CHAPTER FOUR

 

MAX

“What did you do, Dee?” I growl down the phone line. The front door claps shut behind Evie as she leaves before our evening could manage to start. “First Caroline, and now I find out you cast the woman for Puppy Love.”

“Hello to you too, brother,” Deanna says snottily. “And yes, I cast the role.”

“You were leaving that to me. The least you could have done is tell me about it. Instead I had to hear the news from...” I bite the inside of my cheek and glare at the wall, imagining it’s Deanna I’m looking at. “You did this on purpose.”

“You promised to leave my neighbors alone.”

“I haven’t done anything to your damn neighbors.”

“No?” She says in a sugary sweet way. “I had Kelly send me the application forms since you were taking so long. And what do I find? One of my neighbors applied, and where are you now? At my house, probably sniffing around this desperate and dateless girl.”

“Don’t talk about her like she’s pitiful, Dee. She’s not. I can’t believe you didn’t at least discuss this with me.”

“Maxwell.” She sighs as though I’m a teenager again. A sound I haven’t heard since I actually was in my teens, and she was raising me. “I love you. You know that.”

“I know, Dee.”

“But you have a track record. A long, long, long track record of only being interested up to a point when it comes to pretty girls. And this one; I looked her up. She’s pretty. I can definitely see that. But she’s also my neighbor. As is her employer, Garrett Frost, and his brother Paynter, and their other brother, James. Can you see why I had no choice but to put her on the show and out of your way? At least I know you’ll behave where business is concerned because you won’t risk the company.”

“Sometimes your mind works in devious ways, Dee.” I shake my head at how thoroughly outmanoeuvred I am, and sag into an armchair.

“It’s for your own good,” she says. “Besides what am I really taking away from you? One measly night’s entertainment?”

I’m not so sure one night and Evie belong in the same sentence.

***

I check my watch for the twelfth time in ten minutes. Another five and I’m due to meet up with Evie for the first part of shooting. The interview. She doesn’t know that I’m going to be here, that I’m one of the people who put this damn program together. I was too shocked when she told me she’d taken the role to come clean. And texting her? I hadn’t had the guts to tell her why I’d reacted so badly to her announcement, because I don’t know that I could have kept things professional.

“Almost time,” Kelly says, coming up behind me.

“Is it?” I glance at my watch again before turning to my admin.

“You seem out of sorts,” she says. “Is there anything I can get for you before we begin?”

Unless you can somehow deliver me out of this mess, not really. “It’s nothing.”

“Of course.” She nods as her attention moves to her iPad. “Okay, Miss Lane is here now. You’re supposed to meet with her. Go over a few details of what’s expected from her in this interview, and then it’s all up to the crew.”

“I know that,” I snap.

She lifts her gaze from the device, stares at me as though I’ve suddenly grown an extra head. I’ve never barked at her before, never been wound up so much over a girl I barely know before.

“Sorry.” I roll my neck, try to loosen the knot forming in the middle of my shoulder blades.

“Perhaps you would like me to step in for you?” she offers.

“Yes,” I agree, ready to retreat so I don’t have to see Evie’s face when she realizes the reason I’ve gone silent is because finding her someone else to date is now my priority. “That would probably be for the best.”

“I’ll handle it,” Kelly says as she marches down the hallway toward the room where the interview will take place. “It’s going to go off without a hitch.”

Forty minutes later, I’m sitting in my office staring out the wall of windows behind my desk. It’s impossible to concentrate with Evie two floors below me. I pick up my phone, fiddle with it, put it down. What am I going to do? Text her? There’s no point when I can’t see her again. I pick it up again and scroll through the messages we shared like I have been doing these past couple of days. Can’t put my finger on it, but something about her makes it impossible for me to not want more time with her. I have to know who she is. I bounce out of my chair, unable to contain the urge to go to the interview. If I’m going to avoid her I need to leave the office.

A short elevator ride later, I stride across the lobby and out into the frigid air. A walk will clear my head. I’ll grab a coffee or something. I’ll chat up some girl who will batt her eyelashes and wait for me to initiate something more. Perhaps this one with the holey white beanie and flowing blonde hair and hips that make her cute little ass bounce as she walks. “Evie?”

She glances over her shoulder. Wide eyes blink, long dark lashes sweep the curve of her cheeks. “Max?”

“Right.” I thrust my hands in the pockets of my overcoat. Her hair is blindingly shiny. I bet it would feel like silk in my fingers.

“You didn’t text me.”

“I wanted to,” I tell her. “Does that count for anything?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps it shouldn’t. I just finished the interview for Puppy Love.” She turns to face me once we’re out of the drag of the crowd moving around us. “What are you doing here? Are you one of the guys? Oh, I’m not supposed to know that, am I?”

“I wish,” I say. “No, my role at Puppy Love is different.”

“Wait.” She gapes. “You actually work at Puppy Love?”

“Well, yeah. Didn’t you know? You just asked—”

“I was joking.” She bites her lip. “But you really do work in the building?”

“I do.”

“What do you do then?”

Owner. Co-owner. CEO. “Dog walker.”

She laughs and it’s like honey covered bubbles. “No, really? How did you pull that off?”

“I’m friends with one of the higher ups.” Friend? Brother? Great now I’m lying to her. What is my plan here? Deanna will kill me for continuing to flirt with her, but I just don’t want to stop talking to her.

“But dog walking. You don’t even like dogs.”

“That’s not true. Beelzebarclay is more of an exception.” I grin.

“Uh-huh.” She wiggles her eyebrows. “Not sure if I believe that.”

“Think about how you met me,” I offer.

“Chasing him around the park.”

“See.” I thumb my chest. “Dog walker. I’m great at it.”

“Okay.” She smiles and those pretty eyes light right up. “I guess you’re believable.”

“Coffee?” I ask, offering her my arm.

“Sure. I have a little time.” She places her hand in the crook of my elbow, and I want to cover it with my own, holding her there for as long as she’ll let me while we stroll down the street to my favorite coffee cart.

“Are you still dogsitting Barclay?” Evie clasps her coffee between her gloved hands while we stand in the shelter of one of the buildings near the coffee cart.

I nod. “Until my sister comes home from her travels.”

“Oh, what does she do?”

“Not a lot, actually,” I say. “She started this out-of-her-kitchen company while she was raising me that took on a life of its own and made her quite wealthy. Now she mostly travels and works from wherever she ends up.”

“That must be nice.”

“She enjoys it,” I agree, sipping my coffee that’s already starting to cool. “She deserves it. Put a lot of work in when she was younger.”

“And looking after you. What happened to your parents?”

“Plane crash. When I was eight.” It was so long ago, the emotions I feel when I think about them are muted now, the memories a little intangible.

“I’m so sorry.” Evie reaches out and squeezes my arm.

“What about you?”

“No brothers or sisters. My parents live about forty minutes out of the city. Not much else to tell.”

“I’m sure there is a whole lot to tell about you.” I pick up a lock of her hair. I was right about it being silky, and it smells fresh, like spring.

“Did you just sniff my hair?” She gapes at me. “Did you really just do that?”

I release the strands, watch them fall back toward her shoulder. “You smell like apples.”

“It’s the shampoo.” She crinkles her brow. “Do you normally go around sniffing women’s hair?”

“No.” Actually that was a first for me. “Uh, maybe that fat haystack is rubbing off on me. You know how dogs like to sniff.”

“Butts,” she says, her hands swinging down behind her in a protective motion. “Please tell me you’re not going to try sniffing my butt now.”

“Well, no,” I sputter. “I’m not going to do that.”

“Good.” She exhales the word and then laughs nervously.

I move in closer, rest my hand on the side of her neck. Throat muscles tense under my touch as I bring my mouth near to her ear. “Would you mind awfully if I told you there were other more fun things I’d rather do when it comes to your ass?”

Her breath catches, and she whispers, “Like what?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t tell you.”

“You have to now. You can’t talk to a girl like that and not finish what you’re saying.”

“I like you, Evie, and I know that we can’t start anything right now with you doing the Puppy Love show. Trust me, I wish we could.”

“Pretend I’m not,” she urges. “Pretend I’m just some girl you’re going to spend a night with.”

I heave in a breath and get caught up in her scent. I want to tell her that I could never treat her as one of those girls, can’t even imagine her as one of those girls, but that’s not what she wants to hear. “Then I would tell you how much I like the way you walk, and how beautiful it would be to see your heart shaped ass up in the air while you wait for me to enter you. How I want to bite it, and how my fingers itch to leave a playful mark on your skin while I make you scream my name.”

“Oh God,” she whispers roughly. “Max.”

I step back and drop my hand from her skin. My pulse is racing like it’s in the Kentucky Derby. Why the hell are my fingers trembling?

The heavens open above us, rain pissing down. In a matter of seconds, the pavement starts to turn dark.

“We should get out of this rain,” she says. “My car’s back at Puppy Love.”

“I have a better idea.” I take her hand and tug her in the opposite direction. “My apartment is just around the corner.”

We run through the rain, racing up the stairs and into the lobby of my apartment building. The guy on the door barely glances at us as we dart into the elevator. One thing is for sure, the moment the doors close I can’t not kiss her. Christ help me, I should be able to help myself. I’ve always been in control when it comes to women, but Evie is different. And she doesn’t try to stop me, in fact she grabs the lapels of my coat and rises on the tips of her toes as I crowd her against the wall. Our lips are so close I can feel the subtle escape of her breath, and see the tip of her tongue as she wets her lips. If I drop my head a fraction of an inch, our mouths will collide.

She beats me to it, her plump lips pressing to mine in the gentlest of motions. Moving slow and carefully against each other, a soft sigh escapes between us as she opens up for my tongue. Every movement is so deliberate, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. The bitterness of the coffee we drank mingles with something sweeter.

When she drops back onto her heels, I’m shaken up. She presses the pads of her fingers against her lips. “That was nice.”

“Nice?” Kissing has always been a prelude to sex, rough and rushed and soaked in desperation. Nothing like this.

“More than nice.”

“I think we should try again.” I wind an arm around her waist, dragging her against me. Every fiber in my body feels jagged, frantic, but my movements are measured as I tangle my fingers in the back of her hair and kiss her again. This time it’s explosive, eager, needy.

The floor bounces and the doors slide open and still I can’t relinquish her mouth. Hands slide into my hair, tugging at the roots while she moans deeply.

Someone clears their throat. Someone else mutters, “There’s no decency in young people.”

“You’re correct, Gladys,” the third of our audience says.

I want to tell them to go to hell, to take the stairs, to get the fuck out of our moment, but Evie peels away from me, wiping her mouth as she exits the elevator.

“Do you see that, Delores?” One of the old biddies shoves her bony elbow into her friend, almost knocking her cane out of her hand while she stares at my groin. 

“I certainly do, Maureen.” Delores adjusts her pink zebra print glasses on their bright yellow chain. “That’s quite something, isn’t it?”

“The least he could have done is shown us a bit more flesh,” Gladys says as I try not to laugh at their conversation while I race to catch up with Evie. “This old ticker is on its way out, dear boy,” she calls after me. “I would have liked to die a happy woman.”

I turn around as I continue after Evie and wink at the women. Gladys pretends to be affected, clutching at her heart.

Catching up with Evie, I grab her hand. “Come on, my place is right here.”

She kisses me again as I unlock my apartment, only stopping when I push the door open. “Can I just say that you should feel free to do that whenever you want.”

“Can’t,” she reminds me, ducking her head, but I catch the way her now glossed and puffy lips curve in secret delight. “I just wanted to know what it would be like.”

“And what was it like?” I grab her hand before she gets too far away, tug her playfully back to me and hold her between my chest and the wall. She has the most amazing eyes. Vivid blue. They remind me of a beach I once went to with Deanna. It was in Greece, if I recall correctly. They’re locked on me now while she tugs her bottom lip beneath white teeth. A promise of paradise.

“I don’t know,” she says breathlessly, dropping her hand to the forearm closest to her waist and gripping it. “But it’s definitely something.”

“It definitely is,” I echo. I want to kiss her again, while I peel her pink puffy jacket from her shoulders. She’s so cute all wrapped up, with those black winter boots that come up to her knees. But she’s even more sexy without the extra layers. I have to turn away to hang up her coat, so I don’t run my hands over her supple curves and lithe muscles, which are so damn distracting. But what I really want to do is learn more about her. I toss my coat on the hook next to hers. “Do you want something to drink while we wait out the rain? I’ve got cocoa, tea, or coffee.”

“Sure. Cocoa would be nice.” She follows me down into the living area where she stops while I pop into the kitchen to heat milk. “Um, are you aware you’ve been ransacked?”

“That was Barclay,” I call out. How did I manage to forget the state of my apartment? Sure, Puppy Love has me busier than usual, and staying at Deanna’s means I haven’t had to look at it. At least I’d cleaned up his fire hydrant antics on my potted plant and carpet.

“It looks like a tornado whipped through here,” she exclaims.

“See what I mean? He’s out to get me.” I dump spoonfulls of cocoa and sugar into the milk on the stove as she joins me in the kitchen.

“He’s no worse than the goat.”

“How’d you end up with a goat anyway?” I find some marshmallows in the top of my cupboard.

“Spot’s not mine. She belongs to my employer’s brother. But I’ve heard some crazy stories about what that goat will eat, given half a chance. Still, she’s a good pet, and so is Barclay. He just needs attention.”

“Perhaps,” I concede, pouring our drinks.

“Definitely.” She takes the cup I hand to her and inhales the scented steam. “This smells divine.”

“It’s a family recipe my sister taught me. You add a pinch of cinnamon.”

“She must be an incredible cook. You said she started a business in her own kitchen?”

“She started with cookies,” I admit. For canines.

“That’s cool.” She sips her cocoa.

“Did you always want to be a nanny?” I change the topic as I rest a hip on the counter beside her. Apples and chocolate and cinnamon mingle in my nose and make my mouth water. She’s practically dessert in a sexy little 5ft 5” package.

“No, but it was better than working at The Cheesecake Shop.”

“A trade up?” I nudge her with my elbow.

“Yes. And I love Abby. But I don’t have any spare time now, between working for the Frosts and studying.” 

“Studying?”

“Finishing up my bachelor’s in early childhood education. So nannying is sort of a natural extension. Sorry, this must be boring.”

“Absolutely not.” Outside, through the giant windows that normally fill my apartment with light, I notice the rain easing up, the dark clouds dispersing; and still, I could listen to her talk for hours. Punctuated by a few more kisses of course. “What about Puppy Love? What made you decide to do that?”

“Besides my lack of time?” She shrugs with a grimace directed at her cup. “I’m not the best judge of character.” Fishing a gooey vanilla marshmallow out of her cup with her finger she holds it in front of me. “Take you for example. I find you attractive, which is probably why I’m standing in your kitchen drinking cocoa with marshmallows.”

“And why you kissed me. Don’t forget that,” I point out helpfully.

“Okay. And why I kissed you.” She glances at my lips, her gaze sticking for a few seconds before she remembers her point. “But when I asked you about dating that girl, you told me you slept with her, and that you used to do that a lot.”

“So?” I regard the melted white glob of sweetness she’s waving in front of me.

“So these are seduction marshmallows, aren’t they? They’re for when you need your so-called date to relax and let her guard down. A little cocoa and sugar while you hang out on the couch, to make her think you’re more interested than you are. Which is exactly why I should stay away from you. Well, it would be if I wasn’t doing Puppy Love.”

I wait for her to finish, each observation making me grin. Finally she pops the sugary goo in her mouth with a satisfied moan. If nothing else, the whole moment is worth that solitary sound of pleasure. 

“Actually, no.”

“No?” She tilts her chin and raises an eyebrow into a questioning point.

“No, I don’t buy packets of vanilla marshmallows just to seduce women into my bed.” I put my cup down and carefully take hers from her hand, placing it next to mine before I pin her against the island. “No, I don’t make cocoa in this kitchen for the women I’ve spent the night with, and I never fake being interested beyond what I actually am.”

“Oh.” Her lips curve in astonishment at the same time her hands land on my chest. “You don’t?”

“I don’t. I’m not trying to brag here, but I have no need for props. Up until now I’ve had a somewhat simple and successful routine with women that involves making it to the front door with my shirt still on.”

“You don’t need to explain,” she bumbles, her fair skin growing rosy. “It was an observation, and look, it still proved my point.” She thumbs her chest. “Super bad judge of character.”

Not as bad as she thinks. If Deanna were here she’d have nodded along with each statement Evie made. Well, except for the one about the marshmallows. She would have glared at me like she used to when I was being a snot, and asked me how I could lie to the poor girl. Your own hyperbolic marshmallows. “It’s okay.”

“So the marshmallows are—”

“My favorite. I always have a stash in my cupboard for when I’m in the mood for something sweet.”

“Right.” She stares at my chest. “That makes sense.”

“Listen.” I take a step back. “Perhaps you should stay away from me if that’s what your instinct tells you. I won’t be upset. I get it. I’m not the sort of guy you can take seriously.”

“And there’s Puppy Love,” she says. “I’m supposed to be dating dogs, not dawgs.”

I snort when she throws my own line back at me. “My sister would like you, you know.”

“Would she?”

“Absolutely.” I mean it. Deanna would adore her. I’m certain of it. She’d tell me she was grateful she put Evie out of reach because she’s far too good for me.

A little girl’s voice bursts from Evie’s pocket, and she walks away from me as she wrangles her phone from her jacket and reads the screen. “I better head back now.”

“I’ll walk you.” Putting the mugs in the sink, I follow her through my apartment and grab our coats before locking up. “I should really get back to work.”

“Those dogs won’t walk themselves.” She presses her lips together as though she’s about to laugh and then thought better of it. “How does a dog walker end up with an apartment like that anyway?”

Through hard work and helping to take his sister’s company global.

“It belongs to my sister.” One more small white lie won’t hurt. Especially since I’ve lost her interest before I could even claim it. There’s a first time in life for everything, and right now I’m regretting how little I’ve bothered to learn about women.