by Lauren Layne
“That was just payback!” I say, raising my voice and then quickly lowering it. “For the restaurant last week, when you pretended not to know me.”
He takes a small step forward, his eyes flashing. “Not the same thing. I was working. I needed to retain a certain level of anonymity. I can’t have a would-be client thinking I’d go gabbing about her case with the annoying girl who lives in my building.”
I can’t help the smile. “Have you ever gabbed in your life? I’d kill to see it.”
He sighs and runs a hand over the back of his neck.
I smile wider. “Okay, I forgive you for the dinner snub the other night. So you can forgive me for the snub just now.”
Andrew looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “It doesn’t work like that. You don’t get to just exchange one apology for another.”
“You do when they’re the same offense.”
“Yes, but mine was done out of professional necessity, yours was just petty—”
“I ate a banana,” I interrupt.
He opens his mouth, then shuts it, at a loss for words. “What?”
“Yesterday. I was hungover, as you probably expected, and I didn’t have a banana, but I ordered one for dinner.”
He’s silent for a full thirty seconds. “You ordered a banana for dinner.”
“I did.”
Andrew closes his eyes for a moment. “You really are ridiculous, Georgiana.”
“So does that mean you’ll stay for dinner?”
“What? No. I swear, the lack of logic in your thought process never fails to astound—”
I reach out, snatch the briefcase from his hand, and take a step back.
His face is menacing. “Georgiana…”
I hold it up. “I’m holding it hostage. Until after dinner.”
He takes a step nearer. “Stop acting like a child.”
“Stop acting like an asshole,” I fire back. “Have a drink. Eat some food. Make some friends.”
Like me.
He glares. “They’re your friends, and—”
“Well, lucky for you, I’m good at sharing,” I interrupt before he can make some disparaging comment about the types of people that would lower themselves to hanging out with the likes of me.
Brody comes up behind me and, for the first time in months, I’m semi-glad to see him, because now Andrew won’t tackle me to get the briefcase back.
Although would that be such a bad thing? He does work out a lot, all that lean, sculpted weight on top of me…
“Babe, I refilled your wine.”
I look up at Brody and smile in thanks as I accept the glass. “Perfect. Now we need to get something for Andrew here.”
“Sure,” Brody says with an easy smile. “What are you having?”
I watch as Andrew swallows, his gaze flicking briefly from the briefcase in my hand to the crowd of people behind us and finally back to Brody. Clearly he realizes he’s trapped. “Red wine’s fine.”
“There are already a bunch of bottles open—come take your pick,” Brody says, gesturing in the direction of the drinks table someone’s set up.
Andrew follows Brady, pausing as he passes me and reaching for the briefcase.
I step back before he can reach it. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t trust you not to run away without some incentive to stay.”
“Yeah, well, that’s my problem,” he mutters, more to himself than to me. “It would seem that my incentive to leave and my incentive to stay are one and the same.”
Wait, what? What does that mean?
“Hey, Mulroney. Barolo or Bordeaux?” Brody calls.
Andrew walks away to inspect his wine choices, leaving me to stare after him, a little uncomfortable with just how glad I am that he’s staying.
Georgie
TUESDAY NIGHT, LATER
I made an error in judgment.
Not my first, to be sure, but annoying all the same. See, when I asked Andrew to stick around for dinner, I hadn’t anticipated that people might, well…like him.
And by people, I mean my female friends.
I shove a big mouthful of tiramisu in my mouth, pretending to be interested in the delicious dessert, but out of the corner of my eye, I watch as Hailey Miller laughs hysterically at something Andrew’s just told her.
Really? Because I know for a fact that the man’s not even the slightest bit funny.
Hailey apparently disagrees. As did Lynlee, Susannah, and Jen when they had their turns throwing themselves at him earlier.
Marley comes up beside me, draping an arm around my neck and giving me a smacking kiss on the side of my head. “You should have told me, but I’ll forgive you if you give me a bite of that. Calories don’t count when they come from someone else’s plate.”
“Forgive me for what?” I ask as I hold up a forkful of tiramisu to her mouth.
She cleans the fork. “For not telling me,” she says around the dessert.
“Telling you…?”
Marley rolls her eyes. “That you like the lawyer. Heck, you didn’t even tell me that you knew him. Gimme another bite, and I’ll forgive you for that too.”
I give her another bite since watching Hailey and Andrew flirting made me lose my appetite anyway.
“You’re not playing dumb, so that’s good,” she says, turning and mimicking my posture, leaning back against the counter and facing out into the room where a few remaining friends linger, finishing their last drink.
I shrug. “Okay, so I do know him, but like him…I’m not really sure about that. It’s more like…”
“Delicious sexual tension.”
I snort. “I’m not sure the man has hormones. He’s sort of an ice king.”
“How’d you guys meet?”
“Move-in day,” I say, setting the plate aside and grabbing my water bottle. “The building double-booked the loading dock, and neither of us handled it particularly well.”
“Aha! So the attraction was instant,” she says, snapping her fingers.
“What part of what I just said translated to attraction?”
“None of it,” Marley admits. “But I saw you guys talking when he first came in. It was a toss-up whether you were going to arm-wrestle or just start making out.”
I sneak another glance at him, but all of his attention is on Hailey and her big blue eyes and the adorable gap between her front two teeth.
The kicker? I really like Hailey. She’s super sweet, but not sugary sweet. And she’s smart. Funny. Pretty. Damn it.
I’m telling myself that the only reason I’m annoyed is because she’s too good for him. He’d try to diminish all her light, dull her sunshine.
“You’re staring,” Marley whispers.
“He hates me,” I mutter, deciding to have more tiramisu after all.
“Nope. He just doesn’t know what to do with you.”
I turn toward her, making a continue gesture with my hand.
She smirks. “Oh, man. You’ve got a crush! You really haven’t seen him watching you all night?”
“Are we talking about the same person? Stuffy guy in a fussy suit? I’ve seen him pay attention to every girl but me.”
“Not me, though,” Marley says, holding up a finger. “I want friend points for that. I haven’t made a single move now that I know how things stand with you two.”
“Things don’t stand anywhere. Things are lying down, dead all over the ground,” I say, gesturing dramatically.
“Ask him out,” she says.
“Um, no.”
“Why not?” Marley demands.
“Because we haven’t had a single conversation that’s lasted longer than five minutes and was even halfway friendly.”
“Hmm. Plus, he did pretend not to know you when we saw him with Liv,” Marley muses. “This may be trickier than I thought.”
“Exactly!” I proceed to scrape the plate clean, thinking the conversation is done, and when I glance up, Hailey and Andrew are still tal
king, only she’s typing something on a phone.
His phone, I realize as she hands the iPhone back to him.
I toss the plate into the trash.
Marley pats my arm. “I got this.”
“Got what? Marley!”
My friend’s already moving away from me. “Hailey!”
The pretty blonde turns.
“You’re headed to Cielo later, right? Want to share a cab?” Marley asks.
“Oh. Sure.” Hailey glances my way. “We should help Georgie clean up first, though.”
See? Told you she was nice.
“Nah, I got it,” Brody says, refilling his wineglass and coming to stand beside me. Close enough for his arm to brush mine just barely, but the casualness of it has a couple-y feeling. Deliberate, I’m guessing.
I glance at Andrew, but his attention’s on his phone. Probably already texting Hailey.
“No, I’m fine,” I say to Brody. “You guys can go.”
Brody frowns. “You’re not coming to the club?”
“Nah, I have an early morning tomorrow, which means I need to make it an early night.”
I think I hear Andrew snort, but nobody else looks his way, so maybe I imagined it.
“No worries,” Brody says with a smile. “Early night it is for me too, then.”
“For God’s sake, Brody, take a hint. She doesn’t want you to stay,” the ever-blunt Lynlee says in exasperation, sauntering over and linking her arm in Brody’s. “Besides, the rest of us need you to run dance floor interference, give the stink-eye to the creepers.”
Brody opens his mouth, but I nudge my hip playfully against his. Anything to get him to leave. “She’s right. Our people need you.”
He searches my face and correctly reads that he isn’t going to get lucky. He takes a gulp of wine and sets the glass aside. “All right, then. But tomorrow night, George. No excuses.”
“No excuses,” I confirm, lifting my water bottle in confirmation.
Brody grins and leans down, his mouth close to my ear. “Wear that strapless pink dress you wore last week. Hot.”
“Don’t be gross, Brody,” Marley calls out. “Crew, we’re headed out.”
“You should come,” Hailey is saying to Andrew.
Lynlee chimes in. “Yes, do!”
“No. Thank you,” he says stiffly. “I have an early morning tomorrow.”
I smile just a little at his exact echo of my words, even though he doesn’t look at me while he says it.
“We can make it an early night. Have you home by two,” Lynlee says.
His eyebrows lift. “That’s an early night?”
“Leave him alone,” Marley orders our friends as she starts ushering everyone toward the door. She winks at me and I give her a laser burn with my eyes, causing her to trot over.
“You realize you’re leaving me with a huge mess in the name of futile matchmaking,” I say when she grins big and mischievous at me.
“I know. Sucks. But you’ll thank me one day, promise.”
“Uh-huh.” I know my friend. Her grand plan is to force me and Andrew to spend time together.
But I know him better than she does. The man struggles to tolerate my company in the best of circumstances. He’s certainly not going to jump at the chance to clean up takeout containers, paper plates, and a butt-load of wine bottles.
I hug my friends goodbye, apologizing for bailing on them two nights in a row and promising that I’ll see them tomorrow. Brody’s hug is just a little too lingering, and I’m suddenly extra glad that cleanup duty’s given me an excuse to hang back. I don’t know what’s happened to make Brody renew his efforts, but I’m finding it kind of exhausting.
Finally, finally, my noisy, wine-buzzed friends are out the door and I exhale a long breath, knowing there’s one more goodbye to get through and it won’t involve a hug, lingering or otherwise.
But when I turn around, Andrew’s not right there, waiting to exchange barbs.
Instead he’s opening and closing all of the cabinets in the room. Looking for his briefcase, no doubt. Which he’ll find in three, two…
He pulls it out of the cabinet and holds it up, giving me a look. You’re ridiculous.
But he doesn’t say it out loud. And instead of dashing for the door, he merely sets it to the side and continues opening and closing cabinets.
“What are you looking for?” I ask.
“Garbage bags.”
I blink. “Can’t take it anymore, huh? Going to off me and drag my body out of the building in a big black bag?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Georgiana.” There it is. “You’re small enough that I could just put your body down the trash chute. Far more practical.”
I laugh. “Did you just make a joke?”
He looks up. “Are there trash bags in here or no?”
“You don’t rent the community space often, huh?”
“Can’t say I’ve had much occasion to, no.”
I walk to my purse and pull out the roll of garbage bags I brought with me. “Well, spectacular as the room and view are, pretty much nothing else is included. Gotta bring your own cleanup supplies.”
Andrew reaches out to take the garbage bag roll, but I don’t release it. “You don’t have to help me clean, you know.”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
He pulls the roll from my grip and looks down at it for a second before tossing it on the counter.
“Change your mind about cleaning?” I watch him a little bit warily, because it feels like something’s shifting. I feel his focus a hundred percent on me. He’s considering something, and I’m torn between nervousness and anticipation.
“For the moment, yes.” He walks to the sideboard and fishes among the bottles of white wine in the ice bucket. “You were drinking the pinot grigio, yes?”
“Yeah.” I watch in puzzlement as he pours a glass, then a glass of red for himself.
“You hardly had one glass,” he murmurs, walking back to me and handing it over. “Too busy flitting around, playing hostess.”
“Because I was the hostess,” I say defensively.
He meets my eyes. “I wasn’t criticizing, Georgiana.”
“For once.”
“I didn’t mean to be critical. I meant only that you’ve earned the right to relax a bit. Enjoy a glass of wine.”
“So you can prove your hypothesis that I’m a drunken, hopeless party girl?”
“God damn, you’re difficult,” he says angrily, stepping near me. “Why can’t you just be—”
“What?” I ask when he doesn’t finish. I order myself to meet his gaze, but I can’t seem to stop looking at his mouth. It’s not smiling, and I’m used to that, but for some reason I can’t stop thinking about how firm it must be, what it would be like to kiss someone so rigidly in control.
Would he dominate?
Would I like it?
I feel the heat coming off him, and it answers my question.
Yes. Yes, I’d like it.
I’d like making him lose control even more.
Andrew swears again under his breath and takes a step back.
I expect him to say something insulting and disappear, but he surprises me by nodding toward the wide floor-to-ceiling windows in the corner of the room. “Would you mind if we sat?”
Yeah, um, not what I expected. And yet…intriguing.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” he says gruffly. “It’s just been a long day. Your friends are mostly pleasant, but I could use a breather.”
“And you want to do it here? With me?”
He lets out the smallest of almost-laughs. “Do you have any idea how exhausting it is trying to speak with you?”
“I’m just confused,” I say honestly.
“About?”
“Why, if you want a breather, you’re not trying to get away from me as quickly as possible.”
He blows out a breath, his head dipping a little, looking defeated and a little…sad.
&nbs
p; When he looks back up, his eyes are guarded, all former traces of easiness vanished, and I feel a stab of regret, as though I’ve just stamped out the possibility of something special.
“I’ll take my leave, then,” he says quietly, setting his wineglass on the counter.
“No,” I say, taking a step forward, hand outstretched before quickly dropping it to my side. “You can stay.”
Andrew meets my eyes warily, and I shrug and grin. “I need time to figure out the best way to make fun of you for using the phrase take my leave.”
He nods, picking up his wineglass once more. “Shall we?”
There’s a love seat and two chairs, all situated in a semicircle to best take in the view of Manhattan at night.
He sits in one of the chairs, and I curl up in the love seat, pulling my bare legs beneath me and smoothing my skirt over my knees to keep things decent and non-crotch-shot.
Not that he’s looking.
Instead he surprises me by slouching just a little in the large leather chair, his head falling back on the chair. He looks exhausted, and I realize that he hadn’t been lying about it being a long day. The poor guy really does look like he needs a minute.
My mouth goes dry as he reaches up a hand, unbuttoning the top button of his shirt, hooking a finger into his tie and loosening it.
He’s obviously preoccupied, not paying attention to me at all, so I take advantage and pay attention to him.
I’ve only ever seen him looking down at me, but seeing him like this, relaxed and a little informal, is entirely different. I can see just how trim his torso is, how long and well shaped his fingers are.
The hollows of his cheeks are delicious, as is the tiny cleft in his chin.
“If you had a beard, it’d be ginger,” I blurt out.
He looks over. “What?”
I gesture over my lower face. “Your bristles. They’re sort of orange-ish in this light.”
He runs a hand over his cheek, and I swallow. “Five o’clock shadow,” he mutters. “Or ten o’clock shadow, depending what time it is.” He lifts his wrist to check his watch.
I don’t ask for the time. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to do anything that will remind him that he’s being ridiculous spending time with me.
“So why the long day?” I ask.
He heaves out a sigh and sits up, leaning forward and clasping his wineglass between his hands, watching as he gently rocks the red liquid from side to side. “Just a particularly acrimonious divorce.”
