by Tijan
“You live in the building?”
I jumped when the guy who’d been using the free weights draped his arm over my machine. I hadn’t seen him head over. He was short, overbuilt, and so tan I wanted to ask him whether or not he’d lost a bet. He looked as if he belonged on the Jersey shore rather than downtown Manhattan. I nodded, hoping the fact I didn’t speak would put him off.
“You have a nice ass, if you don’t mind me saying.”
Really? He held up his hands when I shot him a look to kill. “No need to be snotty. I just like a nice ass.”
I fixed my stare to my machine’s panel, wanting to punch the guy.
“I think you better move on,” a man said from behind Jersey Shore.
“Hey,” Jersey Shore replied. “I was giving the girl a compliment.”
I kept my head down, not wanting to attract any more attention.
“Her loss, right?” my rescuer replied. I recognized that voice. My brain tried to work out if it was a famous person.
Jersey Shore moved away, and I glanced up with a smile. “Thank—”
It was like someone was trying to take a dump over my entire life.
Max-fucking-King stood right in front of me.
Kill. Me. Now.
The guy I’d come down here to escape was standing right in the middle of my gym in my apartment building. I glanced around. Jersey Shore had left, and the rower was still going. Max King was Nice Ass Guy. Life was just not fair.
My limbs stopped working and I half tripped, half stepped off the elliptical, stumbling into the wall behind the machines. Really? The hits just kept on coming.
“Are you okay?”
I peeled myself off the drywall as he moved toward me.
I nodded, unsure what I’d say if I actually managed to form words. How was this possible? My apartment was supposed to be my sanctuary from this man’s assholey behavior in the office. Now I had to worry about running into him in the corridors of my apartment building while I was drunk or not wearing makeup. Not that it mattered if he saw me without makeup or in my sweats; it would just be another reason for him to think less of me.
“Okay, well. I guess you live in the building,” he said, then clenched his jaw and flicked his eyes to the door as if he wanted to escape.
Fine by me.
“Yeah, I just moved in.”
He looked past me and pressed his fingers to his forehead as he had when reviewing my Bangladesh report. “Right.”
And that was it. Before I could think of anything else to say, he sped out the door as if his balls were on fire.
He had no more manners outside the office than in. He was still cold and rude.
Despite his nice ass.
I leaned against the wall, trying to make sense of it all. A year ago I would have thought my life had peaked at just being within a five-yard radius of Max King. Now he was not only torturing me at the office, but he’d just made my building gym a no-go area. I grabbed my water bottle and headed back to my apartment. Could my day get any worse?
After my near aneurism at running into Max in the gym, I’d taken the hottest shower possible without landing in the emergency room, blow-dried my hair, and then wrapped myself in my white silk robe, which I’d bought on sale at Barney’s. It always made me feel better. As if I had my shit together. I needed a BFF download, and I’d be back on track.
“Hey, Grace,” I replied as she answered my call.
“You sound like you’re about to put your head in the oven,” she said through the sound of her chewing on something.
I wanted to ask her if I could come over and spend the night. For the rest of my lease. “Just a bad day at work.” If I told her about Max being in the building, she’d have me moved back to Brooklyn before she could say the words sublet. I’d have to settle for a general gripe session, so I explained I’d still not heard back on the Bangladesh report.
“Have you ever thought about quitting your job? It really can’t be worth it.”
“I can’t quit. This is my dream position. It’s what I’ve worked so hard for. I just need two years on my resume, and then I’m golden.” And who knew. I might have won him over with the revised Bangladesh report. I could get into the office tomorrow to find he’d turned over a new leaf.
And I might be the next Beyoncé.
“Two years is a long time to be miserable. You could always talk to your dad.”
Was she serious? “Why would you even say something like that?” Grace knew I was the only one of his kids not working at JD Stanley, his investment bank. My three half brothers had all started on the graduate course the September after college. I’d thought I’d get the satisfaction of turning him down, but he never asked. Why would Grace think I would call him? I didn’t want anything from him.
“You do the kind of work his firm needs, right? Don’t you have like a perfect skill set for him?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Ben and Jerry’s cries from the kitchen were growing louder. “I wouldn’t work for him if he was the last man on Earth. And if you remember, he never offered me a job. I didn’t have the correct reproductive equipment.”
“He probably didn’t think you wanted it.” It didn’t mean he couldn’t have asked. “He doesn’t know you, doesn’t get how brilliant and ambitious you are. He’s like a hundred years old. He’s probably just old-fashioned.” Was he just from a different generation who thought women should stay at home and look after the kids? If he’d ever gotten to know me, he would know I wasn’t like that.
“I really can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I’m not about to quit my dream job, and I’m not about to ask my father for anything.” I swung my legs up onto the couch and lay on my back staring at the ceiling. “It’s really starting to upset me that you’re defending him.”
“I’m really not. I’m just trying to offer you a way out.”
Grace was always trying to solve my problems. And the problems of all the guys she dated. There just wasn’t anything Grace could do to fix this situation.
Footsteps thudded across the ceiling, causing my light fixture to rock gently back and forth. Jesus, the last thing I needed was my neighbors going at it again. I didn’t want to be reminded of my lack of sex life.
“Thank you, but I don’t need a way out. I’m exactly where I want to be.” I wasn’t a quitter.
“But you’re miserable.”
“I’m not.” I should complain less. I was just frustrated to find Max in my building. “My standards are just too high.” The thudding upstairs sounded like someone pacing back and forth. “I’m going to readjust, reset, and everything’s going to be just fine.”
Classical music, Bach maybe, blared from upstairs. It was so loud my apartment started to vibrate. Metalheads or coked-up dance music addicts were supposed to play their music loud and annoy their neighbors, not classical music buffs.
“Do you have classical music on? Jesus, less than a week in Manhattan and we’re already growing apart.”
I chuckled. “No, it’s not me. It’s upstairs.”
“The shaggers?”
“Yes. Although they’re not shagging. One of them put their concrete boots on and is dancing like an elephant across my ceiling.” The music hadn’t drowned out the consistent pound of footsteps. “I can’t tell if there are two people up there.”
“Brooklyn looking a little more attractive?” Grace couldn’t hide the smug tinge to her voice.
“I’m sure the music will die down in a little bit. Maybe they’ve had a bad day and they’re trying to drown it out, like I do with—”
“Taylor Swift?”
I shrugged, unembarrassed by my Swift predilection. “I was going to say Stevie Wonder, but Taylor will do.”
“You’re not pissed off by the noise?”
Any other day I would be furious, but if I allowed myself to get irritated with my penthouse neighbors, I’d have nothing left. Work was so disappointing it left me hollow inside. All my exciteme
nt about the job had dissolved, and it had become just like my college bartending job—a means to an end. And now with Max in the building, the only place I felt safe was behind my front door. Surely my neighbors would stop pacing and turn down their music soon.
“Tell me about your date?” I asked. “That’s why I called.”
Grace had a thing for penniless musicians, artists, or really anyone who didn’t have their shit together. It meant there was always drama in her life, always someone to fix.
“Ahhh,” she sighed. “He’s so talented. He just needs to find the right patron, catch a break, you know?” I’d forgotten what this one did. They all seemed to morph into one guy whose middle name was loser.
“You think he’s got what it takes?” Grace liked the idea of finding a guy before they made it and being the one who was there from the beginning. Problem was they never made it. She just jumped from one loser to another.
“I really do. This guy is the next Damien Hirst or Jeff Koons, I swear.”
Oh, right. This one was an artist. I glanced up at the ceiling as the light fixture swayed even more violently.
“He’s putting together an installation in New Jersey next week. You should come. You’ll love it.”
I wasn’t sure New Jersey was the place to showcase the next Jeff Koons, but hey, it would get me out. “Sure. But when you say ‘installation’, what do you mean?”
“It’s an interactive piece he’s working on. He won’t show me, but I’m sure it’s amazing.”
Grace was so sensible and practical in every way but wanted to believe the absolute best of everything. It was kinda endearing, kinda annoying.
“And he has a friend I want to introduce you to.”
I groaned. “Grace.”
“No, you’ll like this guy. He’s a suit.”
Upstairs cranked up the volume. I didn’t know classical music, though my mom had a thing for Johann’s cello suites. Nice, but did it really have to be this loud?
“I can dress my dog in a suit. It doesn’t mean I want to date him.”
It wasn’t wealth that attracted me; it was drive. It didn’t matter if they wore a suit—although there was nothing like a man who could fill out custom-cut, navy wool as though he owned it. I might hate Max King, but Jesus, did he know how to wear a suit. And gym clothes, apparently. Seeing him in the gym hadn’t changed my mind that he’d clearly been in the front of the line when they were dealing out hot.
“You don’t have a dog,” Grace said.
“Not really my point.” I didn’t want to date anyone, didn’t want love to distract me. I’d seen a number of my friends doing so well in their careers and suddenly becoming less ambitious because they’d fallen for some guy, and then when they’d taken their foot off the pedal, the guy would predictably dump them. It had even happened to my mother. And I wasn’t going to make the same mistake.
“This guy is successful. He does something in finance, or maybe it was architecture.”
“Yeah, I can see how you’d get the two mixed up.” The very last thing I wanted was a man in finance. The industry bred men like my father and they were the worst kinds.
Grace laughed. “You know what I mean. Will you come?”
“If you promise not to set me up with anyone. I’m not interested.”
“I’m not setting you up. But what can I say? He’ll be there; you’ll be there.”
“I’m hanging up. I have to get my beauty sleep.” I pressed cancel on the phone and tossed it on the table. It was just after ten, but an early night would be impossible until my Bach-loving neighbors shut the hell up.
Warm milk and a Benadryl would help me sleep, but I only had wine, and I was out of Benadryl.
I poured myself a glass of Pinot Noir, climbed into bed, and turned on the TV.
After forty-five minutes I could barely hear my TV through the music, and the thudding footsteps hadn’t lessened. What, was someone training to climb Kilimanjaro up there? My limbs began to twitch with irritation. Whoever was up there didn’t sound as if they were changing things up anytime soon, and I wanted to sleep. I’d been more than patient. Could I call the police? Wasn’t there something in the lease about not making noise after a certain time? Where had I put my lease?
I threw my covers off and stomped out of bed, then flung open the blanket box Grace and I had lugged up here when I moved in. The box of denial—it was where all my life admin went. Eventually I found the papers I’d signed just over a week ago, and I started to flip through the pages, almost ripping one in half. How could anyone be so selfish? Loud sex was one thing, but music and marching practice was another. I ran my fingers down the pages as I became increasingly impatient. Yes. It said I wasn’t allowed to disturb any other neighbor after ten in the evening. The people upstairs were breaching their lease. Clasping my papers, I scrambled toward the front door, grabbed my keys, and took the stairs one flight up. I glanced around. There was just one apartment door. Well at least I didn’t have to worry about disturbing the wrong person.
I knocked on the metal, trying to swallow down the anger bubbling at the surface. It was all too much. First I found the perfect job for it to be ruined by the reality of Max King, then I couldn’t escape him in my building. Now my noisy neighbors were stopping me from sleeping. Everything seemed so unfair.
I knocked again, louder this time. Did they not know how loud they were being?
Who was I kidding? I was pretty sure I could hear these guys from the Hamptons.
The stomping continued to go up and down, up and down. There was no one coming toward the door.
I slammed my fists against the cold metal and screamed, “Open the fucking door.”
Almost immediately the footsteps stopped, then changed direction. My heart began beating out of my chest. Had I gone too far? I might be knocking on the door of a serial killer or drug dealer with penchant for Bach.
Locks began to clunk and I folded my arms, ready to give my loud neighbor a piece of my mind. I should have pulled a sweater on over my silk robe.
The door opened wide and for the second time, I came face to face with Max King where I least expected to find him.
And of course, he had to be shirtless.
“Are you kidding me?” I bellowed, flinging my arms in the air in exasperation.
His eyes were wide and trailed down my body. I followed his eye line; shit, my robe had begun to part. I grabbed the silk and pulled it together, trying to ignore the fact I was almost naked in front of my boss.
His eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling and he reached out. “Get in here,” he said as he pulled me by the elbows. “You’re not dressed.”
I tried to stand firm, but he gripped me with such force I went crashing into him, and we stumbled backward into his apartment.
“Jesus, Harper,” he growled, and he pushed me away but didn’t let go of my arms. I realized it was the first time I’d heard him call me by my first name. He normally called me Ms. Jayne. He closed his eyes and with gritted teeth, he asked, “What are you doing here?”
Chapter 4
Max
Being close to her like this made me crazy. Because I’d done such wicked things to her in my head, I was always concerned I’d be over familiar with her in the flesh. And now I had hold of her, I didn’t know what to do. I just knew I didn’t want to let her go.
“What are you doing up here?” She tried to hold up some papers, but I held her arms firmly by her sides, pushing her up against the wall. “My ceiling is caving in from all the thumping.”
My brain wasn’t able to function. Why was she in my apartment? Why was she shouting?
Seeing that mafia boss lookalike at the gym hit on Harper had taken away the shock of realizing she was a resident of my building. I’d wanted to lift him up and kick him out on his ass. Then when he left I noticed her workout clothes stretched over her body so tight she might as well have been naked, and I’d bolted out of the gym, running away from the twitching across my skin
that told me I had to leave before I embarrassed myself.
And now she was against my apartment wall. Enraged. And only partially dressed.
I was speechless.
She was always so cool and in control at work. It was odd to see her so . . . agitated. I clearly didn’t know her well, probably because I barely gave her the time of day, too desperate to keep as much distance between us as possible. I’d hate for her to guess what was going on in my perverted little brain, for her to know all the things I imagined doing with her.
“And the music. Anyone would think you had the New York Philharmonic up here. What the hell is going on?”
My hands burned from being wrapped around her arms. I loosened my grip, but couldn’t let her go entirely.
“Answer me!” she yelled. “I have to put up with you ignoring me in the office, but you don’t sign my paychecks here. You’re breaching your lease.”
I’d had an inkling there was more under her professional exterior than I normally saw. She’d hinted a couple of times that she thought I was an asshole. It was a relief, because if she hated me it made things easier. It made the distance wider.
But nothing was easy now, not with her right here, almost naked in front of me. Her smooth skin, hot under my fingers, wasn’t helping. The scent of musk and sex seeping through my body and going straight to my dick. The way her nipples poked at the silk of her robe. None of it helped. I closed my eyes, trying to claw back some kind of control over what I was feeling.
“Are you listening to me?”
I wasn’t. I could hear she was upset, but I couldn’t process what she was saying. My senses were too overloaded.
She tipped her head back, exposing her long, creamy neck, and sighed, exasperated. Before I could stop myself, I released her arm and stroked my index finger across her jaw and down her neck. She gasped, but I couldn’t hold back. I trailed my finger lower, into the dip at the base of her throat. She was like a drug. Every hit I took of her made me want more. I was chasing the high—her high.
“What are you doing, you asshole?”
Her words brought me up short. Asshole? I froze and looked up. Shit, I did things like that to her in my imagination, not in person.
