbeat beneath her palm. *Nobody that cold has a heartbeat like that.*"He seems lonely," she said quietly.Julian studied her for a long moment. "Be careful, Elara. Lonely people bite."At the top of the stairs, a shadow shifted. A hand curled tighter around the rail. Then the shadow was gone, and no one had seen

The phone hit the floor and went dark. For three long seconds, the first young master did not move. He stood with his hand still raised where the phone had been, his face blank, his breathing slow, like a man carrying a glass so full that one wrong move would spill it. "Sir?" Elara said carefully. "Are you..." "Leave." It wasn't a command this time. It was barely a breath. "You look like you're about to faint." "I never faint." He straightened his cuffs with hands that were not quite steady. "Go to your room. Do not come downstairs until I say so." "Is that a request or a threat?" His cold eyes cut to her, and for once there was no ice in them, only something raw and exhausted. "Please." It was the first polite word she had heard from him. It was also the only reason she obeyed. She walked out. She even closed the door behind her. She just forgot to walk very far. --- The grand staircase had an excellent view of the front hall. Elara crouched behind a marble pillar with a

Elara looked at the car, then at the masked face behind the glass, then at the rain. "You don't go out," she said. "I do tonight." "You said you were going this way." "I am." "You don't know where I'm going." "The rehearsal room on Linden Street." His eyes stayed on the windshield. "You told the housekeeper this morning. She told everyone." "So you were *eavesdropping*." "I was in the house. Sound travels." He leaned across the seat and shoved the passenger door open. "Get in, or walk. I don't care which." She got in. The car was warm and smelled of cedar. A folded towel lay on the dashboard, dry and clean, as if it had been there for a while. He did not look at her or say a word as she toweled her hair. He just turned the heater up two notches and pulled onto the road. It took her two blocks to notice his feet. "You're wearing house slippers." "They're comfortable." "You never leave the house, you panicked and ran out the door, and you didn't change your shoes." "I di

The first surprise was the blanket. It appeared on Elara's chair in the practice room on Monday, soft and gray and folded in thirds. No one had brought it, and no one knew whose it was. "Maybe the building owner left it," said Mina. "In a garage?" "Maybe he's lonely." Mina and the girls knew only that Elara had taken a live-in job at some enormous house. They had never been there, and they had never heard of any cousins. Elara kept it that way. A contract was a contract. The second surprise came on Tuesday. Her hair tie, missing for a week, was lying on her pillow when she got home. The third came on Wednesday. The wheezing old speaker in the practice room was gone, replaced by a sleek new one, with a small card taped to the top. *Fixed. Don't thank anyone.* In the corner, in neat upright ink, was a single letter. *R.* Elara stared at it. None of the cousins' names began with R. It might be a signature, or a code, or a repairman's mark. *Don't be silly,* she told herself, an