Almost Like Love

by Abigail Strom

  Definitely a less flirtatious tone. It was the safer course, but she couldn’t help feeling a twinge of regret as she hit send.

  That seems like a fair trade. We can discuss terms when I get home tonight.

  He’d followed her lead in backing away from the flirting precipice—and, without being rude, had clearly indicated that they shouldn’t do any more emailing while he was at work.

  Well done, Ian.

  Well done, both of them, really.

  So there was no reason to feel disappointed as she put her phone away and went to the bookshelves to pick out something to read.

  There was a fairly wide selection. The fiction choices ranged from spy novels and thrillers to Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, and the nonfiction included business books, military history, historical biographies, and sports biographies. All pretty typical stuff for a—

  Kate froze. Tucked away on the bottom shelf and partly hidden by a floor lamp was something she recognized.

  She moved the lamp out of the way and crouched down to look more closely.

  It couldn’t be—but it was.

  An original Dungeons & Dragons set.

  Her older brother had been a player, and he’d used this identical set. How well she remembered the Dungeon Master’s Guide, not to mention the many-sided dice used to determine the events of the game, from character creation to battle outcomes.

  This was one of the original bastions of geek culture. Could it be that cynical, practical, money-minded Ian Hart had once let his imagination roam in the world of swords and sorcery?

  Of course, the set might not even belong to him. It could be Jacob’s—although she doubted it. This was a vintage collectible. But a friend or relative of Ian’s might have left it here. Or maybe it did belong to him but wasn’t something he’d ever used much. Kate knew how relics of youth could follow people through the years for no particular reason.

  Kate sat down cross-legged on the floor, lifted the lid from the box, and pulled out one of the well-worn manuals.

  property of ian hart had been written on the inside front cover in large block letters.

  A slow smile spread across her face.

  There was additional evidence of usage throughout. A young Ian had scribbled notes in the margins, and there were several character sheets stuck in between the pages. The one he’d played most often was a human warrior he’d named Galahad.

  Kate closed the book and ran her fingers over the cover.

  She ought to put it all back. Even though she hadn’t technically been snooping—the box was on a bookshelf in the living room, after all—she was quite sure that Ian would prefer to keep this part of his past private. The decent thing to do would be to replace the set where she’d found it.

  A few minutes later, she’d carried the box over to the sofa and displayed the contents on the coffee table: rule books, dice, miniatures, and a faded map drawn on an enormous sheet of graph paper.

  Then she curled up with a Robert Ludlum novel she’d taken from the bookshelf and waited for Ian to come home.

  Ian’s pulse kicked up a notch as he rode the elevator to his apartment. Since Kate had emailed him earlier that day, he’d pulled his phone out several times to reread their exchange, a smile tugging at his mouth every time he did.

  He’d come up with step two in his plot to woo her into his bed. He’d invite her to stay for dinner with him and Jacob, and at some point during the evening he’d casually mention that it might be fun to do something while Jacob was away that weekend with his grandparents.

  He wasn’t used to putting this much work into the planning stages of a seduction. For most of his adult life he’d relied on “Can I buy you a drink?” and “How about we get out of here?” to achieve a pretty impressive closing percentage.

  Of course, living with Jacob had put a crimp in his social life. He had to either plan ahead for a babysitter—something he didn’t like to do too often, since he spent so much time away from Jacob because of work—or limit his dates to the one weekend a month Jacob went to Philadelphia to see his grandparents.

  The truth was, he hadn’t really minded the change. He tended to avoid serious relationships, and casual dating had begun to pall even before Jacob had moved in with him. In the past year he’d been out only a handful of times.

  But his attraction to Kate felt different. He was never sure what she would do or say next, and her determination to resist him brought out some primitive male instinct to conquer that felt like a shot of whiskey in his veins.

  It had been a long time since he’d felt this alive around a woman.

  Part of that feeling came from the times he’d gone to her rescue. Even though Spike wasn’t real, Ian had found himself at home in his skin. There was something cathartic about being able to say exactly what he felt, not to mention showing his tattoos to the world.

  He’d been an executive for almost ten years, but the truth was, wearing a $2,000 suit to a board meeting could feel more like playing a part than taking Kate home on a Harley did.

  And it didn’t feel nearly as good.

  Bridezilla had had it all wrong when she’d told Kate that a man felt better standing next to a petite woman. Standing next to Kate—especially when there was that spark of challenge in her eyes—made him feel more vital and powerful and masculine than he ever had in his life.

  As he turned the key in his lock, his anticipation rose, and he felt a surge of electricity the moment he saw Kate in the living room. She was curled up on the couch with a book, and when she met his eyes and smiled slowly, he felt it in his groin.

  “Well, hello there,” she purred, and for one heady moment he thought he might not need a seduction plan after all.

  Then he saw the coffee table.

  So much for feeling powerful and masculine. In a flash he was reduced to the gawky thirteen-year-old he’d once been, playing Dungeons & Dragons for hours with like-minded eighth-graders.

  Doing his best to ignore Kate’s grin, he dropped his briefcase on the floor and went to look over the display. Then he sat down in an armchair across from her.

  “I might have known you’d find this stuff. Did you use some kind of geek radar?”

  “It just goes to show you should never make assumptions about someone,” Kate said. “In a million years I would never have guessed you had this in your past. And in case you were wondering, I didn’t snoop. It was on a shelf right out in the open.”

  He shook his head. “I should have destroyed the evidence years ago.”

  Kate was still smiling at him, and he found himself smiling back. The sun had set, but Kate had turned on only a few lamps. She looked beautiful in the soft light, her skin impossibly smooth, her hair as bright and shiny as a copper penny. Her elbow was resting on the arm of the couch, and her cheek was pillowed on her hand, her head cocked to the side. She looked comfortable, her feet tucked under her in her favorite sitting position.

  He liked seeing her look like that—like she belonged in his apartment.

  He glanced down at the miniatures she’d arranged on the coffee table. So what if Kate knew he’d once played Dungeons & Dragons? Considering how proud she was of her own geekdom, this could actually work in his favor.

  “I want to hear about your days as Galahad,” she said. “And you were a Dungeon Master, too, weren’t you?”

  He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “I thought you wanted to hear about my tattoos.”

  “I want to hear about that, too. Basically, I want the story of your life.”

  “Really.”

  “Yep.”

  He nodded thoughtfully, letting a beat go by while he pulled off his suit jacket and loosened his tie. “I tell you what. If you stay and have pizza with Jacob and me, I’ll give you the story of my life afterwards. Some of it, anyway.”


  Kate raised her eyebrows. “You sure drive a hard bargain. In exchange for giving me what I want, you’re going to force me to eat pizza? You must be brutal at the negotiation table. Are you going to make me have dessert, too?”

  “Smart-ass. Is that a yes?”

  “You’ve talked me into it.”

  If he had his way, this wouldn’t be the only thing he talked Kate Meredith into.

  “I’ve still got homework to finish,” Jacob said once they’d polished off two pizzas. “Is it okay if I take my Oreos into my room?”

  “Sure,” Ian said. After Jacob left he told Kate, “We can have our cookies out on the terrace, if you like.”

  “You have a terrace?”

  Kate might not be susceptible to his usual moves, but it was a rare New Yorker who could fail to be impressed by an apartment with a balcony.

  He grinned at her. “See? My soulless palace of luxury has a few advantages.”

  She rolled her eyes and followed him into his study, where French doors led out to a brick-walled terrace.

  “Okay, it’s nice,” she acknowledged, looking around at the lush ivy, the potted shrubs, and the rosebushes in wooden planters. As she set her glass of milk on the wrought-iron table and took a seat on one of the cushioned chairs, Ian flipped a switch that turned on fairy lights entwined with the ivy.

  “Okay, it’s beautiful.”

  “Would you like a glass of wine?” he asked as he lit the votives in the center of the table.

  She shook her head. “I think I’ll stick with milk. It’s the perfect pairing with Oreos.”

  “Very true.”

  As he sat down in the chair beside hers, she dipped a cookie into her milk and took a bite.

  “The setting is perfect,” she said after a moment. “A beautiful terrace, candlelight, and Oreos. The time has come for Scheherazade to tell a story.”

  “Am I Scheherazade in this scenario?”

  “Yep.”

  “So that would make you the sultan.”

  She crossed her legs and waved a cookie in the air like a royal scepter. “I await my nightly entertainment.”

  He finished his last Oreo, cleared his throat dramatically, and began.

  “Once upon a time, there was a young man who lived in Brooklyn with his mother and sister. When he was in eighth grade, he discovered Dungeons & Dragons.”

  Kate nodded. “That’s when my brother got into the game, too.”

  “Did you ever play?”

  “A little . . . but I got sucked into computer and video games pretty early. That’s where I spent my time.”

  “I never got into those. It was just Dungeons & Dragons for me until high school.”

  “I still have a hard time visualizing that. D&D is hard-core geeky.”

  “You have to bear in mind that young Ian Hart was very different from the handsome, sexy, powerful man you see before you now.”

  Kate snorted.

  “At thirteen, he was as nerdy as they come—tall and skinny, with braces and acne, and so wrapped up in his fantasy role-playing game, he could have been one of those cautionary tales about kids who lose their grip on reality.”

  “So what changed?”

  “One day at recess, the school’s basketball coach spotted him shooting hoops and recognized some latent talent for the game. Or it might have been the fact that Ian was tall and the JV team needed a center. Whatever the reason, the coach encouraged Ian to try out for the team, and he made it.”

  “A turning point in our plot.”

  “Not only was Ian good at sports, but he actually enjoyed them. This discovery coincided with the braces coming off his teeth, his skin clearing up, and his muscular development finally catching up with his height. In short, our hero suddenly had access to a coolness factor previously unattainable—just in time for his freshman year of high school, when his family left Brooklyn and moved to the Bronx.”

  “Did he turn his back on his nerdy past?”

  “He was fourteen years old and dating his first girlfriend, so we would need a word stronger than yes to answer that question.”

  “That sounds like the happy ending to your story, but there’s obviously more. When do the tattoos come in?”

  Ian hesitated. It had been easier telling Kate about his youth than he would have guessed, but he’d had enough for one night.

  “Didn’t Scheherazade keep her head by drawing out her stories? She’d end on a cliffhanger so the sultan would allow her to live one more night.”

  Kate put her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. “Hmm. So you’re saying you’re going to make me wait to hear the rest of the story? I have to admit, it’s a good technique. I’m already wondering when I’ll get to hear it.”

  That’s when it came to him: the perfect plan to seduce Kate Meredith. It was a little unorthodox, but then, so was she.

  “I have an idea about that,” he said casually. “Jacob’s going away this weekend to visit his grandparents in Philadelphia. How about I come to your place on Saturday? If you’ll supply the milk, I’ll bring the Oreos—and I could bring Dungeons & Dragons, too. It would be fun to flex my Dungeon Master muscles after so many years.”

  He could practically see the wheels turning in her head as she thought about it. Everything about his proposal sent friendship signals instead of date signals, which should make Kate feel comfortable.

  It worked. “Okay, that sounds like fun. I’d love to play Dungeons & Dragons. Maybe it’ll get my imagination going and I’ll be able to come up with a project I actually want to pitch to someone.”

  He felt a twinge of guilt. “You’ve been having trouble finding a new gig?”

  She shrugged. “Don’t worry about me, Hart. I’ll figure out something eventually. I always do. Of course, I wouldn’t have to figure out something if it weren’t for you,” she added, but she smiled as she said it, and there was no sting in her words.

  Maybe she’d forgiven him for cancelling her show. He hoped so. Not only because he still felt guilty about it, but also because his plan for Saturday night would be a lot easier to execute if she wasn’t still harboring resentment towards him.

  But even if she were, he’d find a way around it. He wasn’t going to let anything stop him this time. He wanted Kate Meredith, and he was going to have her.

  Even if he had to use Dungeons & Dragons to do it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jacob had a big smile for her when Kate picked him up after school on Friday.

  “Hi, Kate!”

  “Wow, you look happy. Are you excited to see your grandparents this weekend?”

  He nodded. “I always have an awesome time with them.”

  He was quiet for a few moments while Kate was hailing a cab. Then, after they’d climbed into the back, he suddenly said, “They asked me if I wanted to live with them after Mom died.”

  Kate was startled, but she managed not to show it. This was the first time Jacob had mentioned his mother’s death to her.

  “That was nice of them,” she said. “Did you think about doing it?”

  Jacob turned his head away to look out his window, and for a minute she thought he might not answer. But then he turned back. “I did think about it, but . . . Mom wanted Ian to be my guardian. She said so in her will. I figured . . . I figured . . . if that’s what she wanted, then that’s what I should do.”

  Kate nodded. They rode in silence for another minute or two, and then she said, “You’ve been living with your uncle for almost a year now. How do you think it’s going?”

  Jacob shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

  He didn’t say anything else, and Kate didn’t push it. By the time they got to Ian’s apartment, they’d started talking about the new Spider-Man movie coming out that summer.

  Jacob’s grandparents were driving i
nto the city to pick him up, and they’d left a message to say they’d be there around five o’clock. It turned out that Jacob hadn’t packed yet, so Kate helped him fill a suitcase while he continued chattering about Peter Parker.

  The suitcase was packed and ready to go when it occurred to Kate that Jacob should bring a jacket. He wouldn’t want to wear it now, since the day was so warm, but you never knew when it would cool down. She grabbed one from his closet and opened up the suitcase again.

  Lying on top of his clothes was something she hadn’t seen Jacob put in there, something that looked like a—

  Suddenly he was there beside her, closing the suitcase again and pulling it away.

  “I think this is all set. I don’t need anything else. It’s too warm for a jacket. I don’t—”

  He stopped and bit his lip. After a moment, Kate sat down on his bed.

  “Listen, Jacob, whatever you might be working on is none of my business. I’ll forget I ever saw it, if that’s what you want.” She paused. “But I have to say, what I saw looked pretty amazing. I’d love to see more, but only if it’s okay with you.”

  He looked torn. “Well . . . I guess I have to show it to somebody sometime, right? I mean, if I ever want to do anything with it. And you’ve made awesome TV shows, and I know you like comic books.”

  He chewed on his lip for a few more seconds, and then he opened the suitcase again. He pulled out the bound pages she’d seen and held them close to his chest.

  “Okay, so, I’ve been working on this for a long time. Do you want me to tell you about it, or do you want to just look at it?”

  “Why don’t you tell me about it first?” she said gently.

  “Okay. Well. You know how a lot of fairy tales have wishes in them? You know, wishing wells and genies’ lamps and things like that?”

  Kate nodded.

  “Do you know the story about the monkey’s paw?”

  “Sure. That’s the one where a couple uses the monkey’s paw to ask for three wishes, but they end up having terrible consequences. Right?”

  “Right. There are other stories like that, too, about how people don’t really know what they’re doing when they make wishes, and how things happen that they didn’t mean to have happen. So . . . you know how people sometimes talk about what superpower they would want if they could pick one? Like flying or being able to turn invisible or have superstrength or whatever?”