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“Ours,” Matt had said and turned his head to kiss her. “We’re going to make wonderful memories here.”
And they had, too, Holly thought, swallowing around the tightness in her throat. Just not enough of them.
And now she didn’t belong here anymore. There was nothing left.
She looked around, wondering where Lukas had got to.
She cocked her head, listening closely, and realized she could hear water running in the back of the apartment. There were muffled sounds and occasional clattering noises punctuating the sound of the water. Curious, Holly followed the sounds down the hall and into the bathroom. The door was open. Lukas was on his knees, scrubbing the grout around the edge of the shower.
“You don’t have to do that!”
He sat back on his heels and looked around at her, then shrugged. “Okay.” But he made no move to get up.
“I can clean it myself,” she protested.
“Yeah.” He straightened slowly and stood, eyeing her speculatively, and Holly began to realize what he was doing. Lukas wasn’t on his knees in the bathroom with an old toothbrush in his hand because he was desperate to clean grout or because he thought she couldn’t do it herself. He had been giving her space and time of her own.
She took a breath and smiled—a little wanly perhaps, but it was still a smile. “Thank you.”
Lukas’s gaze flicked over her. “You okay?”
“Yes.” Then, more firmly, “I’m fine. I will be fine.”
“Of course you will be,” he agreed. “Are you ready to go?”
She tilted her head, considering. “Unless you want to scrub the rest of the grout?”
He grinned, getting to his feet. “I believe Fraser Holcomb can do the rest.”
* * *
He was an idiot.
His own worst enemy.
The guy least likely to get laid on the planet.
All of the above.
He now had temptation on his doorstep 24/7—and it was his own damn fault.
Lukas sprawled on his bed, staring up at the skylight, and wondered when the hell he was going to get a clue.
Not only had he pushed his way in when she had clearly left a message telling him no, he’d got the bright idea of hiring her to be his gallery manager, then moved her into the manager’s apartment where she would be right there in his building for the next six weeks. Underfoot.
Then, heaven help him, he’d shared a glass of wine with her and had the unfortunate realization that she was shattered from leaving the last home she’d shared with Matt, whereupon he had somewhere—somehow!— discovered the scruples to tell her good-night, turn his back and walk out the door!
God.
Lukas thrust his fingers through his hair and flung himself over onto his stomach. It didn’t help. In fact, it was worse. It brought his arousal into direct contact with the friction of the bedclothes and made him more desperate than ever.
He either needed the brains to recognize how far gone he was on Holly—and how far she wasn’t gone on him—and so keep her at a distance instead of tormenting himself with the knowledge that she was sound asleep in her bed four floors below him, or he needed to be unscrupulous enough to pursue a woman who was still in love with another man.
But this—having her right under his nose every day and still keeping his hands off—was likely going to kill him.
He rolled over to the other side, then, irritably, flipped onto his back.
He’d bet Holly wasn’t tossing and turning. She’d looked completely spent by the time they’d got her furniture where she wanted it and had made up her bed.
The others had helped bring things up, but then Holly had thanked them profusely and sent them away, saying they’d done enough. She’d tried to send him away, too. But he’d had to offer to help.
He could hardly insist she move in, then abandon her the minute she got there. He probably should have. Being there with her, in the intimacy of her bedroom—even one primarily filled with boxes—hell, it was like having her on his dad’s sailboat all over again.
She’d dug out a pair of soft, pale blue sheets and they’d stood on either side of the bed, spreading them and straightening them. And it was all Lukas could do not to make some comment about spending the night in them. God knew he wanted to.
But he’d seen her hollow-eyed exhaustion, and he’d witnessed the emptiness in her expression as the condo had stopped being her home and had become just a holding space for pieces of what had once been her life with Matt.
