TWO WEEKS LATER, Lacey was still trying to figure out why Suro had insisted on having breakfast with her. Dinner, she could understand. He was trying to get into her pants, and she’d once again made it ridiculously easy for him to do so despite her claim she couldn’t be bought for a plate of pasta. But still, he’d insisted on her having yet another meal with him, which she spent telling him all there was to do for fun in Chicago.
He hadn’t touched her after breakfast, or asked her to help with the dishes, or even said goodbye when he walked her to the door and handed her an envelope filled with money. And though she’d earned her paycheck fair and square, she’d felt like a hooker when she’d taken the money from him and thanked him for breakfast.
Then nothing. No calls, no emails, no texts. Not a word from Suro, even though his presence seemed to follow her around throughout the day. She woke up in the morning thinking about him and no matter how much she tried to resist fantasizing about him, her dependence on her pocket rocket only increased after their second encounter.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, my butt. In her case, Suro’s absence made her treacherous body that much hornier. But she couldn’t afford to go there, she kept reminding herself. It was fine to fantasize about him, but she couldn’t let it go beyond that ever again. The stakes were too high for her to risk involving anyone else in her mess of a life.
By the time she woke up Friday morning, she’d made up her mind. Suro would be back in the office today, no more tiptoeing around him. She’d stand up for herself and let him know there would be no more dinners in his hotel room. From now on, they’d have a professional relationship only. She couldn’t afford to let herself become embroiled with a man again, not even one who set her on fire like Suro did.
But when she stormed down to his office before the club opened, she found the door still locked. He wasn’t there. He also wasn’t there when she tried back a few hours later, and then again during her dinner break.
Maybe he wasn’t coming back, she thought. Maybe he had gotten what he wanted and decided he didn’t want her anymore. The thought should have elated her, but instead it made her lose her appetite. She ended up only eating two bites of the sandwich she’d made herself for dinner, and a black cloud dogged her during the rest of her shift.
This is what you wanted, she reminded herself as she trudged up the stairs to her apartment. The only reason she was alive today was because she had learned to lay low at all costs and keep her life as simple as possible. No more kids, no men, no close friends, just work and Sparkle.
Another wave of loneliness stole over her. But now she only had work since Sparkle was away at boarding school.
She shoved the loneliness away. She was, despite everything, a happy person. She was lucky to be alive, lucky to have a job that paid her well. She didn’t need anything else, she told herself. And by the time she got to her apartment door, she was at least halfway to believing it.
But then she opened the door and found Suro Nakamura in the middle of her living room, doing some kind of flowing but lethal-looking martial arts routine with a long wooden staff, dressed in nothing but a pair of black silk pants.
“What are you doing in my apartment?” she asked, stopping short in the doorway.
He came out of Kung Fu mode and faced her, standing the staff in front of him. “Have you eaten yet?”
“What are you doing in my apartment?!” she repeated, louder and angrier this time.
He grabbed a glass of water from a nearby table and pointed to a sleek suitcase standing near the couch. “I’ve decided to move in.”
CHAPTER 10
AFTER dropping that bombshell, Suro set aside his staff. He then went into her tiny open plan kitchen and dug around her cabinets until he found a large plastic tumbler. Lacey watched in horror as he poured himself a glass of tap water as if he actually lived there.
“You cannot stay here,” she informed him, coming to stand on the other side of the counter. She tried to ignore the sight of how good his upper body looked, roped with sinewy muscle and covered with a light sheen of sweat that showed just how hard he had been working out.
He answered by pulling open drawers until he found her stash of takeout menus. “How do you feel about Indian food?” he asked, holding up one menu.
“You can’t just barge in here and tell me you’re staying,” she said, ignoring the answering rumble of her tummy, which hadn’t been provided an adequate dinner. “It’s my apartment.”
“In the apartment building I own,” he said, perusing the menu.
“Yeah, but just because you own the place doesn’t mean you can squat here. Tenants have rights!”
He put the menu down and came over to face her across the counter. “You’re right, Lacey. My being here does violate several tenant laws. You should call the police.”
She stood there frozen with frustration, because she knew, and was fairly sure he’d correctly guessed, there was no way a woman in her position would ever call the police for anything.
“You know the line between aggressive and insane stalker guy?” she asked. “You’ve totally crossed it. I mean totally crossed it. You’re like a football field over where that line should be!”
She had hoped calling him on his crazy behavior would shame him into leaving but he just picked up his phone and ordered them a chicken curry for dinner. Which was how Lacey came to find herself, forty minutes later, sitting across the rickety old wooden table in her living room, sharing a meal with a man who apparently did not understand the definition of a one night stand. And to make it even worse, he had showered and redressed in dark jeans and a long-sleeved black Henley shirt, and outfit that both showed off his lean build, and made her want to remove his shirt, like he had removed hers two weeks before.
She was so angry and frustrated, she didn’t even attempt to make conversation and let the whole meal progress in silence. But if he noticed the eye daggers she was throwing across the table at him, he didn’t acknowledge it.
And when she turned on the television and switched it to a reality show about brides picking out wedding dresses at a fancy New York boutique—the girliest, most off-putting thing she could think of—he simply sat down beside her, spreading his arms across the back of the couch. And he smelled so good, like soap and whatever expensive shampoo he had used to wash his hair, it put her in mind of a crisp Arctic tundra. She couldn’t believe he was here, in her home, acting like he had nothing better to do with his Friday night than watch bridal shows until it was time to go to bed.