for the better part of a year, I had been single. And I hadn’t minded single life, but damn if he wasn’t handsome enough to make me think I was crazy for settling for being alone.
“Wallace,” he said, still holding my hand. “But not Mr. It’s just Evan.”
I cleared my throat, and to regain my composure, I pushed away the thoughts that had started creeping in and focused instead on my indignation at his dog running wild in the building. Looks and charm be damned, I was pissed that somehow I was the one being judged in all of this.
“Well, Mr. Wallace. Might I suggest that if you want people around here to leave you alone, keep, Peggy, on a leash.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Ms.…?”
“Patterson.”
“Patterson? Rebecca? Apartment 302?”
A frisson of fear shot through my spine and I released myself from his grip, not having realized he was still holding my hand. I kept my eyes fixed on him as I reached down to grab my bag and took a step back. I had seen enough true crime shows to know how things like this ended.
The man began to lift his hand to stop me, but dropped it as he began to speak.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m the new landlord,” he said quickly as explanation.
“Is that supposed to excuse you being a creepy stalker?” I shot back.
“I’m not a stalker.”
“Wallace,” I repeated the name.
Slowly started to piece it together. I’d heard the name before, most recently from the letter all the tenants had received a month prior. Evan Wallace was the middle son of Preston Wallace…owner of Wallace Properties. Owner of my apartment complex.
“Of course,” I muttered to myself as I started to turn around. “Just my luck.”
“Ms. Patterson,” he said as I walked away. “Are you okay?”
“I’m going to be late for work,” I repeated absently as I rushed toward the stairwell, not wanting to risk being stuck in an elevator with him.
“But…”
I didn’t wait to hear what else he had to say because my new landlord was a beautiful animal-lover who had my brain completely jumbled. And he didn’t seem to care that rules should apply to everyone.
TWO
MY DAY AT the studio had been busy, thanks to a special promotion my assistant had set up a month earlier. Over the last several years, I had witnessed many photography studios come and go, but I had managed to make a name for myself and had no shortage of clients. My company had taken off early on, and my days were spent either booking new clients or photographing a scheduled session.
I absolutely loved what I did, because it was my creative outlet and I was damn good at it. A nice perk was that at the end of the day, I was able to do some of my work from home, editing images from earlier sessions. Sure, it made for exceptionally long days, but time was something I’d had a lot of since my breakup a year earlier. I was definitely married to my career, and I had an assistant that I had trained to be almost as good as me. That was enough.
Unfortunately, my workload had doubled since Hilarie, my assistant, had gone on maternity leave earlier than expected. She was in charge of confirming appointments and making sure everything was ready for sessions the next day. But more importantly, she was my partner at weddings and corporate parties—events I could not do alone—and I had a big one coming up that weekend.
Favors were called in, photographers were bribed, lots of begging was done—all to no avail. With every phone call, it became evident to me that I would be on my own for the upcoming wedding. I tried to tell myself that it was a doable task, but I found it hard to believe.
I had so much to do before the weekend while still doing my normal day-to-day sessions, and it was proving difficult with the added load of Hilarie’s work. Regardless of the stress my job was bringing me, I needed some sort of normalcy, which included hitting the gym.
As I walked into my apartment, I set everything on the counter so I could get ready to work out. Most tenants used the gym in the morning, so I usually had it all to myself, which meant my physical appearance was a non-issue.
I was in the middle of taking off my gold eyeshadow when I heard my phone buzz across the room. For