Neighbors with Benefits (Anderson Brothers, #2)(15)

“So it appears.” Motionless, he regarded her, which made her squirm. Everything about him exuded power. It was foreign and frighteningly attractive. The hottest thing, though, was imagining what would happen if he let go. She couldn’t resist one more try. “You’re angry.”

“No.”

“Yes, you are.” She straightened Clancy’s bow.

Regarding her, he remained statue still. “I’m not. It doesn’t further my agenda to be angry with you.”

He might have been unmoved, but she sure wasn’t. “Oh, my God. What agenda?”

“To get a good night’s sleep.”

Let it go, she told herself. But, she couldn’t. “Really? Are you that goal oriented? You’ll brush off someone calling you a boring stick-in-the-mud in order to get a good night’s sleep?”

“Well, now that you put it that way…” He smiled, surprising her completely, causing her breath to catch and her heart to feel like it needed a rewind. He leaned close and whispered in her ear, warm breath fanning across her cheek with an entrancing aroma of scotch. “You didn’t seem to think I was a boring stick-in-the-mud when I kissed you.”

Shit. He’d gone straight for the nuclear option. As if she were in his arms again, her body thrummed to life from her fingertips to her toes and everywhere in between. His kiss had been as extraordinary as it had been unexpected—just like her reaction at that moment. Time to get out before she begged him for a reenactment. Heart hammering in her ears as she walked toward the door, she forced herself to move slowly and affect a calm she didn’t feel. “Yeah, well, I’m still trying to figure that out.”

“When you do, let me know, Mia mine.”





Chapter Five


Two o’clock in the f*cking morning. Nobody walks a dog at two in the morning. Michael had a board meeting at nine and he’d be useless if he didn’t get some sleep. His body was used to a schedule—one that didn’t include taking a dog out to piss in the middle of the night.

Half asleep, he stumbled into the hallway wearing a bathrobe and dress shoes with no socks. He couldn’t find his slippers because the dog had hidden them somewhere, along with his socks and his favorite Hermes tie. He was going to start a tally. By the time he added up the destruction wreaked by this nightmare creature, Dr. Whittelsey would be paying him.

Too tired to even bother locking his door, he shuffled down the hall toward the elevator. The dog pranced in front of him as if it were leading a parade.

Behind him, a door closed. Mia, wearing gray warm-up pants speckled with paint splatters, a bulky sweater, and no makeup stopped in her tracks when she saw him and leaned a large canvas against the wall.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked. A backpack with paintbrushes sticking out of the pockets was slung over one shoulder and she clutched the handle of an overstuffed rolling suitcase.

Something was wrong. She looked hollow and pale—as if the life had been sucked right out of her. “I might ask you the same thing.”

Giving a one-shouldered shrug, she sighed. “Someone called security and reported that Jason had yelled and banged on the door. It was one call too many. Ms. Braxton told me to be out by morning.”

It was probably the old guy down the hall. It wasn’t Mia’s fault her ex was a rude bastard. Rather than pretending to be this woman’s boyfriend, he should have beaten the shit out of Jason. No. That was only his exhaustion talking. There had to be a solution to this.

Clancy whined and tugged toward the elevator. “One call too many,” she’d said. Michael had been responsible for lots of calls. Hell, it was probably his fault this had happened. And he’d thought his night couldn’t get worse. “Where will you go?”

She slumped to sit on her suitcase. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll be fine. I always am.”

He had an uncharacteristic and powerful urge to take her in his arms, but he remained still instead. “You don’t have a place to go, do you?”

Tears welled in her eyes and he fought the urge to comfort her again. Shit. He could give her some money to rent a place. The dog whined.

Standing, she slipped the backpack over her other arm, grabbed the canvas by the frame with one hand, and clutched the suitcase with the other. “You need to take Clancy out. Seriously. I’ll be fine. I only have to find a place to camp for a couple of weeks before my next housesitting job starts. I can go crash where I work for tonight. I’ll figure it out.”

Michael pulled his phone from his robe pocket and called down to the doorman and offered him a hundred bucks to come walk the dog.

“I thought you had to take care of him yourself. You gave your word.”

“This is more important.”

For a brief moment, her lower lip quivered and his chest ached.

“You’re a nice guy, Michael Anderson.”

Being a nice guy was not something he’d ever put much thought to. Being nice didn’t make a successful company. Looking at her so vulnerable caused something in his chest to constrict to the point it was painful.

No. He didn’t have time for emotions now. He needed to think. Think. There has to be a solution. She only needs a place for two weeks… There were too many unknowns here. “Where is the rest of your luggage?”