Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake (A Brush with Love, #2)(41)

Bernadette continued to stare at the glass display, lost in her thoughts. After a moment, she let out a gentle humming noise, turning back to Lizzie.

“When can you start?”





Chapter 21




RAKE was learning that convincing his boss to give him a job he previously said he didn’t want and then have him send Rake across the globe for said job was a bit more complicated than expected.

He’d been in meeting after meeting, often at odd hours, to accommodate Dominic, who was already in the U.S. setting up shop. Dominic had been hesitant at first, wary that Rake’s previous dismissal of the position indicated he wasn’t enough of a team player to help Onism’s U.S. introduction develop roots. But Rake could be charming and convincing when he needed and had a good track record to prove his skills. He eventually secured a spot as an associate creative director for Onism’s U.S. East Coast division.

The rest of his time in Sydney was spent balancing work demands with packing up his sparse possessions and figuring out where he would be living in Philadelphia.

His job had offered him a decent relocation budget that he was trying to stay well within the confines of, searching place after place online, not wanting to bother Lizzie with going to look for him.

When the clock had all but run out, options being snatched up quicker than he could inquire about them on Philly’s competitive housing market, he put a deposit down on a furnished unit not far from where Lizzie was currently living, hoping the proximity would make the transition to living with him a bit easier.

What he should have realized was Lizzie probably wanted at least a little bit of say in where they would be living.

“You what?” Lizzie asked after Rake told her he signed a lease. He pulled the phone away to protect his ear from her pitch and volume.

“I found us a place.”

“And you didn’t think to, oh, I don’t know, tell me about it? Or have me go see it?”

“You’re mad,” Rake said slowly, his heart sinking. He had thought taking care of this, putting as little stress on Lizzie as possible, would be the right thing. The chivalrous thing.

“Yeah, I’m mad. I would have liked a say in the matter. Since I’ll be living there and all.”

“I thought I was being helpful,” Rake said weakly. Lizzie huffed.

“Well, tell me about it,” she said, annoyance still in her voice.

This was the part Rake was also mildly nervous about. He knew there were a few … flaws in the layout of the unit, but it was a steal, and the landlord had agreed to a six-month lease, which meant Rake and Lizzie weren’t tied down for too long if it didn’t work. He had been so desperate to secure something, he might not have thought it all the way through.

“Well,” he started, clearing his throat, “it’s a newly converted warehouse. ‘Industrial luxury’ was what the Realtor called it. New appliances. Lots of windows, so good light. I thought you’d probably like lots of windows.”

Rake had seen the huge expanse of windows spanning a wall of the unit and had instantly thought of Lizzie, the way she would look with sunlight dancing on the flames of her hair as she stared out over the city. The pang of affection he’d felt at the image was entirely unnerving, but made him click “submit” faster on the application than he’d care to admit.

“How many bedrooms?” Lizzie asked, not jumping at the excitement of natural light as much as Rake had hoped.

“Well, that’s kind of the one downside.”

“Downside?”

“It’s a big space. Huge, really, for Philadelphia at least. Eleven hundred square feet, but the rent was comparable to places half that size.”

“But?” Lizzie said impatiently, the syllable indicating that she would strangle Rake right now if she could reach him.

“But it’s technically zero, um, bedrooms.”

Lizzie was silent on the line, and Rake double-checked that the call hadn’t dropped. “You still there?”

“What do you mean it’s zero bedrooms?” Lizzie hissed.

“It’s a studio. A big studio,” he added quickly. “Giant. But there’s no, um, doors or technical bedrooms.”

Lizzie’s voice was chillingly quiet. “And how exactly are we going to make that work, Rake?”

“I was thinking … Well, I don’t have it fully figured out—”

“Title of our memoir,” Lizzie grumbled.

“But I think it will actually work to our advantage. The space is open-floor and big enough we can both fit our beds, and then we can set up the crib near us, and we won’t have to deal with, uh, opening doors and … stuff.”

“Well, thank God you’ve relieved me of that hassle. Not sure what I would do if I had to open one more door.”

“There’s other good stuff about it too,” he pushed on. “It’s a furnished unit, for one, so we don’t have to buy a bunch of new furniture. And I looked and saw there was a highly rated daycare nearby. The park is only a few blocks away, which will be great to take the baby when the weather’s good. Close to grocery stores and the like. I just … I don’t know. I guess I didn’t think it through. Or I did think but not the right way.”

Lizzie was silent on the line again, and Rake’s heart nearly bruised his sternum with its pounding strikes. Shame washed over him. He was already fucking up. Failing her. Like he seemed to do to every woman in his life.