Looking Inside

“Our doormen are friends. Harry knows Ralph, your doorman. I . . . I saw you . . . in your bedroom from my condo a few times,” she said, blanching and glancing up at him apologetically. Maybe he was going to report her to the police for being a Peeping Tom? The fact that she couldn’t read his rocklike expression made her desperate. Her lame confession, fueled by guilt, just kept bubbling out of her. “And like I said, I caught a glimpse of you a few times, and I . . . well, I got curious. To be honest, I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” she mumbled guiltily. “So I asked Harry to ask Ralph who lived in the penthouse next door, and Harry eventually told me it was Trey Riordan, the BandBook and TalentNet founder . . . you.” She paused to gulp uncomfortably. She noticed his slightly incredulous expression as he stared down at her. “And that’s . . . that’s how I knew your name,” she finished stupidly.

For a few excruciating seconds, he didn’t say anything.

“Bastards,” he finally said. She blinked in surprise at the irritated slant of his mouth. Surely his curse hadn’t signified her.

“Who?”

“Our doormen.”

“Don’t be mad at them. I know they breached your privacy in telling me your name, but—”

“No, it’s not that. After that little performance you put on last night, I asked Ralph if he could get me the name of the woman in the unit across from mine. I described you to him and Harry.”

“You did?” Eleanor asked, stunned.

“Yeah. He and Harry are thick as thieves. They always go to each other’s lobbies to gossip while they’re on their breaks, and Harry was there this morning. But they got all closemouthed when I brought up you. They blabbed my name, but acted like they had no idea who I was describing.”

“Harry is kind of the protective type,” Eleanor explained apologetically. She still was vibrating over the news that he’d tried to find out who she was after her window dance.

“And so after they told you my name, you recognized me at the reading event?” he prompted.

She just nodded, her mouth hanging open. There was a little more to the story than that, but she’d already overplayed her hand in all this. A gust of wind whipped at her unbound hair again. He stood so close that several long tendrils blew up onto his shoulders and brushed his face. One clung to his whiskered jaw. A quiver of awareness went through her. It was like the strands joined them. Their gazes locked. So did her lungs.

Slowly, he reached up and pinched a tendril between thumb and forefinger. His fingers slid down the length several inches as though testing the texture before he reached, placing

it carefully on her chest. Her skin in the proximity of his fingers tingled.

The first time Trey Riordan ever touched her.

It probably would be the last.

“That was quite a show you put on last night. In the window,” he said gruffly.

“Oh . . . yeah, that.”

She found herself staring at his broad shoulders, the tree in front of her building, Harry’s distant figure behind his station in the lobby . . . anything but Trey’s face in that moment.

“Are you embarrassed?”

She blinked. Once again, he’d sounded confused. Suspicious. He was seeing through her mask. You’re blowing this, Eleanor, blowing it straight to hell.

“No.” She met his stare boldly. “Are you?”

“I’m not sure what to think or feel about you, to be honest.”

The image of how intense he’d looked in the coffee shop and peering out his window leapt into her mind’s eye. Vividly, she recalled him bracing himself against the window and reaching to cup his erection.

“Really. No idea what you’re feeling?” she dared him softly.

For a second, he just regarded her narrowly. Then he smiled and gave a rough bark of laughter. He shook his head.

“Are you planning on continuing to torture me?”

“Only if you want me to,” she said, gratified at how quickly she’d countered him this time. Being so close to him was unsticking her man-awkward, gummed-up Eleanor brain. Miraculously, he had that effect on her. Some of the time, anyway.

His smile vanished. “I’m not the type to appreciate a woman at a distance.” His stare dipped over her face. She experienced a swooping sensation in her belly. “Especially one like you.”

Her heart flopped like a fish against her sternum.