apartment was farther down the hall than his, but Kai wouldn’t stop at his door, a fact Gia seemed to notice when he followed behind her, turning as they passed his apartment.
“Going somewhere?”
“Just seeing you to your door, Gia.” He moved his chin, motioning for her to keep moving and, surprisingly, she did. But the woman stopped short of turning her key and opening it door. “So,” Kai said, moving the flowers from one hand to his other. “This could, technically, be considered our first date.”
Gia made a noise that was part laugh, mostly sound of disbelief before she shook her head. “No, it couldn’t, young man.”
“We spent a long time together,” he said, ignoring the small dig about his age. “We had a bite to eat.”
“Strawberries aren’t a meal,” she corrected.
“And took in a show,” he continued.
Her laugh was louder now. “The street performers? Then I’m a cheap date.”
“And,” he went on, twirling the flowers toward his face to smell them, “you took part in my random acts of kindness.”
“I didn’t actually. I only watched…” Gia went quiet when he offered her the flowers, her gaze moving slowly from those soft, white petals to his face before she took them.
“There. You accepted them. You just participated.” He grinned, hoping she thought he was as smooth as he thought he was. “See? Date.”
Gia ignored his assertion, smelling the flowers like he hadn’t said anything at all. “White roses…are my favorite,” she admitted, though she said that barely above a whisper.
“I’ll have to remember that for our next date.”
“No,” Gia said, the wistful expression on her face gone now. “There won’t be a date, Kai. I’ve told you. I’m your boss and I’m too…”
“Old for me…blah, blah…yeah, I heard it all before.” He leaned forward, caging her with one arm until she leaned back against the door. Gia opened her mouth and he became a little mesmerized by the glint of light that reflected along her bottom lip. But then Kai pulled the strap to her canvas bag farther up her shoulder, grinning when he saw the tight coil of worry visibly leave her face.
“I’m gonna keep asking,” he promised, adjusting the strap so that it was secure on her shoulder. “Because even you don’t buy your excuses anymore.” He stepped back, nodding to the flowers. “Put them in water.” And then Kai walked to his apartment wishing like hell he wasn’t going inside alone.
8.
GIA
THE SKY outside of her building was nearly black. That hadn’t been the case a half hour before when Gia found she couldn’t take how confining everything felt or how close she’d come to knocking on Kai’s door just to have someone to distract her from the demands of her life.
But that would have been irresponsible. It would have been inappropriate.
Nine years and a professional line separated them.
She could not cross it. No matter that Joe had caught her when Gia dropped her guard and forgot to screen her calls.
“Gia…pet, I’m happy to hear your voice” had morphed into something rude and accusing. “I’m surprised, actually, that you’ve answered my call at all.” Then came the insults she thought the man would never make against her simply because she hadn’t returned his calls.
She’d hung up on him and did what Gia always did when she needed a reprieve—she pulled off her designer suit and wiggled into her workout gear. Within fifteen minutes, she’d been on the running trail, earbuds pumping Bikini Kill on repeat because she was angry and wanted to hear good ragey Punk, as she killed her body trying to drive away the sound of Joe’s biting tone.
“You owe me. I deserve a little fucking time.”
But he didn’t. No one did. Not anymore.
The first raindrops fell when Gia was a solid mile and a half from her building. She could make out the arched rooftop and the rainclouds above it as she cleared an empty curve of the trail. The lounging tourists resting on blankets in the grassy areas across from the river’s edge automatically jumped up at the first crack of thunder and whip of lightning that brightened the sky and then, Gia was alone out there.
By the time she was half a mile from the building and could make out the back balconies, Kai’s among them, she was drenched and gave serious thought to hanging a left and trying to hail a cab just to keep out of the weather for the last small leg of her run. But the cabbies in New