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“Well, I don’t live in some mansion or townhouse like you probably do,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even and quiet. I felt hot under my warm coat and I tried not to think of my brother’s cafe that he had worked so very hard to build from the ground up, being stolen by this privileged man’s father. “Why do you want to know where I live anyway, exactly?”
Connor seemed to flounder at that, mouth open. “Uh—I was going to have some movers come and pick up your stuff from your place unless that’s not cool.”
“I—” I started, deflating quickly and feeling my cheeks heat at my mistake. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Connor repeated after me, looking around the room awkwardly with his hands in his pockets. His annoying tone from earlier was replaced by a flat sort of interest. “I don’t live in a townhouse either. I live in an apartment building that my dad owns.”
“Do you know where we’ll be living?” I asked him hesitantly, reluctant to apologize to him but eager to change the subject quickly.
Connor looked back at me, staring, and seemed to reach forward without thinking to tuck a piece of my hair back under my scarf where it was sticking out beside my ear. I held my breath and resisted the urge to move away from him in nervousness. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to touch me, but I hadn’t expected anything like that from him.
He cleared his throat after he dropped his hand, stepping back and looking away from me. “I think it’s an apartment complex a few blocks down but I’m not completely sure. It’s old but it’s nice.”
“That’s great, I guess,” I answered vaguely, wondering when I would be able to leave the studio.
“How’s it going over here, you two?” Amelia popped up brightly and I jumped again, stomping my right foot in frustration. That woman really needed a bell or something.
“It’s going really amazing over here,” Connor told her, matching her overly bright energy, and nodding and smiling in a way that I was almost certain he reserved for people he didn’t like. I also noticed that he had yet to use that plastered-on smile on me. “We’re thinking of getting married actually. You’re invited.”
Amelia threw her head back laughing at his sarcasm and Connor made a face at her when she looked away. I hid a short laugh behind my hand and cleared my throat. Amelia looked between the two of us. “You two just look like a perfect match, I’m so glad that we could bring you guys together as we did.”
I snorted out a laugh, staring at her incredulously. “Bring us together? What does that mean?”
Amelia shrugged her thin shoulders at us and said. “You never know what might happen,” smiling brightly as she bounced merrily away to the next couple,
I glanced at Connor, eyebrows raised. “Did she just imply that we—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Connor told me, a mask of carelessness falling over his fine-featured face. “I’m only doing this to get my dad off my back about a having girlfriend. He doesn’t like that I’m single and don’t have enough responsibility. I don’t care about winning and I don’t plan to.”
My attention snapped to him and I stared at his blue eyes, feeling indignant. “First of all, having a girlfriend isn’t a responsibility, and secondly, if you don’t want to win the competition, you shouldn’t even be here.”
“Well—” Connor started lazily, and I could already see the plain indifference on his face, coloring the bright cerulean of his downturned eyes.
“No, not well,” I told him firmly, feeling an uncommon burst of obstinance within myself at his uncaring attitude when this was so important to me. “I’m here to win this thing, Connor Lennox. I am going to win this thing. You’re not going to get in the way of that. I need this and I don’t care what you think about it.”
Connor stared at me, but as he opened his mouth to argue my point, Emily swept over in a blur of blonde and grabbed me by the arm, tugging me toward the outside door.
“C’mon, Harlow,” she said as I stared over her shoulder at Connor’s staggered expression. “I need a drink. We both do.”
Chapter 3
Connor
The sleek, black car sped through the cityscape and I gripped the seat back, holding myself down as we flew over another speed bump. I cleared my throat, calling out sarcastically, “Do you think you could speed it up, Nora? I like my insides shaken, not stirred.”
Nora, my father’s driver, chuckled from the front seat. “Yes, sir. Understood. I’ll slow it down.”
For years, Nora and the other staff had been a continuous part of my life. For a while when I was a kid, they were my only real friends. Most of the kids at school had no interest in being friends when my father was so intimidating.
