by Nana Malone
The good news was, the woman on the phone stopped haranguing her daughter. The bad news was as Val stared at the contents of her bags on the floor, her eyes welled with tears.
Shit. Bennett had a lot of experience with women. A lot. Yes, he was a bit of a man whore. But one thing he was not comfortable with were tears. She just looked so vulnerable, he wanted to tuck her in for a hug. What the hell is wrong with you?
When the elevator doors slid open on their floor, he hit the stop button. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”
He let himself in to his apartment and grabbed his grocery bags. When he came back in less than a minute, Valentine was desperately trying to gather all her things into her arms.
“Here you go.”
She shook her head stiffly. “I think my humiliation is complete. Thank you. But you don’t have to help me. I got this. I can do it.”
He merely shrugged. “Everyone needs help sometimes.” When he had retrieved the last of the wayward fruit, including some spiked yellow thing he couldn’t identify, he stood tall. “Go on, I’m right behind you.”
Her phone started to ring on the floor again, and she picked it up but didn’t look at it. Just shoved it into her pocket. “Thank you,” she muttered. Then she let him into her apartment.
To say he was surprised would have been an understatement. Sure, he’d seen glimpses of her sheer white curtains but he figured given her stiffness, she’d have a sterile beige kind of place. He couldn’t be more wrong. Everywhere he turned there was color. Bold and bright. All seamlessly blended together.
“You got it from here?” he asked as she put the bags on the counter.
“Yeah, I’m sorry about the elevator. I’m sort of mortified.”
“It happens. Everyone has a bad day from time to time.”
“’Kay. Well, see you.”
He debated not asking for her help. But as he was here and he needed a hand, too, he might as well. “Okay, so about the other night.”
She shook her head. “Oh, we are not doing this conversation. I’m pretending it didn’t happen.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the thing. That woman I was with—that’s my boss’s wife.”
She gasped. “You two were...cozy.”
“Yeah, not to my liking. I told her you and I were together to get her off my case, but now she wants to have the two of us for dinner at her place. And given what I heard on the phone, I think maybe the two of us can help each other out.”
For one long beat, she stared at him. “You realize this, right here, is the longest conversation we’ve ever had with each other?”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is you don’t even know me. But you want me to pretend to be your girlfriend?”
“Fiancée, actually.”
A bark of laughter tore out of her. “You’re nuts.”
“Look, you need a date or whatever to some wedding, it sounds like, and I need a fiancée. This is win-win.”
She took the grocery bags and turned them upside down, emptying them before shoving them back at him. “We can’t stand each other. You with your tattoos and your loud punk music or whatever.”
He frowned. “Excuse me, that’s classic rock.”
“Whatever. No. You are all wrong. If you have a clean-cut brother, I’m down. But you and I will not mesh. Not to mention that woman looked like she wanted to carve me up into pieces, so thanks, but no thanks.”
This was not the end of this conversation. “Okay, well, you think about it.”
“Answer’s no.”
“You want to tell me what you have against me?”
“You mean besides you being arrogant, loud, a womanizer, flirty and accosting me with kisses?”
He smirked. “You liked the kiss, I could tell.”
She stormed past him and opened her door. “Out.”
With a sigh he turned to go. “I’ll give you a couple days to think about it.” She rolled her eyes, but as he left, he could have sworn he saw her lips twitch. Well, at least it was a start. He had a few days to wear her down. He wasn’t going to the Voss house without her.
* * *
“So tell me exactly what happened. You came home with James, my least favorite friend, and then next thing you know your neighbor’s kissing you?”
“I have no idea what happened.” Val paced back and forth in her living room in front of the couch as Mel looked up at her. “One second, James was bumbling through a breakup, and the next thing I know Mr. Sexy and Tattooed and Terrible Neighbor was kissing me.”
“So exactly how did he kiss you?” Mel asked. “Was there tongue, or was it a peck? Did he hold you close up against him? Or was it one of those cases where he just leaned in with his face?”
Val considered. Her mind ran through the kiss over and over again like a movie reel. Bennett with his direct stride and intense focus on her. Bennett wrapping his arm around her waist and sliding one into her hair and then tucking her against him intimately as he lowered his lips. “Yeah, he definitely had me pressed up against him.”
Mel hooted. “This is fantastic. Finally, someone we can dig our teeth into who isn’t a boring Marcus replacement.”
Val frowned at her best friend. They didn’t talk about Marcus, since he’d unceremoniously dumped her before her final exams senior year. Val didn’t like to reminisce about that period of time. Marcus and everything that came with him was better left forgotten.
Mel held up her hands. “Easy does it. All I’m saying is that ever since Marcus, you’ve been looking for that perfect Morris Chestnut kind of guy. You know, tall, athletic, charming as hell, great job, the right connections, the right schools. You’ve pretty much been dating a cookie-cutter version of the same guy for the last five years, and it never works out for you.”
“You’re wrong. I am not trying to replace Marcus. So what if some of the guys have the same qualities? I happen to like those qualities.”
Mel shook her head. “No. Your parents like those qualities. You don’t know what you like.”
“Of course I know what I like.” Mel had no idea what she was talking about. Val knew what she liked. Of course she knew what she wanted. She dated. Yes, maybe she aspired for a very specific look. Tall, chocolate and in good shape. That didn’t make her super shallow, did it?
“No, you don’t. Because you’ve never dated anything other than the Marcus version. And let me just say, if you’re gonna date versions of Marcus, please upgrade. Do not downgrade. That makes no kind of sense. Now, I want to hear more about that sexy neighbor. He sounds like someone completely opposite to Marcus.”
Val’s stomach flipped at the mere mention of Bennett. Stupid hormones. So what if he made every nerve ending stand up and pay attention? There was more to a relationship than great chemistry. “No, not gonna happen. I don’t know what his deal was. But I’m not jumping on the gravy train.”
“Of course you’re not. Because you never do anything outside of your little box.” Before Val could even argue, Mel continued. “You’ve been saying for the last year how you want to shake up your life. With Sol getting married, you were trying to do your own thing. Break free a little of the usual expectations. What happened in that? Because James was not making that happen. And to make matters worse, he was calling you boring. How is that even possible?”
Yeah, the jackass had called her boring. That was hardly fair, especially since most times when he talked Val had to fight to stay awake. She hated it that Mel was right. But she had said for her New Year’s resolution that she wanted to try something different, something new. For once do things for herself. “Okay, fine. I might have said that, but it’s not like I’m not already doing that with my job. I take risks and chances all the time.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.” Mel tucked
a lock of hair behind her ear. “You need to supercharge your life. Yes, you love your job, but sometimes I feel like one of the reasons you love your job is because you know it makes your family crazy.”
“Mel, you know how much I love what I do. I love to eat, and plus, with my nose and my senses, it’s a perfect fit.” Her nose had always been sensitive, but after an accident at age eight, her sense of smell raced off the charts.
“Fine. I hear you. I just want you to have joy in all areas of your life, not just work. And to do that, you’re going to have to stop doing the usual and step out of your comfort zone. You are the one who said you wanted to do that. It wasn’t me. Let’s face it, I’m lazy. I would never have agreed to such a thing for a New Year’s resolution. But then again, I don’t have sexy tattooed neighbors kissing me.”
“Damn, Mel. Do you have to bring him into this every couple of minutes? It’s already impossible to think about anything else.”
“That’s because your subconscious wants to think about him. Honey, would it hurt to do something different? What would you have to lose? Worst case scenario, you march over there asking why he kissed you, he says he doesn’t know, he was bored, then you two make out like a couple of teenagers.”
Val had to laugh at that. Mel could be ridiculous. But she also had a point. She wanted to shake up her life—well, this was one way to do it. “Fine, I’ll talk to neighbor boy. Are you happy now?”
“I won’t be happy unless you take him to Sol’s wedding and tell me he has a twin.”
Chapter 4
Nobody in their right mind would believe that Val was dating someone like Bennett. Nobody. Especially not her parents.
As she posted her latest review of a restaurant on Spring Street that did a killer Thai avocado salad, she glared at the wedding invitation pinned to her calendar.
Yes, she needed a date, but that guy? He had helped her with her groceries, and he was right, James was a jerk. And the look of irritation and annoyance on James’s face had been well worth it. But the most irritating part was that he was an excellent kisser. And he knew it.
That’s because the man has kissed a lot of women. She’d seen him. It wasn’t even speculation. More times than she could count, she’d seen him practically mauling some leggy model in his doorway.
Not that she could blame them. The man radiated sex appeal. But in no way was he appropriate. Like, at all. And she was way past the irritate-Daddy-with-my-new-boyfriend phase of her life. Not that she’d ever had that. She’d been the good one. Not that that ever made her parents happy. She’d bring home an A, her mother would ask why wasn’t it an A-plus. She’d make the lacrosse team, she’d ask why she wasn’t team captain. Never mind how great she was. She wasn’t good enough. Her father, while stern was warmer. Sometimes, he’d find her after her mother had just put her through the ringer and ask if she’d done her best. When she said yes, he’d say, “Great, then I’m proud of you.”
And truth was, she’d made things easy on her parents. She didn’t buck the system. She never met a rule or regulation that she didn’t follow.
Until, of course, instead of using her economics degree she’d started her own business. Blogging about food, no less. Her lifestyle brand had really started to take off during her last year at NYU. It was one thing to post funny commentary on ingredients. It was another thing to have people pay her for those opinions.
Val shut down her laptop and climbed into bed, carefully wrapping her hair in a satin scarf. After her career choice, she was pretty sure her mother would have an aneurysm if she showed up with someone like Bennett. What did he do, anyway? An artist or photographer, she wasn’t really sure. Hell, he could have been a badass biker who ran a motorcycle club, and she’d have no clue. Really time to get to know your neighbors better.
She didn’t mean to be a recluse. Well, not really. And maybe she was a bit rigid. But it was often easier to stay in her routine than change it. She’d taken enough risk in her life, thank you very much.
Val turned over and punched her pillow, picturing Bennett’s tempting smirk. Why was the man so infuriating? Something low in her belly pulled, and she groaned against the need.
No, she would not do this. Especially not because his raw sex appeal woke up everything inside her that screamed, Hello, I’m a woman. Again she repeated all the reasons why his little proposal was a bad idea. Artist. Unconventional. White. They wouldn’t have a fundamental problem with him being white, but the fact that he was different from every single man they’d shoved at her would rankle her mother. And well, he screamed bad boy.
No way her parents were going to let him in the door. They were professors at Princeton, for the love of God. Their tenured friends would wrinkle their little upturned noses when they saw him. And that would earn another disapproving glare from her mother. Oh, how Val had become accustomed to that glare.
Outside all that, she had her own reasons. She didn’t like him, for one. For two, he was obnoxious. And arrogant. Nobody would believe she would even look at him. Much less be engaged to him.
But he kissed better than any man had the right to, and she’d promised herself she’d do something different. Try something different. And if this wasn’t a shining beacon as to why she needed to, she didn’t know what was. Who gave a flying fig what anyone thought? She wasn’t going home alone. Just once she wanted to tell everyone to shut up. She didn’t care. Bringing Bennett home would certainly do that.
Val sat up and pulled the scarf off her head. She didn’t even pause as she opened her door and charged right up to his. If she hesitated, she’d think this through. She’d worry too much. She’d think about all the bad things, all the angles. She knocked briskly three times.
Though, given the soul-shaking decibels of Joe Cocker, she doubted he heard her. When he didn’t come, she knocked again. It took him another minute before he yanked open the door...shirtless. Wearing only a pair of jeans hanging very low on his waist.
Val could only stare. Damn. She’d only ever seen anybody this good-looking naked in a magazine. She was a food blogger, and sure, she worked with models. But they didn’t need to be shirtless to pose with food. Note to self, start requiring shirtless male models. His tattoos, roped and corded around his arms and his torso, were a beautiful thing to see. She wanted to run her fingertips over them.
“Hey, sweetheart, my eyes, they’re up here.”
She snapped her gaze to his and flushed, hoping her dark complexion would conceal her embarrassment. “Okay, fine. I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine. But a couple of things first.”
“Of course there’s a catch,” he whispered. His lips tipped into a lopsided smile, and she almost forgot what the hell she was saying. She should make a no-smiling rule.
Because that smile would get her in trouble. “First, turn your music down. We might be the only ones on this floor, but seriously, I need my beauty rest. Second, we need some rules of engagement. Finally, don’t call me sweetheart.”
He leaned forward, and she involuntarily swayed toward him, his scent intoxicating her. “Whatever you say, cookie.”
Chapter 5
Bennett studied Valentine as they sat in the café connected to their building. “You know, you can loosen up a little, right? I don’t bite or anything.” He smirked. “Unless you’re into that sort of thing. In which case I might reconsider.” He gave her what he hoped was a disarming smile. But nothing. All she gave him were dark eyes widened to the size of saucers. “Come on, Valentine. Give me something to work with here.”
When she wrinkled her nose, he had to smile. She probably didn’t realize the action made her look adorable. He wasn’t going to be the one to tell her, though.
“Sorry. This is somehow more awkward than every first date I’ve ever been on. And for me that’s saying something.”
“Loo
k, I go on a lot of first dates.”
“Somehow that does not surprise me,” she muttered under her breath.
He opened his mouth in mock shock. “Oh, my God, was that an attempt at snark or humor? Be still my heart. I might be in love.”
That did it—a giggle escaped, transforming her normally stoic face into one that completely arrested him. Wow. Her full smile could easily be a weapon of mass destruction for men everywhere. He should call somebody about that or something. Report it. What was that campaign the MTA was putting out there? If you see something, say something? Valentine Anderson was lethal. Thing was, he was pretty sure she didn’t know it.
“Okay, well, you can call me Val. I hate the name Valentine. And these days it’s more of a curse thing anyway.”
“That’s too bad. I think it’s cute, but Val it is. So, Val, what do you say we actually go somewhere, do something? We can head uptown to the Met or to Central Park. Or we can stay down here and check out the Moore Gallery. It just opened and—”
She stammered as she interrupted him. “Y-you want to go to the Moore Gallery?”
He frowned at that. “Yeah. I love art. I am a photographer. I like to look at beautiful things.”
She put up a hand. “Sorry. I guess until yesterday, I wasn’t even really sure you were a photographer. I assumed artist, but even then, like a welding artist or glassblower or something. I kept trying to pair the loud music with you.”
“Glassblower, huh?” He laughed. “I kinda like that idea. I should totally photograph that. Sorry to disappoint, though.”
“It’s okay.” She shrugged. “At one point I also convinced myself that you were the leader of a motorcycle gang and you were running a black market operation or something out of your loft.”
“I like how you think.” He nodded toward her untouched coffee. “You want to get that in a to-go cup so we can leave and check out the gallery? Beats sitting here trying to get all our details written down. We can make it more organic.”
