More Than Anything (Broken Pieces #1)(44)

“Wine?” she asked, and he almost visibly shook himself.

“There’s a bottle of red wine in the cabinet under the sink,” he said, his voice brusque, and Tina huffed an impatient breath when she realized she’d have to turn around and bend over to access the cabinet.

Biting the bullet—and okay, some part of her was really enjoying this strange, sexy game—she turned and opened the cabinet, aware of his eyes once again glued to her ass. She rooted around the cabinet but couldn’t find the wine.

“It’s not in here,” she said, and there was a long silence before he cleared his throat.

“My bad . . . it’s on the countertop next to the shitty coffee maker.”

Seriously?

She turned around to take him to task for his obvious little ploy, but he looked flushed and sweaty and very uncomfortable. He was turned on. That much was obvious. He could barely stand upright.

Oh my. The knowledge of his condition made her feel outrageously smug and extremely powerful. She gave him her best cat-that-got-the-cream grin before sauntering her way past him to the coffee maker. Loving it when he groaned in reaction to the extra little wiggle she’d put into her walk.

Luckily the wine had a screw top, because she sincerely doubted there was a corkscrew in this kitchen. The flat was in much worse condition than hers had been. Hers had been unfurnished, because she had wanted to move her own things in, but this place was cluttered with unnecessary junk, and she wondered if the landlord had just moved stuff from her flat into this one.

“This place is a hoarder’s paradise,” she said while pouring the wine.

“I know. I took it sight unseen. Not the way I normally do business, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

The Chapman name was almost synonymous with property development, and Harris’s family had built and sold homes and residential estates for generations, so this was most definitely not the type of place one would expect to find the Chapman brothers staying. Especially not the current CEO and CFO of the company.

Harris had always been the more down to earth of the brothers, and she wondered how Greyson was finding this unexpected foray into penury.

“Greyson must hate it here.”

“Well, he hasn’t really been around that much . . . but he didn’t have anything good to say about the place.”

“Well, in his defense, there really is nothing good to say about it,” Tina said, and Harris, who was scrubbing the kitchen cabinet again, chuckled. “And Libby’s house isn’t that much better. If he intends to be her handyman, he’d better be prepared to fix toilets, sinks, and possibly the wiring.”

“I hope to God he doesn’t electrocute himself.”

“Maybe he intends to call in the professionals?” Tina’s voice raised in question, and she took a swallow of her wine before crossing the short distance to Harris and placing his glass on the counter beside him.

“Thanks,” he muttered, giving the cabinets a wipe with a dry cloth before setting it aside and tugging off the gloves. Tina’s nose wrinkled when the unpleasant smell of the warm rubber on his hands wafted up to her nostrils. Thankfully he turned away to wash and dry his hands before turning back to pick up his glass and take a thirsty sip.

“He bought a toolbox, Tina,” he continued after his drink. “I’m pretty sure he’s trying to prove something to her.”

“His sheer incompetence at anything resembling physical labor?” Tina asked incredulously, and Harris grinned. He was smiling a lot, and it did crazy, fluttering things to her stomach. The vultures, for the moment, had been replaced by genuine butterflies, and their wings were soft and pleasant.

“He may surprise us,” Harris said, but his grin belied his words; he obviously thought his brother was going to crash and burn. “I don’t want to talk about them anymore.”

The statement surprised her and made her immediately uneasy. The butterflies fled and the vultures returned. She didn’t want to talk about anything else; discussing the other couple was safe and easy. Delving into any other conversational territory could very soon become sticky and uncomfortable.

“I’d rather know how you’d like your steak cooked?” he elaborated, and Tina breathed a soft sigh of relief. Well . . . that wasn’t too bad.

“Um . . . medium rare.” She retreated to one of the mismatched tall stools at the breakfast bar and clambered up onto it. It wobbled but thankfully held her weight, despite its less-than-stable appearance. She watched him competently move around the kitchen, cleaning and washing the spuds before readying them to go into the oven. He hummed softly beneath his breath as he worked. The tune was very familiar, but because his humming was so off key, she couldn’t quite place it. The title hovered on the edge of her brain.

“Ugh, what is the name of that song? It’s driving me crazy!”

He looked up, startled. “What song?”

“The one you’re humming.”

“I’m not sure. Wait . . .” He hummed again and then breathed a few lyrics in a falsetto voice that reduced Tina to stitches. He repeated the same two words over and over again. And the words, combined with the seriously off-key tune, were definitely familiar to her.

He shook his head before saying, “I’m not sure what that song’s called—hey, stop laughing. I know for a fact your singing voice isn’t much better.” His offended observation just made her laugh harder. “Do you know the song title?”