She barely had time to register how well his furniture went with their paint job before her gaze landed on Preston. He was sitting at a very simple desk, with his laptop open in front of him. As their eyes met, he took off a pair of black-rimmed glasses—and holy hell, those were so much sexier on a man than she’d ever imagined they’d be—and set them to one side.
“Good morning,” he said, leaning back in the leather chair.
“Hi. Do you have a few minutes?”
“Sure. Have a seat.”
She would have sat across the desk from him, but there wasn’t a chair there, and he gestured at the grouping of furniture as he stood. It was pretty obvious from the arrangement which chair was his, so she sat on the loveseat across from it, inexplicably nervous all of a sudden. Maybe sheshouldhave taken the time to come up with a loose script for this meeting. Or at least a few bullet points.Be neighborly and don’t bake him a piewasn’t much to go on.
“What can I do for you today?” he asked as he sat in his chair.
It belatedly occurred to her he might think she was there to hire him for something. And now that she was sitting there, she realized that owning a business with her cousin meant they actually should do some estate planning in the very near future. But not today.
“I just...” She let the words trail away, unsure of what to say.
He unbuttoned the cuff of his sleeve and folded it once. After a quick tug on the fabric to straighten it, he folded it again.
Zoe couldn’t tear her gaze away from the slow and precise revelation of skin, as if it was some kind of bizarre strip tease. The man had great forearms, she thought as he tugged the folded cuff almost to his elbow.
“Zoe?”
She blinked and then forced herself to look at his face. Honestly, the intensity of his dark gaze and the way his eyebrow arched was almost as distracting as his forearm, but she made herself concentrate. “I just think we got off on the wrong foot and I wanted to... I don’t know. Apologize, I guess?”
“You guess?”
He was folding up his other sleeve now and she tried not to look. She triedreallyhard not to, but the man had incredibly sexy arms and she could picture—hell, she could practicallyfeel—her long red nails skimming over his lightly tanned skin from sleeve to wrist and back.
“Yeah, I guess.” She was going to have to keep her eyes on his face if she wanted to get through this. But when she saw the slight curve of his lips and realized he had an idea of the effect his little arm peepshow was having on her, she got pissed off all over again. “No. I don’t actually want to apologize because I didn’t do anything wrong and therefore have nothing to be sorry for. Mostly I just don’t want to have conflict with somebody who’s going to be right next door for at least a year.”
“Okay.” He leaned back in his chair, and when he reached for the knot on his tie, heat flushed across Zoe’s face. He had to be doing it on purpose. But after ensuring the knot was straight, he dropped his hand to the arm of the chair. “You’re not sorry and you’re not apologizing, so whatareyou here to accomplish?”
“Like I said, I don’t have anything to apologize for, so—”
“You could apologize for the way you drive.”
“I’m sorry I cut you off. I guess gray sedans are so boring, my eyes skipped right over your car.” She looked around the room. “You really do like gray a lot.”
His jaw clenched for a few seconds, and she was pleased to have finally annoyed him as much as he was annoying her. “It’s a soothing, neutral color.”
“Okay, so I’ll apologize for cutting you off and you can apologize for insulting me and then we can ignore each other except for the occasional head nod when we cross paths like good neighbors do.”
He frowned. “I didn’t insult you.”
“You called me entirely unsuitable,” she reminded him. The words didn’t really bother her. It was the look that had hurt her. But she didn’t want to bare enough of her soul to explain that emotional injury to a stranger, so the words he’d said would have to suffice.
“No, I said the previous display had been entirely suitable.” He tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. “And even with the implication the display yesterday was not entirely suitable, I was still talking about a window display and not you personally.”
“Fine.” She stood and after a moment’s hesitation, he did as well. “So we’ll just put that to rest and stay out of each other’s business and we’ll get along just fine.”
He nodded. “And I’m sure with the holidays coming up, you’ll be doing some festive window displays that don’t involve half-dressed witches wearing fishnet stockings.”
“No witches in fishnet for Christmas, no.”
“Good.”
She made a mental note to order the sexy Mrs. Claus statue she’d seen on the same site she’d bought the witch from. “Good luck with your business.”
He walked her to the door, opening it for her, which she supposed was something he did when clients were leaving, just to be polite. But she felt as if the hand sweep was a little much.Here’s the door. Don’t let it hit you in the ass on the way out.
