Love on Lexington Avenue(21)

Bob joined her in the kitchen as she pulled out a rotisserie chicken and began pulling off pieces for her salad.

“Your father’s an ass; you know that, right?” Claire asked the dog.

Bob’s butt was planted on the floor, her tail wagging furiously in what Claire was pretty sure was agreement. “Yeah,” Claire said, as she broke off a big chunk of meat and fed it to the dog. “You totally know that.”





Chapter Seven


FRIDAY, AUGUST 9

It wasn’t one of his favorite pastimes, but Scott could admit when he’d been an ass. Today had been one of those days. Scott had known the second he’d seen Claire gawking at Dean what was going on. He’d hired Dean enough times to know the sort of response the bronzed, beefy kid elicited from women.

Somehow, though, Scott had been surprised—and annoyed—to see that Dean’s brawn had had its usual effect on Claire Hayes. The woman seemed far too levelheaded to drool over a gym rat who was a good guy but had the conversational skills of a saltine.

And yet, she had. She’d found Dean hot, her word, and for some perverse reason, the whole situation had gotten under Scott’s skin. Enough so that he’d avoided taking the high road and letting her know Dean’s marital status. Instead, he’d let her flutter and titter around the kid.

Scott wasn’t proud of it. Especially since his motives for not telling her had seemed to come awfully close to jealousy. She could not have made it clearer that touching Scott that morning hadn’t done it for her.

And then a twenty-something beefcake rolled in, and she’d practically swooned.

Scott liked Dean well enough. The kid was more reliable than most and didn’t drive Scott up the wall. But the thought of Claire with a slightly dim model seemed all sorts of wrong, even as he knew it was hypocritical. Scott had hooked up with plenty of twenty-something aspiring actresses himself, many of whom had been eloquent and informed and others who knew very few words beyond like.

But that was him. He was practiced at this sort of thing, knew exactly how to extricate himself from the bedroom after the main event without anyone getting hurt. Claire, on the other hand; he was betting she didn’t have the first clue about how to have a relationship with a man without getting her emotions involved. She was a woman who had an entire room of her dead husband’s belongings upstairs; her emotions were definitely a mess, whether she realized it or not.

He rubbed at his chest, acknowledging the slight tightness that had been there ever since she’d stormed out of the house earlier. The things he’d said to her about Brayden had been overstepping in a big way. They’d been borderline cruel, and while he knew he could be blunt, mean didn’t sit right with him.

He should have apologized the second she came back into the house with that stupid pink beverage. Instead, he’d let her throw herself at Dean. Scott cursed softly as he replayed the horrified embarrassment on her cheeks when she’d learned Dean was married, the pink cheeks of humiliation that he could have spared her.

Damn it.

It was half past six by the time Scott wrapped for the day, closer to seven by the time he ran his errand and made it back to her place. Claire looked up in surprise when she saw him standing in her kitchen entryway. “Oh! I thought you’d left for the day.”

“Left, yes. But not for the day. You thought I’d left Bob?”

She glanced to her right, where Bob sat adoringly staring at whatever Claire was stirring on the stove. He didn’t blame the dog. It smelled delicious.

Claire gave a slight frown. “I guess I forgot Bob had to go home.”

“You two have come a long way since earlier,” he observed.

“We called a truce,” Claire replied. “I agreed to share my chicken earlier, and she agreed not to kill me in a vicious dog mauling.”

“Yes, because that was definitely a risk,” he replied dryly.

Claire tilted her head. “What do you think about calling her Bobsie? It’s more feminine.”

“Veto.”

“Yeah, but you owe me,” Claire said, giving him a dark look as she stirred. “I realize we aren’t friends, but that was straight up mean today. You could have told me he was freaking married.”

“I know.”

She didn’t look up from the stove until he stepped forward, his apology gift extended. She stared at it in confusion. “What’s this?”

“Peace offering.”

Claire set her wooden spoon on a plate beside the stove and, turning around fully, reached for the bottle of wine. “It’s pink.”

“Yeah, well.” He shoved his hands into his jeans, feeling atypically embarrassed. “You seem to be a fan of the color in your home. I thought you might like your wine that way, too.”

She looked up at him. “You bought rosé? My brain can’t even comprehend that.”

“I admit it was a first for me. I can’t promise it’s any good, but the guy at the wine shop around the corner insisted it was the best he had.”

Claire held up the bottle. “He’s right. I’ve had it, and it’s excellent. It’s also expensive.”

Scott shrugged. “Good thing I’m loaded then.”

She let out a startled laugh at his blunt announcement.

“You are . . .” She studied him, looking for the right words. “Not like other people.”