by Amy Knupp
“It looks worse from here than it is,” Nadine said. “They’re saying the sturdy brick wall helped stop the car and prevented a lot more damage. We’ll have an engineer here first thing tomorrow to assess, but unless he unearths some surprises, we should have everything fixed quickly. And”—she turned to Mackenzie directly—“I just got off the phone with the owner as you arrived. We’d like to offer you a month of free rent to make up for the inconvenience.”
“That would help,” Mackenzie said, her mind already spinning through how this would affect her pending house-hunting plans. She was fending off the thought, not altogether successfully, that once again, her living situation had veered out of her control.
“Two months would help even more,” Drake said, managing to pull it off with that charming grin that—she glanced at Nadine—yep, seemed to work like magic. The woman’s eyes had widened and she was gazing at him thoughtfully, as if considering it.
“No,” Mackenzie said in a rush. “One month is much appreciated.”
“They’re breaking the terms of the lease, Mackenzie. It’d be easier to find a new place to live. Why not see if Nadine can work something out for you?”
Judging by the look on Nadine’s face, she wanted to work a different something out with Drake, but then who wouldn’t?
“Really,” Mackenzie said firmly. She tossed a warm smile at the property manager. “One month free is wonderful. If it takes longer than expected to repair the place, then we can revisit it.” She shot Drake a look that warned him to cease and desist.
“You’ve got a deal,” Nadine said, looking relieved. “And now I need to see what the police officer wants.” She gestured toward the cop who was striding in their direction with purpose. She hurried off, clearly in her element.
As soon as Nadine was out of earshot, Mackenzie opened her mouth to scold Drake, but he preempted her.
“I bet I could’ve gotten at least six weeks out of her,” he said.
“I bet you could’ve gotten a lot more than that,” Mackenzie said dryly. “Mr. Lester, the owner, has already bent over backwards for me by giving me a short-term lease and not charging extra rent for it. I don’t want to take advantage of his kindness or put Ez or his friend in a bad situation. One month of free rent will cover several nights in a hotel. That’s all I need.”
“You’re not staying in a hotel.”
She froze, again about to argue, and narrowed her eyes at him. Was he suggesting…?
“I told your brother I’d take care of you,” he said. “That doesn’t mean dumping you off at the Sheraton.”
“Ezra’s approximately half a planet away. He has no say.” The argument came out automatically, because she didn’t want to impose and she had to give him an out. But the thought of staying at Drake’s… She quietly sucked in a shaky breath. If she had a bucket list, sleeping under the same roof as Drake North would be on it.
Nadine was making her way back to them, her attention on her phone as she swiped a few times. “I’ve got to get my maintenance guy here to put some boards up overnight. Are you doing okay?” she asked, as if she feared Mackenzie might try to bail on the apartment altogether.
“I am.” If you didn’t count the exhaustion from traveling and the serious disappointment that she wouldn’t be “home” tonight. “I’d like the lease modified to show the month of free rent, if you don’t mind. Could you email that to me tomorrow?”
“Of course,” Nadine said, typing something in on her phone. “I can’t let you in to see your unit for safety reasons, but each apartment is identical in layout and you’re welcome to look at mine if you’d like to see one in person before you go.”
“That’s kind of you, but I still have all the photos you sent. I know I’ll love it. Besides, I’m betting my chauffeur here has plans tonight, so I should let him get to them.” She glanced at Drake when she said it and couldn’t miss the busted look on his face that confirmed her guess. “But thanks for offering.”
“You’re more than welcome. If you change your mind, the offer stands,” Nadine said. “I’m so sorry for everything.”
“I’m sorry for Shelly and her grandmother. Although donuts can make just about everything seem okay for a while.” Mackenzie realized she hadn’t eaten since a late lunch, but right now she’d choose sleep over food—even donuts. “I’ll watch for the revised lease in my email, and you’ll keep me posted on the timeline?”
“Absolutely. Welcome to Nashville, Mackenzie.” Nadine shook her hand, then turned to Drake, who was tapping away at a message on his phone. “Drake, I get the impression you live in town already?”
“For twenty-nine years and counting,” he said, shoving his phone in his pocket and shaking her offered hand. “Thanks for taking care of Mackenzie. We’ll check on progress in a couple of days.”
“You’re welcome anytime,” she said smoothly, and Mackenzie was sure now she wasn’t just talking about checking up on repairs.
As Mackenzie and Drake walked back to the Jeep, one of the police cars pulled away, and most of the onlookers had left as well. He let her into the passenger side in silence, which suited her fine, as she’d slipped into recalculating mode, thinking about how this twist in her plans was going to affect the next few days. She’d organized every detail of her move to a fault—she’d had to in order to make it work out on such a tight timeline—and she needed to wrap her head around the changes.
“So you’re staying at my place?” Drake said as soon as he was in and had shut the driver’s-side door. He started the engine but didn’t make any move toward leaving.
“You have plans. Just take me to a hotel.”
“I canceled them.” He held his phone up as if that proved it.
She hadn’t expected that. “You need to think it through, Drake. I have to work, starting tomorrow morning, and I mostly work at ‘home.’ Which means I’d be there all the time.”
“I’m rarely there, so it’ll be like having your own place.”
“What if it takes them two weeks to fix my apartment?”
“Then it’s two weeks. It’s not a problem, Shawlet.” He raised his brows, as if waiting for her to concede.
She expelled a breath. “You’re really sure I wouldn’t annoy you?”
He shot her a smile that grabbed her in the gut—she’d bet he practiced that grin in front of the mirror every night—and said, “Far from it.”
She could swear she saw a flash of heat in his eyes…but that was crazy. Part of his charmer act, she knew.
“And you wouldn’t expect me to cook?” she asked, mostly joking.
“Not for me, but you’re welcome to use the kitchen for whatever you want. Except a date with another guy.” The smile dropped from his face.
“Dating is not on my radar,” she said, and then another thought hit her. “What about you? You wouldn’t have slumber parties while I’m there, would you?”
He feigned a look of shock. “What kind of guy do you think I am?”
Remembering the photos on his social media accounts, she said, “Not a celibate one.”
“I can be celibate. For a couple of weeks.”
“I’m not asking you to be celibate. Just… I wouldn’t want to have to listen to it.”
“No slumber parties at my place. We’ll make it a rule for both of us.”
She laughed, because he gave her a lot more credit than she deserved if he thought she was going to meet someone and get to know him well enough to sleep with him within a week or two. Guys were so far down on her list right now that they didn’t even register. Generally speaking. Drake would likely always register with her on some level. “That seems ridiculous.”
While she was keeping it lighthearted—and trying not to think too hard about Drake and slumber parties—he’d gone serious. “Mackenzie, I have an extra room just sitting there, empty. Your brother crashes there whenever he’s in town, so it’s already known as the Shaw Suite.” He put the vehicle into gear but sat there, not pulling out of the par
king space, waiting for her answer.
She exhaled audibly, ignored the niggling suspicion that she might be asking for trouble, and said, “Well, if it has my name on it, then who am I to refuse?”
Chapter Four
Drake was reasonably certain that lace and silk had the power to start and end world conflicts. Especially lace and silk of the deepest, darkest eggplant purple.
He was walking down the hallway of his apartment, on his way from the main door to the kitchen Thursday midmorning after an early gym session, breakfast, and a visit to his mom’s house. When he’d left at dawn, Mackenzie’s bedroom door had been closed and she hadn’t been up yet. Now it was wide open. He’d glanced in as he was passing, and the tiny scraps of purple material caught his eye.
Of course he stopped. On a damn dime.
He craned his head in, staring at the pile of what he recognized as Mackenzie’s clothing from last night—jeans, tee, flannel, purple lace and silk. Dropped right where she must have shed it before falling into bed, as if it was of no consequence. For Drake, who had a thing for ladies’ lingerie, especially when there was a beautiful lady in it, it wasn’t of no consequence.
It got his imagination revving. Got the erotic images started up as if someone had plugged in an old-fashioned slide projector and shined it on his brain.
Respectfully, he didn’t go in the room, but he did stare, and he did get caught up in thoughts that he would be better off not entertaining. Thoughts he’d worked like the devil to shove away from the time they’d arrived at his apartment last night. He’d been prepared to cook a late-night snack for Mackenzie, would’ve taken her out for a drink or sat on the balcony catching up if she’d wanted, but after a brief tour of his eleventh-floor apartment, she’d pled exhaustion and had gone to bed. Leaving him with his thoughts.
He’d gone out after all, to a pub about a block away, just for a couple of hours, meeting up with the people he’d canceled on earlier, Cassie, Belle, and Shawna. Fun girls. Funny. Belle, a cute redhead with legs that went on for miles, had invited him to come home with her. He’d surprised everyone—himself included—when he declined, using his houseguest as an excuse and making his way home uncharacteristically alone.
Now, when the apartment door behind him whisked open as he still gawked at the lingerie, he jumped guiltily. There was no hiding that he was standing by her bedroom, so he turned around and faced Mackenzie and gave her one of his special smiles.
“Not even twenty-four hours and it looks like a hurricane hit in there,” he teased. It wasn’t just the clothes in the pile. There were multiple outfits strewn on the unmade bed, one suitcase open on the floor with items all around, as if it’d exploded, and at least three pairs of shoes scattered.
Mackenzie dipped her head and said, “I’m a lot of amazing things, but neat isn’t on the list.”
Drake shrugged and headed to the kitchen with her following. “No skin off my back. It just caught my attention as I walked by.”
To put it mildly.
He took a glass down from the cupboard and poured some water from the filtered spigot on the fridge.
“I’ll keep the door closed.” She went around to the opposite side of the island and settled onto one of the stools.
“Want some?” he asked, holding up the glass.
She shook her head. “Here.” She slid a paper cup from Carlotta’s Coffee, which was on the ground floor of his building, across the island to him, knocking a paper bag he hadn’t previously noticed to the floor. She bent down and picked it up. “Straight black coffee, Guatemalan roast. And”—she opened the bag and took out a muffin—“one banana oat protein muffin.” She looked unsure for an instant as she held it out to him. “Carlotta said that was your standard order.”
“Carlotta knows,” Drake said, deciding not to mention he’d already been to a post-workout breakfast with his brother Gabe at the gym’s cafe. He happily took the muffin from her. He could always eat, especially when it was a muffin from Carlotta’s. And coffee was exactly what he needed, as he’d gone for a green juice with his veggie and egg scramble and smoked salmon. “Thank you.”
“She seems to know you well,” Mackenzie said as she took out a cherry pastry for herself, pulled a chunk of it off, popped it in her mouth, and eyed him curiously. “Are you guys a thing?”
He laughed. “If we were, I imagine her badass husband, Jimmy, would have something to say about it.”
“I should probably warn you that you might need to do damage control,” she said.
“With Carlotta?”
“I’m pretty sure she got the wrong idea when I said I stayed at your place last night. And when I explained that you’re my brother’s friend and were doing me a favor, I don’t think that persuaded her otherwise.”
Probably because the coffeehouse owner did know him well and understood that when a female came out of Drake’s apartment in the morning, it was usually exactly what it looked like.
“I’ll talk to her,” he said, not because he gave half a shit what Carlotta or anyone thought of him but rather because he didn’t want anyone to think Mackenzie had done something she hadn’t. He ignored the way that idea tried to root into his mind and took a large bite of muffin.
He walked around the island to sit next to her and got his first real look at her for the day. She was looking all the hell grown up, professional, and put together, from her ankle-high boots to her professional pants and jacket over a feminine shirt with a multi-strand necklace of silver and some kind of whitish stones. “Looking good, Shawlet. Very woman with a mission.”
“Thanks. I am on a mission. Several of them.” She opened the lid of her own coffee and breathed it in, as if the caffeine could be absorbed through her nose.
“Your meeting with Ellie Grant is today,” he remembered.
“Was. At eight a.m. All done.”
“You’ve already been? How’d you get there?”
“Uber.” Mackenzie took another bite of her pastry, the first bite with sweet cherry filling, and her eyes rolled back into her head in ecstasy. Drake endeavored not to imagine what else could make her look like that.
“You should’ve said something,” he said. “I have spare vehicles.”
She laughed. “That you do.” She’d seen both his Porsche 911 and his motorcycle last night when he’d parked the Jeep in the spot between the two in the building’s underground garage. She’d made a not-too-original joke about boys and their toys. “You’d let me drive the Porsche?”
“Whoa. No one drives the Porsche but me. But the Jeep is yours for as long as you need it.”
“No one?” she repeated. “Not even your brothers?”
“Especially not my brothers.”
“Not even Zane?” she asked of his twin.
“He’s more interested in fighter jets than sports cars. The 911 might be too slow for him.” He saw no need to explain how they weren’t really “twin close” anymore, not since Zane had put distance between them when he’d abandoned their long-standing plans to go to college together—the two of them plus Ezra—and chosen the military route instead.
Mackenzie laughed, as he’d intended, and he liked the light, feminine sound of it. “If you’re sure, I would happily ‘settle’ for the Jeep. I have a long to-do list. First up is finding a place to store my stuff until my apartment is ready.” She pulled out her phone, unlocked it, and tapped and swiped and tapped some more.
“I’ll ask my mom if you can keep it at her house,” Drake said. “She’s got a big garage and only one car in there. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
“She doesn’t even know me.”
“She knows Ezra. Knows of you.”
Mackenzie shook her head. “I’m already imposing on you. I don’t want to do that to a woman I’ve never met.”
“Then meet her. You need to network and meet people anyway, right? Come with me to dinner Sunday at my mom’s house. My brothers will all be there. Weekly thing, no big deal.”
/> Mackenzie seemed to consider it, tilting her head and ceasing with the phone swipes.
“Yes?” he said.
Grinning, she said, “Why do I get the impression you’re used to getting whatever you want?”
“Because I am?” he said, then shrugged. His mom liked to say he could charm the skin off a snake, and he didn’t apologize for it. “My brothers would say it’s because I’m the youngest and I’m spoiled. I’d say it’s because I’m irresistible.”
“And humble too,” she said. “I’ll go if you’re sure your family won’t mind. I’d love to meet them.”
“That’s settled. I’ll text her about your belongings and dinner.”
“Are any of your brothers, by chance, in the market for an exotic honeymoon?”
A sound came out of him, a cross between a laugh and a scoff. “North brothers are not the marrying type,” he said. “Well, except for our black sheep, Cole. He got engaged just last night, right before I picked you up. So you might hit him up. He’s only recently accepted his share of money from the family business, though, so something extravagant might be a hard sell.”
“I love a challenge. How can you be sure your brothers aren’t the marrying type, especially if one of them just went down?”
“Put it this way,” Drake said. “I can’t remember the last time any of them had more than a handful of dates with one person, let alone a girlfriend.”
“Yourself included?”
“Myself especially.” Drake loved women, loved flirting with them, talking to them, sleeping with them, but actual long-term relationships? Not his thing.
“It’s almost like you’re daring the universe. Tempting fate,” she said with a smirk. She popped the last bit of her pastry into her mouth, chewed and swallowed it, then washed it down with steaming java from her Carlotta’s cup. “So tell me about your personal training,” she said out of nowhere.
He wondered if she was considering joining the gym he worked at and working out with him. Out of habit, he eyed her surreptitiously, trying to size up her physical strengths and weaknesses. Of course, you couldn’t tell the whole story from looking, but Mackenzie didn’t appear to have an ounce of fat on her body. She didn’t need to lose weight, but that said nothing of her muscle strength or overall fitness. He suspected, for starters, she had a hard-core sugar habit.