Passion on Park Avenue (Central Park Pact #1)(47)

She scoffed, although she was afraid it came off more hot and bothered than anything. “When did I look at you like I wanted you to kiss me?”

“Friday night. Before you got scared and ran away.”

Her cheeks flooded with heat, and she wasn’t sure if it was anger or embarrassment that he might be right.

She decided on anger. It was safer. “Am I the only woman who’s never fallen at your feet? Is that why you keep sniffing around?”

“Sniffing around?” he asked incredulously before giving a quick shake of his head. “Damn, my game is worse than I thought.”

“We’re not playing a game,” she said, taking the opportunity to move away. “Weren’t you the one who told me on move-in day that I should try to be neighborly? That’s what I’m doing, asking to help you out. Don’t read into it.”

Oliver closed his eyes and inhaled, looking so exhausted that she had the strangest urge to press her hand to his cheek, to offer . . . comfort. If she were honest, it was a bit of a foreign feeling. She rarely felt warm toward people. That had changed, slightly, with Claire and Audrey. Even more so with him.

Finally he opened his eyes, and he looked more determined than ever as he fixed her with a steady look.

“You have to decide, Naomi. Decide what we’re going to be to each other. I can’t entrust my father’s care to someone so mercurial. So decide how you feel about me. About my father. No more games.”

She wanted to argue that she wasn’t playing games, but . . . he was right. To say that she was inconsistent in her behavior toward him would be an understatement, and that wasn’t like her. Naomi had always been an all-in person. She decided how she felt about something and stuck to it.

Which was the tricky thing with the Cunninghams. She had decided her feelings: Hate. Resentment. A few revenge fantasies mixed in.

Only they hadn’t been what they were supposed to be. Walter hadn’t been the cold, heartless patriarch deserving of a scathing set down. And Oliver hadn’t been a petulant dirtbag throwing soccer balls at little girls’ faces and breaking their glasses.

They’d changed, forcing her feelings about them to change, and she was no good at that. A hard admission to make, even to herself, but it was the brutal truth. But maybe she could be better. Maybe she had to be.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, her gaze on his Adam’s apple instead of his eyes because she wasn’t that brave.

“For?”

“The mixed signals,” she said. “I don’t blame you for being frustrated.”

Oliver nodded in acknowledgment of her apology. “So what’s it to be? Barely civil neighbors or . . .”

That or was intriguing.

What would happen if she leaned into him right now? If she were to lift onto her toes and brush her lips over his?

Without warning, an image of her mother flashed through Naomi’s mind.

She could be civil to Oliver and Walter Cunningham, but she wouldn’t fall for the man who’d helped set her mother down a path of self-destruction. She wouldn’t.

But neither could she continue to let the hate consume her. Perhaps . . .

Naomi lifted her eyes. “Or we could try to be friends.”

His head inclined slightly. “Friends.”

She nodded. “It makes sense, right? We live next door to each other. Friends and neighbors who lend each other a cup of sugar when the need arises.”

Oliver smiled slightly. “You bake?”

“Wine,” she amended quickly. “We could lend each other wine.”

“Friends,” he said slowly. “I can try that. In fact, how about we try that wine thing now?”

“I think that can be arranged,” she said, stepping back to retrieve a glass. She poured, and handed him a glass of the zinfandel.

He accepted it with a grin. “You know, I once knew this woman who disliked me so much she’d only serve me drinks in coffee mugs.”

“Is that so?” Naomi said, lifting her wooden spoon and stirring the sauce. “She sounds delightfully charming.”

“That’s one word for her.”

“What word would you use?” Naomi asked.

He leaned his hip against the counter, watching her stir. “Complicated,” he said finally. “I’d say she’s the most complicated woman I’ve ever met.”

“A little short on those corner pieces, are you?”

“I am. Getting closer though.”

“You’re not exactly an easy puzzle yourself,” Naomi murmured, dropping a handful of spaghetti into the boiling water, and then adding a bit more for good measure, not sure how much a man like Oliver ate.

Oliver. She was making dinner for Oliver Cunningham.

“You’re smiling,” he said.

“Hmm? Oh, I guess I am,” she said. “I just never imagined that the first meal I’d cook for a man would be for you.” He blinked in surprise, and she fixed him with a look. “I don’t know why you’re so shocked. Do I look like the domesticated type?”

Oliver gestured with his wineglass to the stove, and Naomi swore at the boiling water threatening to bubble over as she fumbled for the knob to turn down the heat.

“Very domesticated.”

She breathed out a laugh. “I don’t suppose you cook?”