Love on Lexington Avenue - Lauren Layne Page 0,34

my recent projects.”

“Yeah, I like that about her,” Oliver said. “She’s no pushover, but she also picks her battles. Doesn’t waste a lot of energy getting worked up about shit she doesn’t know anything about, or doesn’t care about.”

“Except she’s on a pink thing.”

“A what?”

“Don’t ask me. Best I can tell, I think it has something to do with reinventing herself? But she keeps talking about pink paint and pink wallpaper. She even texted me a picture of a pink chandelier for her bedroom.”

Oliver winced. “Well, I guess it’s her house. She doesn’t have to worry about creating a dude-friendly zone.”

“Yeah, but she will eventually.”

“I don’t think so.” Oliver shook his head. “I ran into her the other day, and she seemed pretty dead set against any serious relationships in her future.”

She’d said as much to Scott, but it still didn’t seem right somehow. The more he got to know her, the more she struck him as the type of woman who belonged with someone else. Not that she needed a man, quite the opposite. But rather, the sense that some relationship-inclined man was missing out on the opportunity to have a partner in life. It pissed him off all the more that Brayden Hayes had abused that gift.

“The dead husband really did a number on her, huh?”

Oliver’s mouth twisted in distaste at the mention of his fiancée’s ex. “On all of them.”

“Is it true none of them knew about the others until he died?” Scott asked, aware that he was prying—it was unlike him to get up in anyone else’s business, or to even care, but he was damn curious about what had gone down with that.

He’d planned to fix up the pampered widow’s home and move on. But then he’d met Claire, and he was intrigued. Intrigued about what sort of man could fool a woman who seemed as smart and savvy as they came. Same went for Naomi—she was nobody’s fool.

“I don’t know,” Oliver said with a sigh. “Naomi gets sort of death to men whenever his name comes up, so I don’t go there. Best I can tell, he was one hell of a con artist, only his aim was sex with as many women as possible, not money.”

Scott looked down at his thumbnail, thinking about Meredith for the second time in an hour, which was more than he thought about her most months these days. Finding out about her and Jonathan had made him feel the fool, too, but at least he’d been prepared on some level. The two had always been flirtatious, and he’d asked her point-blank if something was going on. She’d sworn up and down that it was just work camaraderie. He’d been dumb enough to believe her, but at least he’d suspected. He couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to be truly blindsided.

No wonder Claire didn’t want to get remarried.

“Another drink?” Oliver asked, standing.

Scott held his empty glass over his head as Oliver walked around the back of the couch and took it on his way to the kitchen.

“More bacon, too,” Scott said.

The game came back on, and Scott had just started to let himself get distracted when Oliver spoke up again. “You and Claire getting along?”

There was concern in Oliver’s voice, and Scott looked over at his friend, trying to read him. “Sure. Yeah. She’s great.”

Oliver studied him for a moment, then went back to measuring the vodka. “’Kay.”

Scott’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that about?”

Oliver put two slices of bacon into each glass. Then added one more as he looked back at Scott. “I meant it when I said she didn’t want a relationship.”

“I know.”

“I think she could get hurt easily.”

Scott felt something unpleasant curl in his stomach, because he knew what his friend was implying. Claire seemed somehow unfailingly strong and yet alarmingly fragile beneath it all.

“Ollie,” Scott said, deliberately using his friend’s hated nickname in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Are you warning me to stay away from her?”

Oliver brought both glasses into the living room, handed one to Scott. “I’m just saying, you seem intrigued, and I get it. There’s something inherently compelling about Claire. But I care about her. Naomi really cares about her. And you know you can be . . .”

Scott lifted his eyebrows in question. “Dying to hear this.”

“You’re transient,” Oliver said. “You’re one of my closest friends, but I never know when I’m going to see you next or what city you’ll be in two months from now. I don’t