tenants, and Ron has his daughter’s ballet recital.”
“Who is Ron?” I asked, sneezing again.
“It’s the plague!” the parrot squawked.
Grace handed me a napkin.
“Ron is the mover,” her grandmother said impatiently. “Keep up, boyo.”
She shoved past me into my penthouse and whistled. “Nice digs! You’re going to have to start calling me Batgran since I’m living like Bruce Wayne up in here! And look at this kitchen!”
Grace ran after her, her camera bags bouncing.
“You cannot make candles in here!”
“I know how to behave as a guest.”
My eyes were still watering. The elevator dinged again, and the movers began to unload all of the boxes they had just packed up back into my penthouse.
“Why are you here?” I asked Grace demandingly as the movers piled the boxes haphazardly in my living room.
“I need a favor,” Grace said.
“No.” I set my jaw. “I already explained our arrangement.”
“Dickface!” the cockatoo screeched.
“That’s right,” Gran said, soothing the parrot. “But he’s handsome, so we’ll let it slide.”
“You must have lost your mind. I will not allow you to move in here,” I snarled at Grace. “And I especially will not allow you to move the local crazy lady and a pigeon into my penthouse. This is a very expensive property.”
“Please,” Grace said. “I’ll figure something else out. I just have to deal with the insurance company.”
You’re supposed to be playing nice, I reminded myself. Then I had a devious, brilliant thought.
I grabbed Grace’s elbow and led her to the study while the parrot shrieked his displeasure at the movers.
“Sit,” I ordered, gesturing to a chair.
She sat, all her camera bags surrounding her.
Turn on the charm.
“Drink?” I offered, going to the small bar I had in the study.
“Uh, sure?”
I poured her a scotch and sat behind my desk. I leaned back in the leather chair and regarded her.
“I am sorry to show up like this,” she babbled. “Gran blew a hole in our apartment when she was cooking something she wasn’t supposed to.”
“Meth?”
“No! Candles.” Grace took a gulp of her drink. “We just need a place to stay. I can’t move her into my company offices.”
“Of course not.” I poured her another scotch.
She accepted in gratefully.
“I am happy to help in any way that I can,” I said smoothly.
Grace was taken aback.
“You are?”
“Of course,” I purred, “but I need a little quid pro quo.”
“You want something in exchange?” She took another gulp of the drink. “Like, er, sex things?”
I barked out a laugh.
Yes.
“Of course not, Grace. We’re two business people.”
“Oh!” She ducked her head down, face red. “Sorry, I—”
“I am not legitimizing this fake relationship with you,” I told her in a clipped tone, trying to keep my brain from reminding me how she had felt under me on my bed.
“No, I want something else from you. A promise,” I said to her questioning look. “I want your word as a business owner that in the event that we cannot secure an annulment, you will walk away from this marriage without a penny of my money.”
“Of course not!” she said. “I never was going to.”
“Shake on it,” I commanded, holding out my hand. She slipped her smaller one in mine. We shook.
“I will allow you and your grandmother to stay here until you work out your living situation.”
“And I will not take a penny of your money, promise,” Grace said.
I smiled at her.
Still keeping her hand trapped in my own, I stood up and leaned over the table. My smile turned into a snarl.
“That’s good. Because if you even try, I will ruin you and your business.”
19
Grace
“What an appalling man,” I said as I tossed and turned in the guest bed. I had spent the rest of the evening unpacking, corralling Gran away from Chris’s things, and working on my photo editing. When my calendar reminded me it was time for bed, I had drunk Sleepytime Tea and listened to a meditation app, but I still could not fall asleep. Something about being just across the hall from where Chris slept, half naked in his bed, was making my skin hot and prickly.
“You don’t even like him,” I reminded myself, wrapping my arms around one of the stuffed taco plushies on the bed. “He’s obnoxious, self-centered, and paranoid. And hot.”
Not hot! Not hot!
But he was hot.
I closed my eyes, and I imagined Chris coming into my bedroom, pulling the covers back, his hands all over me, playing with my tits, almost kissing me, not doing anything to get me off, just enough to make me frustrated and