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She stopped, eyes narrowing at the confusion plastered on his face. Hastily, he nodded. Come to think of it, he did remember seeing a silver-haired, rail-thin woman with a dog around. He hadn’t realized she lived next door to him, though.
Paula looked disgusted, “Chloe’s lived there for years, you should know who she is.”
“I do,” he said. “I…do.”
“Uh-huh. She was sick that day and so I offered to walk the beast for her. You passed by us. The leash got tangled up in your legs. You stood there like a statue while I apologized and untangled it...without even once saying a word to me. Not a single word. But you scratched the dog’s neck. The dog! Dude, you never wave. You never say hello. That whole eggs fiasco? It’s only eggs, I recognize it’s only eggs, but listen, you try telling your mother you can’t serve your Aunt Elizabeth who’s come all the way up from Walla Wallathrough a blizzardher most favorite lemon custard pie. Yeah, my mother’s aunt. Eighty years old, with dentures. Sheraisedmy mother. She’s like a grandmother to me. You denied this woman pie, all because you and your ego assumed I wasflirting? Me, flirt with some roadrunner who won’t stop for two seconds to be polite to his neighbors?”
Bastian felt a sinking sensation he hardly recognized as guilt. He couldn’t deny assuming his pretty little neighbor had been coming onto him hard, using her warm smile and impressive rack to ingratiate herself into his good graces.
It had happened to him so many times he’d gone beyond cynicism into stoic acceptance. Now he took it for granted that as a Spencer, he functioned as a means to an end.
His famed popularity wasn’t down to him. It was solely down to his money, influence, and the Spencer good looks, which made him a more attractive target than his less-pretty cousins. He was photogenic for social media. Eye candy. People loved him because they could use him.
Poor little rich boy.He knew his life was nowhere close to a sob story. Most people would be thrilled to have his problems. And he’d adapted. He kept his friendships few and his acquaintances many. He learned to play the game, turning his assets to his advantage, coolly assessing how to trade his influence for benefits with every interaction. It was an automatic filter he applied with everyone he met.
Including lovely Paula Raymond here.
The benefits he’d believed were on offer had been in her case excruciatingly difficult to resist. But he’d known straight off he couldn’t accept her overtures, not with them living in the same building.
Getting involved with neighbors was asking for trouble. Being adjacent to the large university campus where he worked increased the risk of some kind of social incest occurring at some point, with students and professors potentially mingling in ways that could be awkward. Worst possible scenario, restraining orders were a bitch to get enforced.
“Look, I’m sorry if I offended you.” He sighed. “Maybe I was wrong.”
“You think?”
“I accept that you weren’t flirting with me.”Much.
Her eyes rolled. “Praise be.”
Since she seemed content to stand there in front of him with her hands on her hips, he allowed himself to conduct a slow, lazy examination of her. And found suggestive evidence to contradict her claims.
The signals those nipples were sending him through the tee shirt said she may not have flirted with him, but she sure got sparked off around him, same way he did with her.
Earlier, before Georgette had put her inebriated foot in her mouth, he hadn’t even looked directly at Paula and he’d been achingly aware of her. Her familiar scent had been masked beneath Georgette’s cloying perfume, but he knew that delectable smell just from their few encounters: apple, citrus, and woman. It was unforgettable. The entire time on the elevator, his body had been on high alert from her proximity, and it had taken all his concentration not to look her way.
He might even have come down more harshly on Georgette because of it.
“So may I come in?” he tried again.
“After what you just told me? You cannot be serious.”
“I am. Quite serious.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t seem to be getting the point here. Okay, let’s take a counterexample. Let’s say for a minute you were right. What if I had been flirting with you a little bit? I saidif,” she emphasized when he raised his brows. “Flirting happens. People flirt. Is it a crime? Is it call to be rude and insulting?”
“Sometimes it is.”
“Not with me. A simple smile, you know, like this, apolitesmile, it doesn’t have to be big or overly friendly, just a little social one, that would work fine. No doors need be slammed in faces.” She nodded to emphasize her point, whirled around, and pulled out keys from her back pocket.
The action brought his attention to her bottom. It was perfect, lush and curvy over a nipped-in waist. Though her jeans weren’t tight, there were zero wrinkles over it, and he knew, he just knew it would be soft and taut and perfect in his palm. He caught himself just as his hand extended towards it.
Hell!
He yanked himself back as if burned. He’d actually been ready to cop a feel. His fingertips still itched with the urge. Luckily, he didn’t have a death wish.
Or maybe he did….
Staring at the entirety of the length of her back, pausing on those adorable hair twists, her words ringing in his ears, a strange ache swelled in his chest. All doubts vanished. He suddenly knew he’d made the right choice. And with that, the plan that had started as impulse became a need.
