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"Amy, Let me show you your room," says James as he comes out of the room where he was talking to Kate.

I was able to hear some shouting as soon as the siblings locked themselves in the room for the chat. Then it quieted down. I didn't want to cause any misunderstanding between them. But right now I could really use a bed.

"Is everything okay?", I ask wondering what kind of agreement they have come to.

Kate walks in staring at me but she doesn't look mad anymore. James assures me everything is fine. I offer to pay for the stay but he denies it once again. He leads me to the closed room on the right and opens it. There is no better word to describe it, its a mess. There are clothes, takeout boxes, books, coffee mugs everywhere. James curses at the horror in front of us.

"What the f***, Kate?", he says absolutely frustrated with his sister.

"If you had given me a notice before you brought over your lady friend, I would have tried to clean up.", Kate says coolly.

"My house my rules", she added stubbornly.

"I can take the couch.", I offer. I don't want them to fight again.

Both of them agree and James heads back to work on the plumbing.

"So, I hear you are Ethan's ex-wife", Kate says. I can see she is curious and she tries to be cool about it. I can't help but wonder if Kate and Ethan have anything going on between them. Kate is beautiful and she could have any man she wants. And the thought of Ethan wanting Kate makes my stomach churn. I tell myself that I don't have any place in his life, except for the week for which he is paying me.

"Yes, it was three years ago", I say swallowing the heartache that comes everything I think about the divorce.

"Why?"

"Ethan never gave me a reason. I assume its something to with money", I try to answer her without bringing the word gold-digger. Even though I have been called a gold-digger so many times by his family, the media and even some random strangers, it still hurts.

"So, you are not after his money?", she asks mockingly. Truthfully, until I knew how hard it was to pay the bills and take care of someone, it was never about money. I truly loved Ethan. Now, after accepting his money I don't think I can say that it's not about money anymore. So, I remain silent and don't answer Kate's question.

"So, you are after his money after all. Not so innocent like few reporters claimed.", Kate says hateful.

If Ethan, who claimed he loved me and fought every member of his family to marry me, doesn't believe me. I don't think Kate will understand or believe me. All these talks about Ethan fill my eyes with fresh tears and I try very hard not to cry. I have cried enough for the day and don't want to cry anymore. I just want to lie down on the mattress and forget everything. Kate glares at me for a few more seconds hoping I would say something when I don't answer her, she stomps off to her bedroom and shuts it with a bang. I brush off a few stray tears that have escaped and lay on the couch hoping to get some sleep.

A hard knock on the door pulls me off my work. I look up to see James leaning on the door frame, his blazers gone and sleeves rolled up.

"The shower is fixed.", he says with a smile.

James has sacrificed 10 years of his life to take care of me. Though he assured me many times that he is happy, there was always a shadow in his eyes like he gave up on something, something very important to him. It's the Navy. He loved to be a Navy Seal and be a part of the covert operations. Losing our parents and giving up his dream, to take care of me, devastated him even though he doesn't let me see it.

Today for the first time in years, I saw a spark in his eyes. It's no brainers that he is attracted to Amy. She is gorgeous and has the damsel in distress look going on down pat. I didn't expect him to fall for someone like her. The woman is cunning. She had played Ethan once. Ethan is a brilliant businessman and if Amy was able to fool him then my lovestruck brother who sees best in every person has no chance with Amy. She will play him like a fiddle. But I won't let it happen. I will protect my brother from the evil woman at all cost.

"Oh, great! Thank you!", I say and look at the time. It's only 4 and I don't want him to spend any more time with Amy.

"You should leave. It's a long way home and there will be heavy traffic."

" Kate, Are you crazy? I hardly take me an hour to reach my place and I was never held in traffic before. What's going on? Why are you kicking me out?"

"Nothing. Nothing is going on. I am busy and it's getting late".

James looks confused and adds,

"I am not sure what's going on that brilliant head of yours. But I going to start dinner. What do you want me to make?"

"I will cook something or order a pizza", I say rushed.

"I am free for the whole day so I will help you with dinner and clean up the guest room.", James insists before heading towards the kitchen. I rush after him and see him staring at the sleeping Amy. She looks so innocent nothing like the money hungry girl the articles I have been reading a while back. I look back at my brother he seems to be held in a trance. I grab his arm and drag him back to my room.

" Are you crazy? You like her. Your boss's ex-wife. Really!!! Can't you find any other woman in this whole wide planet?", I scream-whisper. I need to talk some sense into him before he does something stupid and gets himself entangled with her more.

James runs a hand over his head and he looks completely frustrated.

"I am okay with you offering to help her but that's it. You are not getting trapped in that woman's plan. She is looking for her next meal ticket and I won't let you be that person who is fooled by the beauty of a woman.", I argue with my brother.

" I don't think Amy is like that Kate. You should have seen the place she lives in. It's a dump."

"One of the articles said Amy didn't get any alimony because she took over Ethan's charity fund and spent it on herself, clothes, jewellery, etc. Good, she lives in a dump, after spending the money that was set aside for charity, she deserves to rot in hell".

"Kate, you can't believe everything that you see online. She was treated like a pariah in office. Even Elizabeth treated her badly. I just feel everyone is misunderstanding her."

"You are just looking at her hot body and not thinking clearly."

"I agree she is hot and she stole my breath the moment I saw her but my gut feeling says she is a nice person.", James says stubbornly. It's like talking to a wall. The woman had somehow made him think she is a saint. There is no point in arguing when he is blinded by her beauty.

"Whatever, when she stays here you are not dating her. If you want to date her, you can take her somewhere else". I need some time to dig in and find some dirt on her so I can protect my brother from her.

James paces for a while and decides to leave.

" Fine, I will leave. But, promise me you will treat her kindly."

"Fine"

He leaves after kissing my forehead and ruffling my hair by the door. I lock the door and turn around to see Amy still sleeping. I get back to my room and start working on my paper that needs to be finished tomorrow.

Hours later, I finish my work and go back to the kitchen and see Amy is still sleeping. I heat a frozen pizza while I make myself a cup of coffee. As I wait for the pizza to get heated, I hear sniffing. I walk over to the couch and see Amy silently crying. Her eyes are closed but tears keep falling and body is shaking like she is sobbing. My first thought is she is acting. I call out her name a couple of times but she seems to not hear me while she continues to sob. Confused, I Google if it's possible to cry in sleep and surprisingly people do cry some times in sleep probably because they are dreaming. One comment said to wake them up to interrupt the dream. I decided that would be the best idea since her sobs are just annoying me. What is she crying about? Probably in her dreams, she saw some money bags running away from her. I shake her shoulders a couple of time, she doesn't wake up but stops sobbing. I have no interest in entertaining her.

I head back to my room to collect the papers and my laptop. I have printed out the paper that I need to submit tomorrow, but it needs to be arranged in the right order first. The presentation I will be giving tomorrow is very important for my thesis. I have been working for months on this and tomorrow is the final step to getting the required funds for my research. I carefully sort out the papers one by one. I should have done this beforehand, but I was busy spying on Amy that it got delayed. But ones I sort this out, all I have to do is get a good nights sleep and present my points confidently tomorrow.

While I am in the middle of getting everything sorted, I hear a bloodcurdling scream from the living. The sudden sound of terror shocks me and I drop my coffee cup on the laptop effectively ruining my laptop and all the papers that I need for my presentation. I curse and rush to the living room where I find Amy looking terrified. She has her hands around her neck and struggling to breathe. I immediately run to the kitchen to get a brown bag so she can breathe into it. I have read about the panic attack put never seen anyone have it before. I instruct her to breathe into the bag. She does as I told and soon her panic subsides and she is able to breathe normally.

"Thank you", Amy says still gasping a little.

I say it's no problem and look at my ruined paper and get mad suddenly.

"You know what you are the problem. You just have to come into my world and ruin everything. First, you wrap my brother around your finger. Now, you made me spill my coffee on my laptop and my thesis paper. All my work is ruined. If my laptop won't switch on I can't take another print of my thesis. Do you know what a thesis paper is? Do you know how hard I have worked to prepare for my presentation tomorrow? Have you ever worked hard in your life for something other than trapping rich guys?", I shouted at Amy. I know it's unfair to accuse her but from the moment she stepped into my house nothing has happened as planned. Amy's eyes are filled with tears by the time I stop taking out all my frustration on her. It makes me feel bad so I leave and head into my bedroom to sleep it off.

By the time I wake up its 8o clock in the morning. I only meant to sleep for an hour or two but I slept the whole night. I curse and rush out to the kitchen. My laptop is kept upside down on a stack of books and my papers are gone. Amy is also nowhere to be found. Good, I don't want to see her face first thing in the morning. I google to see what I should do when some liquid falls on my laptop.

When I am busy reading what I can do to my laptop, I hear the bell. I press the intercom button and ask who it is. It's Amy. I am in no mood to talk to her.

" Go away"

"Please, just let me in for a moment. I will collect my things and leave", she says

I promised James to be kind to her but I hadn't kept the promise so far. So I let her in though I really don't want her anywhere in my house. I unlock the door to my apartment and get back to doing my research. I have my presentation at 10 and need the printout as soon as possible. My presentation is in my mail so at least I have a backup for that. I scold myself for not uploading the thesis paper to my cloud storage.

Amy walks in and I ignore her. But she walks near and greats me good morning nervously and places a stack of papers in front of me. I look up and see it's the thesis paper.

" Sorry about yesterday. I didn't mean to cause any trouble. I typed out all the pages. I checked it twice. Please check if everything is okay.", she says nervously.

I take the stack and examine it. There are few alignment mistakes but everything is right.

"Where did you do this?", I ask her still examining the 50+ paged document.

"I looked up and found a library nearby that's open all through the night. I went there and typed it out. I am sorry I didn't mean to ruin your work.", she apologizes again.

"I will leave now. Thank you for letting me stay", she adds and moves to collect her things.

Now, I feel like a b**ch for treating her badly. She must have worked the whole night to type out so many pages of the document. She didn't even do anything wrong. She was having a bad dream. I can't help but feel horrible for judging her from what I read. I was jealous that James was giving her attention and she was Ethan's ex-wife and criticised her for it. She really didn't have to do this. She could have today me to f*** off and get on with her day. But she pulled an all-nighter to help me.

"Thanks for this. And I am sorry for shouting at you yesterday", I say.

"It's okay. I hope you do well today. All the best. I will leave now."

She starts to leave the house and only now I see she is holding her things in a takeaway bag. I notice that she limps a little and she is still in the same dress she was wearing yesterday. She looks tired and kicking her out now only makes me feel worse.