B00Z637D2Y (R) (5 page)

“So, where’s the dog at the center of Michael’s deal downfall?” Will asked.

That question made Michael’s stomach churn worse.

“Mr. Anderson,” Mildred’s voice chimed through the speaker on his desk. “Your dog got into the lunchroom and ate almost an entire pan of lasagna. You might want to get him out of here in case he gets sick.”

At that moment, Michael was pretty sure he was the one who would be sick. Dr. Whittelsey could not return fast enough. There was no way he could do this for three weeks.

…

“Hand me that yeller yarn ball,” Gladys bellowed from right next to Mia, nearly causing her to drop her paintbrush. She’d been working with the Queen B’s all morning. The name of the group was self-assigned years ago by the three founding members, Blanche, Betty, and Bernice. When they needed a fourth for card games, they decided to allow a new member, Gladys, who was never shy to point out her middle name began with a “B.”

“Don’t yell at the girl! Can’t you see she’s preoccupied?” Blanche, Gladys’ best friend and unofficial leader of the Queen B’s, grabbed the yarn and passed it.

Preoccupied? More like exhausted. She’d spent a nearly sleepless night, tossing and turning in her bed, trying not to imagine what Don Juan was doing on the other side of the wall—which was more disturbing than anything. After seeing and meeting the guy, it was hard not to imagine a lot of things—things she’d sworn off of when she broke up with Jason.

“Well, what’s wrong with her?” Gladys asked, volume just shy of deafening. “She’s all blue and clammed up.”

“I’m sorry,” Mia said. “I’m tired today.” She was used to Gladys speaking about her as if she weren’t in the room. She suspected it was another tactic used by the woman to remain distant from outsiders.

“Tired, my arse,” Gladys said, stabbing her knitting needles into whatever atrocity she was working on. “Only a man can distract a woman like that.” She nodded to Betty on her right. “Men. Nothin’ but trouble.”

No kidding.
Mia smiled halfheartedly and dipped her brush again.

“What are you knitting, Gladys?” Bernice, the quietest of the group asked.

“Don’t rightly know yet. Sometimes I just make stuff up as I go along. No plans. Kinda like our crafts teacher, Mia, huh? No plans at all.”

Ouch.
Gladys was a lot more with-it than she let on.

“Leave the girl alone. She’s tired,” Blanche said. “Why didn’t you sleep, honey?”

“I have the most awful neighbor. He brings a different woman home every night and I can hear them through the walls. Well, I would if I didn’t drown him out with loud music.”

“I wish I had a neighbor like that. All I get to listen to through the walls is game shows.”

Bernice gasped. “Gladys!”

“Well, it’s true.” She picked up her needles and pulled the horrible yellow and orange scrap of knitting onto her lap. “I’m old, not dead.”

Mia stood. “Anyone else finished with their brushes?” Betty and Bernice held theirs up and she gathered them. Usually she loved her work with the women at Heart’s Home, but that afternoon, it was hard to focus. And every now and then her mind would wander to her handsome, hard-bodied, good-smelling, obnoxious, stuck-up, uptight neighbor. He certainly wasn’t uptight in his bedroom. Well, at least she assumed he wasn’t, based on the noises his guests made. And despite her willing it not to, her imagination conjured images of what it might be like to be with a powerful, driven man like that. A man who knew what he wanted and knew how to get it. So unlike Jason.

Stop!
She shook her head.

“Maybe you should go over and ask him nicely to keep the noise down,” Blanche suggested.

“I think you should report him to the building security,” Betty said, wiping paint on the front of her apron.

“I think she needs to ignore it. Reporting him will only make him mad,” Bernice added.

“I’ll tell ya what she needs to do. She needs to march over to that man’s apartment and make some noise of her own with him.”

“Gladys!” a chorus of three female voices shouted. Mia simply gasped.

“Aw, fiddlesticks. I know what I’m talking about. Whenever I felt blue, my husband Tom knew precisely how to make me all better.” She winked and the women cast sideways glances from each other, to Mia, and then back to Gladys, who paid them no mind. “I miss Tom. He had the biggest—”

“Stop!” Betty interrupted.

“
Heart
, for chrissake, Betty. He had the biggest heart. What did you think I was gonna say?” Gladys arched a gray eyebrow and tapped her knitting needles together.

“I appreciate all the advice, but honestly, I think I need to go home and sleep. I have lots of time before he gets home and starts his shenanigans. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Ask him to stop.”

“Report him.”

“Ignore him.”

“Bed him.”

“Gladys!” Three voices admonished in unison.

Mia stifled a giggle as she stepped out onto the street. She had come to love the Queen B’s. Unfortunately, the job didn’t pay much, and the only way she could afford to continue working there would be to complete her next series of paintings that the Heart’s Home owners had commissioned for one of their other properties. That meant going home. Home it was.

As she emerged from the subway station, a sleek, black limousine pulled up to her building a block away. It was too far away to see clearly, but it was undoubtedly Michael Anderson and Clancy who stepped out on the curb. Figures he’d travel by limo.

As she got closer, though, she noticed something wasn’t right. His suit was soiled and even torn in a few places. His hair was mussed and he had a smudge on his cheek. Perfect Michael Anderson looked anything but perfect. And Clancy was a mess, partially covered in something black and gooey.

The moment he noticed her, Michael’s eyes narrowed.
So be it.
Two could play this game. “Rough day at the office, Mr. Anderson?” she taunted as she breezed past him toward the door.

“Yes, actually. It has been a rough morning—preceded by a rough night.”

Mia stopped before she reached the door. The limo pulled away, and somehow the man and dog seemed even more pitiful without the opulent backdrop of the shiny car. Pitiful and irritating. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh. Poor thing. Did one of your houseguests keep you up all night?”

A confused expression crossed his face, and then he laughed, dimples appearing. “Ha. No. But had that been the case, I’m sure you could have fixed it with some Weird Al Yankovic on continuous loop blasting from your apartment.”

He looked younger out here in the sunlight, his clothes all out of order. And his smile was gorgeous, dammit. Her insides did a little flip as she remembered how he smelled and felt yesterday.
Nope. Not going there.
“There’s a groomer just up the street. You could both use a bath and possibly a flea dip.” Not as good as his leash line yesterday, but still…

“Thanks.” He turned and headed in the direction she had pointed. No zippy comeback, no pithy remarks. As she stood there watching him, she wondered if perhaps Ms. Braxton had gotten it wrong. Maybe this guy wasn’t as bad as all that.

“The only thing that should be on a leash around here is you.”

No. He probably was that bad. Regardless, she decided then and there, Michael Anderson and his adorable dimples were way out of her league and completely off limits. From now on, he was to be avoided at all costs.

Chapter Four

It wasn’t bad music coming though his neighbor’s wall that pulled Michael’s attention from the Kawashima file, it was yelling. Well, more specifically, a male voice shouting from the hallway.

Not my problem
. He turned his attention back to the file. Chasing the damn dog eight blocks and then having to pull him out from under a dumpster had not only ruined his suit, but had killed over an hour he’d scheduled for file review, if he counted the time to take it to the groomer and get himself cleaned up.

“Open the door, Mia,” the male voice shouted, followed by banging.

Her door opened and the male voice became muffled. She had let him in.
Why?
A better question was, why did Michael care? He didn’t. Again, he tried unsuccessfully to focus on the file. Only a word or two coming through the wall were clear, but it was obvious the man was chewing Mia out for something. Unable to curb his curiosity, Michael put his ear against the wall. He could only catch bits of the conversation, but the man was angry about a wedding or something. Michael padded barefooted to his front door and cracked it slightly. From where he stood, it sounded as if her door had been left open because both voices were clear.

“I told you to never bug me again. Not at my work and not here,” Mia said, voice harsh.

“Well, if you’d answer your phone or respond to texts, I wouldn’t have had to bother with hunting you down. Did you lose your phone again?”

“No. I was avoiding you. What do you want?”

“We need to talk about the wedding and the weird shit you always pull,” the male voice said.

“Weird shit?” she replied.

Michael stepped into the hallway and found her door open.

“Yeah, weird. Like forgetting to show up or saying the wrong thing. You really shouldn’t go, and if you do, you’re going to leave Kelli alone and you’re not going to talk about our relationship at all.”

From where he watched through the front door, Michael had a clear view of the guy in the middle of the living room and past him to Mia, who was standing in the doorway to her bedroom with her back to the front door. “Oh, you mean the Kelli you cheated on me with? That Kelli?”

He held his arms up. “I didn’t cheat on you. We broke up.”

“You dumped me and banged her the same day.”

“Classy,” he said, moving closer. “Classy as always.” The hair on the back of Michael’s neck bristled.

She spun to face the man where he stood to the side of the bedroom door. He was tall and handsome in a Ralph Lauren model kind of way with a cable-knit sweater and blond wavy hair. “You’re a fine one to talk about class, Jason,” Mia said. “You actually
did
it, I’m just calling it what it was.”

The man named Jason placed his hand on the frame to the bedroom door, striking a purposefully relaxed pose. “I didn’t come here to rehash the good old days. Mark’s been my best friend since high school. A lot longer than you’ve been friends with Sue. Maybe you should bow out.”

“I’m as unhappy about this as you are,” she said, “but backing out isn’t an option. Sue asked me to be her maid of honor, and I accepted. I’m not going back on my word because we broke up and my presence will make you uncomfortable. It’s about Mark and Sue, not you and me.”

“You’re right.” He maintained his casual pose. “It’s not about us, which is why I thought it might be best if you step aside.”

Although this guy was doing his best to appear nonchalant, it was clear to Michael, who made a living by reading people, that he was uptight as hell and spoiling for a fight. No telling how far he’d take this.

“It’s not going to happen. There’s no way I’m letting Sue down. Now, leave.” She walked into her bedroom, and before she could shut the door, he shoved it open. “I asked you to leave, Jason. You will never set foot in my bedroom again. Leave me alone!”

It took a considerable amount of restraint on Michael’s part to not intervene. He consciously unballed his fists.

The guy’s cool facade fell away and his face flushed red up to his hairline. “You bet I’ll leave you alone. That’s all you’ll ever be:
alone
. No man in his right mind could put up with your flakiness. I don’t know how I did it, honestly.”

The hurt look on Mia’s face made Michael’s gut churn.

The man shook a finger at her as if she were a naughty child. “What I do know is that since you refuse to do the right thing and stay home, you
will
behave at this wedding. You will be where you’re supposed to be and I’ll be there to make sure you get to each event on time.”

“I’m not some animal that needs to be given commands and yanked from place to place, Jason.”

“Hey. Great idea. I should bring a collar and leash to make sure you get to the wedding on time!”

And at that moment, Michael felt like the biggest asshole in history. Hearing words so similar to the ones he had said to Mia the day before drove a painful spike through his chest. He had to make it up to her somehow. This guy thought she wasn’t dating material? Well, Michael was about to prove him wrong.
Way
wrong.

Digging down deep, he pushed his remorse and anger aside and assumed a pleasant expression. “Are you ready for dinner, sweetheart?” Michael asked, strolling casually into the apartment, hyper-aware he was barefooted. He couldn’t recall the last time he left his home without shoes. Maybe it would add to the effect he was going for—the intimate boyfriend. The stunned look on Mia’s face almost made him laugh out loud. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had a guest.” He extended his hand to the equally surprised Jason. “I’m Michael Anderson.”

“Oh, uh. I’m Jason Tipton. Nice to meet you.”

Mia’s surprise had turned to amusement. Seeing Jason so off guard probably clued her in to Michael’s game. She was quick. He liked that. “I’m almost ready. I was interrupted.” She gave Jason a pointed look. “I’ll just be a sec…honey.” And with that, she disappeared into her bedroom and closed the door, leaving the two men alone.

The silence was awkward, but Michael loved it. He sat on the sofa and studied the other man in the chair across from him. Based on his fidgeting and repeated glances to the door she had disappeared through, Jason was clearly as uncomfortable as he had made Mia, but that wasn’t good enough.

Finally, Jason broke the silence. “So, I guess I should be going.”

“Oh, no. You’re a friend of Mia’s so I’m sure she wants you to join us at my place for drinks.”

The guy shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Um, well, I’m not sure…”

The door opened and Mia emerged wearing a low-cut black dress and high heels that showed off her fit body and defined calf muscles. Michael popped to his feet immediately, pulling Jason with him. “Stand when a lady enters,” he whispered under his breath. “Mia is a lady, Jason.
My
lady.” He knew it was the verbal equivalent of pissing on a tree to mark his territory, but with a guy like Jason, sometimes pissing on a tree was the best tactic.