Page 36 of Based on You

The landlord blinked at him.

"And you'll formally rescind the abandonment notice right now, on this call, with my corporate lawyer standing here as a witness," Simon continued, nodding sharply toward the suited man beside him.

The landlord cast a nervous glance at the lawyer, who'd already lifted his phone to record. The call was hastily made. The notice was rescinded. Simon demanded written confirmation within the hour, cold, and the landlord agreed to every term.

Simon turned to his lawyer. "Help him coordinate a professional moving company for her."

"I really don't need one," I cut in.

Simon looked at me, confused.

"The apartment came fully furnished." I gestured at the building. "I only need to grab my clothes and a few personal things I bought myself. It isn't a lot to pack."

He studied me a moment. "All right. I'll come up and help you pack."

We went upstairs together.

He walked into my small apartment and stopped just inside the doorway. He looked around slowly, his sharp eyes moving from my favorite green reading chair to the overstuffed bookshelves, then to the window and the curtains.

"This is a really good apartment, Violet."

"I really loved it here," I admitted, my voice thick.

The forced smile slid off my face before I'd finished the sentence. I stood in the middle of the living room and looked at the space, learning it by heart without meaning to.

I remembered the day I moved in. Sloane had been so happy for me. She'd come over that first weekend with a cheap bottle of wine, and we'd drunk it sitting right on the hardwood floor like a couple of students, too giddy to bother with the couch a few feet away. Just us and the bright city light pouring in.

She'd looked around with her glass raised high and declared, You did it, Vi. Your own place. Good money. A stable, respectable job. I'd gotten everything I said I would and none of the things my parents had demanded, and Sloane was the only person alive who understood why those two opposing facts could sit together in peace.

This apartment was what had finally made me believe I wouldn't end up the spectacular failure my parents assumed I was becoming. And now I was standing in it for the last time, and it was looking back at me like a door swinging shut.

I blinked back the sting in my eyes and turned to the cardboard boxes.

We started packing in earnest. My clothes were already sorted, folded, and organized the way I kept them, by type, by color, a spatial system I'd worked out over years of living in small spaces, and I moved through them fast, pulling empty boxes from the closet and working the shelves.

Simon helped without being asked, picking up my rhythm, handing items across when his reach was faster than mine, hauling heavy boxes to the door when they filled. We worked in a comfortable silence for a while, nothing like the tense quiet in the car.

Then he reached the large bookshelf.

He pulled a paperback out and turned it over in his big hands. "Is this romance?"

"Yes." I didn't look up.

He opened it and flipped through a few pages. His eyes caught on something and went still, widening as he read. Then he snapped the book shut with a sharp crack and shoved it back onto the shelf.

I knew the page he'd landed on. That book had a fair amount of smut.

I couldn't help it. I laughed out loud.

"So, you like reading smut?" He turned to look at me, slow, one eyebrow arched dangerously high.

"I'm not a child. Of course I enjoy smut."

"What do you like about it?" He crossed his arms and leaned back against the bookshelf, trapping me.

I shrugged, folding a sweater to avoid eye contact. "It's just good storytelling. Real love between two people needs lust. Lust is what steers it."

"You think lust is that important?"