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“Unfortunate?” Molly sputtered. “It’s a pun! He’s named after Edmond Dantès from—”

“Yes, yes. Some boring book. I’m aware.” Eli waved off Molly’s outrage, still cradling the very cat whose name he was insulting.

She pivoted. “I’m not sure you can call it kidnapping if you warn me beforehand.”

Eli grumbled a noise of disagreement as he walked into the kitchen, still holding Pawntès. Molly craned to watch him help himself to the cat treats.

Her stomach sank, one of her proverbial land mines blowing up on her. Here was a man who apparently knew her well enough to invite himself over and dote on her cat. Yet she recalled almost nothing about him. It was a strange sort of grief, wanting for what she’d once known but didn’t know now. The distinctions were difficult to manage.

“Oh, hey, no, no. Sad Graham isn’t invited to this kidnapping. Put her away,” Eli said as he returned from the kitchen. Pawntès purred happily, the traitor.

Molly straightened, not realizing her grief had shown on her face. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just . . . weird. Did you want to”—she gestured to the sofa—“sit, or something?” She winced as she said it. Her hostess skills, in whatever meager quantity she’d once had them, were sorely out of practice.

He looked appalled.

“Graham, even if I wasn’t a horrendously wealthy man, there isn’t enough money in the world to convince me to sit on that thing.”

Her brows furrowed. She scanned the sofa, looking for the offense. Aside from its color and shape and overall obnoxiousness, of course.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Not the time. Come on, Graham. We’re going out.” He released Pawntès and offered her an arm, not unlike how Bishop had prior to that disastrous dinner. “I’m parked illegally out there. Time is of the essence.”

Molly hesitated, the far edges of her self-preservation rapidly approaching. “Are you expecting me to let you take me somewhere? You do realize that for me this is basically the first full conversation we’ve ever had?”

Eli let out a dramatic sigh. “And it’s been lovely thus far, hasn’t it? I’m always a pleasure, I’m aware. Now quit acting like you’re not brave enough to do this before I dare you and give you no choice in the matter.”

“And you say we’re friends?”

“Yes, because I’m a pleasure. We’ve just established this. Now, are you joining or not? We haven’t got all day. Besides, it reeks in here.”

“It’s the dumpsters.”

Eli grimaced. “Oh. Well, I guess I could try giving management a call.”

“You’ll give—what?”

“The family business owns . . . some part of this community. Or we’re stakeholders or something. I don’t really know. It’s a side project, but I got you a good deal on the rent.”

“So you’re saying you can get the dumpsters emptied more often?” Molly asked hopefully.

“Huh. I was thinking I’d just have them moved?”

She couldn’t help but laugh. A giant trash compactor didn’t seem like the kind of thing one could up and move, even if one had some sort of financial stake in the property.

Eli looked modestly offended by her amusement but simply gestured for her to take his arm again, undeterred from whatever plans he had for them.

While Molly’s brain stuttered at the idea of leaving her apartment with a relative stranger, her instincts were mostly at ease. Which was a strange feeling, but not entirely unwelcome.

“Alright,” she said, standing to loop her arm with his before she could think too hard about it.

The smirk on his face as they left did not escape her notice. She wondered if he learned it from Bishop.

“Downtown?” Molly asked as Eli put his car into park.

“Where’d you think I was bringing you? Your demise?” Eli chuckled, clearly finding himself delightful, as they exited his car and he paid for parking at the meter. “We’re here for a little innocent trawling.”

“As in fishing?”