I chug coffee then shave and get dressed before stopping in the office to cut Mina a check. My teeth grind as I sign the damn thing.
No. That’s prostitution…
She ask you for money yet?
Is this who I am now? A man who pays for a relationship? A man who ignores his friend’s advice while the warning signs he’s pointing out flash in my face?
I’m aware of the check’s presence in my pocket as I make the drive to Mina’s apartment. I pull into the parking lot, grimacing as I bump over one of many potholes dotting the crumbling concrete, then park beside her ancient Honda. Considering I know exactly how much her design services are worth, her living arrangements confound me. She should have a nice home, a new car, designer clothes. Instead, she lives in the cheapest apartment in a fifty-mile radius and asked me for an advance just last night. It doesn’t add up. Is Dom right? Is she using me for my money? Is everything I’m starting to feel for her predicated on a lie?
Her shitty living situation makes me even grumpier.
“Pull yourself together,” I growl, then kill the engine and sigh, closing my eyes tightly. Unfortunately, shower Mina is waiting, smiling that sultry smile and reminding me how willing I am to cross the boundaries I put up for my own protection. Maybe I’m more of a villain than I want to admit. Lifting my sunglasses, I give my face a quick scrub, then head for her porch and ring the bell.
“Good morning!” Mina exclaims as she throws open the door, her face falling when she sees me. “Oh no. What’s wrong?”
“Long night,” I mutter, trying to conjure a dismissive smile and failing. Her neighbor’s door creaks open as Mina steps outside to lock up.
“Good morning, Ms. Markowitz!” Mina calls brightly to a woman who could be anywhere between fifty and a hundred and twenty, clutching a cat in one hand and a coffee mug in the other.
“You’re awfully chipper for someone who had to listen to the Dietzes fight all night.” The woman’s eyes light on me and a knowing smile twists her lips. “Though I’d be chipper too, if I had someone like that knocking on my door.”
Mina blushes. “If it’s not the Dietzes, it’s Marius revving his engine or the frat boys coming home drunk and trying to break down my door because they forgot which apartment is theirs. I just tune out the noise.”
Ms. Markowitz sits on her top step and arranges the cat in her lap. The feline closes his eyes and lifts his face to the sun like the light isn’t an icepick twisting son of a bitch. “I wish I could be as chill about it as you,”
“She shouldn’t be that chill about it,” I retort, teeth grinding. “She shouldn’t have to deal with it at all. Neither should you. I don’t know what you did to end up in a place like this…”
But you deserve so much more, I finish in my head while Mina’s eyebrows raise and her jaw sets.
“Maybe you should worry more about your life choices and less about mine.” Her tone is a warning shot. She’s not a fan of my mood or what I have to say.
Yeah, well, neither am I. And it’s her fault I feel this way.
“Maybe if you weren’t surrounded by assholes, I could do that.” I lift a hand at Ms. Markowitz. “No offense.”
“None taken. I have to like someone to care about their opinion,” she replies with a sweet smile before giving her attention back to her cat.
“What’s gotten into you?” Mina hisses.
You. You got into me, and you weren’t supposed to.
Outrage dances in those baby blues and that feels so much safer than what I saw in them after the kiss.
It’s better if she doesn’t like me.
For both of us.
“Like I said, long night.” I turn my back, stomp down the steps, yank open the car door, then plop into the driver’s seat and wait. Mina pops her fists on her hips and shakes her head before following suit. Slowly, with her chin held high.
“Are you hungover?” she asks once the passenger door closes behind her.
“I was a perfect gentleman while we were together.”
“And after?”
“After is not in our contract.”
She frowns, then disappointment softens her outrage. “I guess that’s true. I just thought…” She’s quiet now. I’ve hurt her feelings.
Damn it. I don’t want to play the villain with her anymore.
“You know what?” she says. “It doesn’t matter.”
Her focus is out the window, her lip caught between her teeth and in that moment, I realize that somewhere along the way, she stopped hating me and I stopped hating her. Inexplicably, our fake relationship has blurred into something real, and I’ve been an absolute dick this morning…because I’m angry at myself for liking her.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You just thought what?” I ask, trying to erase the bite in my voice.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mina replies, amping up the bite in hers.
“It does matter. Look, I’m being an asshole and I’m sorry. I’m grumpy and I don’t like knowing you live in this cheap apartment, and I like it even less knowing you’re surrounded by dick weasels who keep you up all night and that makes me uncomfortable because we aren’t, you and I, we’re not supposed…”
I’m not supposed to like you, but I do.
I’m not supposed to want you, but I do.
I shake my head and almost growl but refuse to give her the pleasure. “Can we start over?”
Mina stares like I’ve lost my mind.
I get out of the car, cross in front, open her door to take her elbow and pull her out with me.
“What are you doing?” she squawks as I drag her up the steps and stop in front of her door while a stunned Ms. Markowitz and her cat watch with enough interest to be Fallon fucking Mae drafting her next headline.
Wouldn’t that be a kick to the gut?
If Fallon Mae turned out to be Mina’s neighbor and she didn’t think that was something I should know?
“Unlock it.” I rattle the doorknob to make my point.
“What?” Mina steps back, eyeing me like I might be dangerous. “Why?”
“Please,” I add, as gently as possible. “Just unlock it.”
Frowning, Mina does as I ask. I open the door, tenderly shove her inside, then close it between us while she squeaks in dismay. With a deep sigh, I remove my sunglasses, scrub my face, and conjure a smile before smoothing my shirt, squaring my shoulders, and ringing the bell.
The door flies open to reveal a distraught Mina. “What the hell, Nathan?”
“Good morning, HM,” I say. “You look absolutely gorgeous as usual.”
