And that was the opening he’d been waiting for. “It’s me, Molly.”
All that hot challenge cleared from her eyes, and a searching confusion took its place. “What did you say?”
“I’m your new roommate.”
She blinked a few times, looking away before meeting his eyes again.
And without all that feisty defiance coming back at him full strength, Sean was suddenly aware of the position he’d put them in. The way he’d braced on his arms above her with one knee planted between her legs and the other outside her thigh. The rise and fall of her chest too close to his and the open vulnerability in those big, blue eyes peering up at him.
Shit.
The lines with Molly were clear, and sure, he had fun nudging at them from time to time. But this friendship was too important for him to ever risk actually crossing one of those lines. So what the fuck was he still doing on top of her, still staring into her eyes? In her bed?
Especially when he’d just signed on to share this space for the next however many months.
Clearing his throat, he backed off the bed, doing his damnedest not to look at how much of her bare thigh was on display.
“Wait, Sean,” she said, sitting up. “You can’t just drop this on me and walk out.”
He could, and he would, and it would be a hell of a lot better if he didn’t explain why. “Night, roomie. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
* * *
Drumming her fingers over the kitchen butcher block, Molly stared at the front door, her temper rising with every second that passed. This was one of those moments when she wished she were the kind of woman who could manage a full set of nails. The satisfaction of each click had to be greater than what she was getting with her fingertips silently padding against the wood. And while she was wishing, it would have been nice to be an early riser. This lying-in-wait would probably have been more effective if she’d been glaring at Sean’s bedroom door when he stumbled out at five or whatever insane hour he’d gotten up that morning. Instead, here she was, waiting for him to get back from the gym at nearly eleven, a half-eaten bowl of cereal beside her.
Finally, the door opened, and she shored up her scowl, preparing to lay into him.
“Hey, Moll, how’d you sleep?” he asked, breezing into the apartment with that sun-god smile going full tilt. Like he’d had an awesome morning already and wasn’t taking the threat of her impending wrath seriously at all.
“Terribly,” she stated flatly, ready to set him straight. “I guess my best friend betraying me, totally disregarding my wishes, and having no respect for my feelings about my own home just got in the way of those perfect z’s.”
One neat sandy-blond brow pushed up, tugging the corner of his mouth with it. “That so? ’Cause I was feeling pretty shitty about stalking off after springing the news on you last night. Came back about fifteen minutes later, and you were out cold.” Dropping his gym bag inside his room, he turned back to her and ran his fingers through his sweat-dried hair.
Molly tried not to notice the way his gray Bears T-shirt hugged his shoulders and chest or how it rode up, skimming the low waist of his white basketball shorts.
Post-workout Sean was undeniably hot, but this was important.
“I was fake sleeping,” she lied. She didn’t even remember her head hitting the pillow. “I heard you coming and didn’t want to talk to you again.”
Nodding amiably, he walked past her and grabbed a bowl and a spoon. “Moll, you know you never need to fake it with me.”
She snorted, because of course he couldn’t resist.
Then sliding onto the open stool across from her, he started to fill his bowl with Count Chocula. “Pass the milk.”
She handed it over and watched as he poured half the amount she liked in her bowl. He wouldn’t even drink the milk after. So weird.
“Sean, I’m mad.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“It wasn’t your place.”
His eyes met hers, and she squirmed a little, because maybe that wasn’t a totally fair or accurate statement. She and Sean looked out for each other. They had for years.
He blew out a slow breath. “You’re right. It wasn’t my place. I just can’t stand seeing guys like Gary take advantage of you. And I guess I lost it. I’m sorry, Moll.”
Molly bit her lip and nodded. It was hard to stay mad at Sean when his heart was in the right place. And the truth was that Gary had needed to go, but the guy had been so down on his luck. She just hadn’t been willing to pull the rug from under him, especially since she hadn’t found a better prospect yet. And while he hadn’t been paying everything he owed, the money he had given her mattered.
Mr. Razul had told her he’d wait, but he wouldn’t wait forever. If she wanted this building, and she did, she needed the cash. Which brought her to the stack of bills tucked beneath her napkin dispenser. It looked like pity money, which Sean really ought to know better than to try to give her.
“Look, fine, I get why you wanted Gary out. I wanted him out too, though I would have preferred his exit to be on my terms. But that aside, what are you doing here?”
Spooning a bite into his mouth, Sean chewed around his words. “I live here. Rent’s on the counter. First and last.”
She shook her head, not wanting to laugh again, but this Sean—this slightly disheveled, imperfectly mannered, borderline belligerent Sean, with the mischievous eyes and good intentions—got to her in a way she couldn’t always resist.
“You don’t live here. You live at the Wyse. In an apartment probably four times the size of this place, with a view that’s to die for.”
He shrugged, shoveling another giant spoonful into his mouth. “A view to die for and an interior in serious need of modernization. I wasn’t lying to you last night. I’m getting some work done on the place. Though in the name of full disclosure, renovations don’t start until tomorrow.” He pointed his spoon at her. “But now that I think about it, the movers were there getting my stuff out while we were at the wedding. So I really was having work done yesterday, and without my bedroom stuff, it really wasn’t livable.”
So he hadn’t actually lied. “Wow, and that teaspoon of inadvertent honesty sprinkled on this mountain of deceit is actually supposed to make me feel better?”
Sean stood and carried his bowl to the sink, where he washed it out and dropped it into the drying rack before turning back to her. Hands hooked on the sink edge behind him, he crossed one ankle over the other. “No. But being able to sleep without your bedroom dead bolt should. Or just helping out a friend in need?”
Her mouth fell open. “And now with the guilt?”
Amusement lit his eyes. “Whatever it takes.”
Standing up, she propped a fist on her hip. “Too bad I don’t guilt easy. Not when my so-called friend in need has another apartment available to him just a few floors away.”
The half smile said she’d nailed him. His hands came up in front of him. “My parents’ place?”
“Yeah. Aren’t they heading back to New York this week? It’ll be empty and—”
“Hell no. You’ve been there. It’s a museum. The furniture is uncomfortable as fuck, and I can’t put my feet on anything. I’ve got a meeting with them tonight before they head back, and I’m already uncomfortable.”
“A meeting? You’re having Sunday dinner with them.”
“Tomato, tomahto. Besides, I can’t move out. Not yet. The minute I vacate, Gary is going to be back at your door with another sob story, and you’re going to be right back where you started. Stuck with the most pathetic freeloader of all time. Both of you need to move on, and I’m the guy who’s going to help you do it. Like it or not.”
Her brows shot high, because that sounded suspiciously like the gauntlet being thrown.
“I don’t think so, Wyse.” Sean really had do
ne her a favor, since she hadn’t had the heart to kick Gary out herself. And even more so by letting the guy think that Sean would be moving in himself, because Gary was the epitome of the three Ps. Pushy, persistent, and pathetic. If he knew the second room was available, he’d have been working her over to let him back in already.
But still, no way was Sean going to tell her how it was. She told him how it was. Just maybe not tonight.
He walked over to the couch and dropped into the deep cushions. “You want to watch Bob’s Burgers or Dark?”
“We’re caught up on Bob’s Burgers,” she said, taking the far side of the couch and pulling her legs up so she was sitting cross-legged. “And don’t get too comfortable. I want to see what happens next, but this conversation isn’t over.”
He slumped comfortably, kicking up his legs. That damn half smile on his lips. “Fair enough.”
She was glad they’d shifted into a more agreeable place, but Sean was definitely going to have to go. Not today or maybe not even tomorrow. But soon. He’d have to. Because she remembered what it had been like the last time they lived together, and no way could she go back to that.
Sure, she was older now, and it had been years since that unfortunate, misplaced crush had flared up…but still, having Sean on the other side of her wall every night was very different from indulging in the occasional crushy moment at her place or once-every-blue-moon post-shower, low-slung-towel sighting. Every day though? A girl could get ideas when she had too much quality Sean time on her hands. A girl could get feelings. And she knew firsthand just how hard it was to wrestle those tenacious emotions back to the friendly side of the fence. So no. No way was Sean spending a month sharing a wall with her.
But for now? “We saw that one… Yeah, there we go. Perfect.”
Chapter 3
“But living with her?” Beverly Wyse tsked with the kind of long-suffering sigh only a mother could muster. She offered her flawlessly smooth cheek for her husband’s kiss as he pressed a glass of wine into her hand and then claimed the wingback chair beside her in their Wyse apartment a few floors up from where Sean’s place was being worked on. There hadn’t been mention of the “embarrassment” since his father “handled it,” and the ease with which his parents had slid so seamlessly back into their roles of perfect parents and doting spouses was freaky. But nothing compared to the discovery that, after a lifetime of wishing for siblings to help fill the empty apartments his parents would leave him in on rotation around the country and world, he had two brothers. Frank Lemoy, born five years after Sean, and Derek Greggory, born two months before.
“Darling, you know we adore Molly. She’s like family. But you have to think about what it looks like.”
Sean grimaced, forcing himself not to shift on the stiff love seat. Even after everything that had happened, he didn’t like seeing disapproval in his parents’ eyes. But where did they get off, judging anything he did? Especially when it came to Molly.
“It’s temporary. A month. Two at the most,” he assured them smoothly. “And it’s not like I’m on anyone’s radar these days.”
He had Derek to thank for that. His older brother had been the one to come to Sean about Frank. And what a fucking shit show that had been. The asshole from boarding school who’d made Sean’s life a living hell for four years showing up at his office a few months back with not just the news they were actually brothers, but that they had another brother, and Frank had been about to come after their dad with a blackmail scheme. So yeah, Derek had really come through. Which had been about as easy for Sean to swallow as a pint of nails, but at least it meant Sean was only making the papers when he worked the society circuit.
“Don’t be naive, Sean,” his father stated flatly. “You’re always on someone’s radar.”
Pursing her lips, his mother agreed with a regal nod. “Think about Valerie. I know you haven’t made your mind up on that front, but she deserves your respect and discretion.” Her stare hardened. “You will not embarrass her, or us.”
The warning rubbed.
He and Valerie were compatible in many ways, and Sean knew both families were expecting a union. But there was something missing. They’d gone out several times over the past couple of years—they got along, and he’d even go so far as to say they were friends—but it had been all too easy to let their relationship slide. As things stood, he and Valerie were very much on hold and had been for some time. Both were in agreement that if they found someone else, wonderful. If not, perhaps they would revisit the subject at a later date.
Not exactly the stuff of fairy tales.
“What if I cut ties with Valerie?” he asked, more curious how his parents would respond than anything.
Lips pursed, his mother studied the crystal glass in her hand as she addressed him. “That would be disappointing, to say the least. Honestly, I expect better judgment from you, Sean. Valerie is such a lovely girl, and her connections…” She sighed almost wistfully. “She would be such an asset to you if you would just let her.”
“We’ve seen you together,” his father added gruffly. “You get on well, that’s clear enough. But that said, if you truly object to Valerie, we’ll simply find another suitable match.” Then after a pause. “Perhaps Gretchen and Miles’s girl?”
The words shouldn’t have surprised Sean, but actually hearing them made him bristle.
“Jesus, do I even have a choice?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” his mother chided. “Of course you have a choice. It’s not as if we’d force you to marry someone you didn’t find agreeable. We want you to be happy, Sean. And part of being happy means finding a partner equipped to handle the position and responsibilities of being your wife. Of being a Wyse.”
Being a Wyse. He wasn’t even sure what that meant anymore. Knowing how to hide who you truly were, even from those you were supposed to trust most? Using the business as a justification for living a lie?
It didn’t feel right to him.
His father cleared his throat. “You understand as well as anyone the importance of finding someone suitable…appropriate, if you will.”
His parents weren’t saying anything new, but Sean’s body and mind rebelled at the words.
“What if that wasn’t the way it turned out?” he challenged.
The temperature in the room dropped, and both his parents grew eerily still. Then his father asked, “What are you suggesting?”
“I’m just asking… What if I fell in love? Hypothetically, of course, what if I fell in love with someone like Molly…and I wanted to marry her?”
It wouldn’t happen. That’s not how it was between them. But if it was… Molly was beautiful, intelligent, funny, and driven, and she respected hard work. She was his best friend, and suddenly he wanted to know how his parents would handle it. Because it was one thing to settle for a mutually advantageous marriage when he’d never been in love. When it seemed a practical solution at no emotional cost.
But what if things were different with him?
How would his parents react if he was lucky enough to find that elusive connection he’d only witnessed in his friends’ lives?
“Sean, you’re being difficult,” his mother said dismissively as she checked her jewelry.
He’d been serious, but the warning look in his father’s eyes told him he’d pushed far enough. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why he’d asked at all.
* * *
“Thanks, Carson,” Sean offered, stepping aside as his assistant for the past three years wheeled in a gleaming luggage cart laden with the bags Sean had taken to Molly’s place Saturday.
“She dropped them with the concierge this afternoon. Said you’d be expecting them.”
Sean grinned. He’d been expecting something.
Hell, Sean had never known a woman to get her back up more over unsolicited rescues. And yeah,
he had a pretty good idea where that chronic case of independence had originated. No one could grow up the way Molly had without it leaving a mark. But her shitty upbringing was only part of the problem. There’d also been those years when they’d lived together at school.
She’d been young, and even when she wasn’t young anymore, she’d been younger than they were. He and Max might have been a smidge overprotective, which apparently Molly hadn’t entirely appreciated. So he got it. These days, she preferred him to stay out of her business…and he hadn’t.
“Appreciate you seeing to this stuff.”
“Not a problem. And if you’re good, I’ll take off for the night.”
“Thanks, Carson. See you tomorrow.”
Standing at his desk, his back to the floor-to-ceiling view of Lake Shore Drive and the lakefront, Sean dug through one of the bags. Molly had collected the clothing and toiletries he’d brought to her place, packed them as neat as a pin, and tucked a note scrawled on Wyse stationery within.
Looks like you forgot a few things when you left this morning. Wouldn’t want you to miss them tonight at your parents’ place.
Cute. But not a chance.
* * *
Walking up the dark sidewalk from the L, Molly noted the shifting glow from the TV in the windows of her apartment. A smile tugged at her lips. She’d known he’d be back. No way would Sean let her off that easily. And while there was no way she’d be backing down that easily either, a part of her wasn’t complaining about getting to spend a few minutes together before she kicked it for the night. Sean might be driving her nuts right now, but the guy was still her best friend.
Letting herself in through the security door, she started up the stairs. She’d hassle him a little first, just so he didn’t get the wrong idea. And then she’d see if he wanted to split a frozen pizza with her, because cripes, her shift at Belfast had taken it out of her tonight. But at the top of the stairs, she realized it was close to two in the morning, and Sean had been up since five.
Forget pizza. The guy had probably fallen asleep on her couch after working one of his fourteen-hour days.
Just This Once Page 3