All It Takes (Romancing Manhattan 2)

I’ve just shut the door, run to the restroom to relieve my screaming bladder, and as I walk out of the bathroom, the doorbell rings.

I pull the door open and realize that no amount of armor is going to make me not long to climb this man.

Quinn’s also in a suit, his dark glasses are perched on his nose, and his hair is in disarray from his fingers.

He might be the sexiest man ever conceived.

“Come in,” I say and step back, shutting the door behind him.

“The outside of your house and the inside don’t match,” he says as he sets the bags of food on my island and slips his glasses off so he can look around my space.

I laugh and pull down two dinner plates.

“I know. Not that the outside is horrible, but I remodeled the inside before I moved in.”

“I like it,” he says, scooping white rice onto his plate. “This white kitchen is beautiful, especially with the exposed brick.”

“Cooking is one of my hobbies,” I reply before stuffing a chunk of chicken in my mouth. God, I’m starving. I skipped lunch. “So good. Hungry.”

“I got here just in the nick of time, before you starved to death,” Quinn says with a chuckle and eats his chicken lo mein. “Can I have a tour?”

“Sure, we can eat and tour,” I reply with a smile, pick up my plate, and gesture for him to follow me. “So I opened up the wall that separated the kitchen from the living space. The house was built a hundred years ago, and open concept wasn’t a thing yet.”

“No, it wasn’t,” he says with a grin. How does anyone have teeth that perfect?

“I wanted it to be open, especially because I don’t have a ton of square footage. So it looks bigger this way. I have a tiny deck out back with a little patch of grass.”

I open the door off the dining room to show him, then lead him down a hallway.

“This was originally a four-bedroom house.”

“How is that possible?”

“Right? It was way too tight. So, up here, I opened the two small bedrooms into one room. I made it so if someone ever bought the place and wanted to separate them again, it wouldn’t be difficult or expensive to do, but I needed the space.”

I take a deep breath and open the door, then stand back, shoveling rice in my mouth as Quinn walks into my studio.

He sets his plate on an empty table, shoves his hands in his pockets, and slowly walks along the perimeter of the space, looking at each painting that I have propped against the wall.

“Sienna,” he murmurs, stopped before a piece I did of the beach at sunrise. “These are beautiful.”

“Thanks.” I lean my shoulder against the doorjamb and look around at the paintings, including the one I have set up in the corner with the best light.

The one of the park I started last week.

Quinn steps before it, examines it for a minute, then turns to me.

“That’s my current work in progress. It’s the park. Seemed appropriate.”

He just nods and returns to get his plate. “Show me more.”

“Okay. Now we’re going downstairs. When I bought the place, it was two more tiny bedrooms and a half bath, with a small living space or den.”

I reach the bottom of the stairs and turn on the lights to the hallway.

“I reconfigured it. In here is my master suite.”

My bedroom is a good size, big enough for the king-size bed. I lead him into my bathroom with a soaking tub, and then into my big closet.

“Wow,” he says. “You did a great job in here.”

“I love it,” I agree, then turn the lights off as we make our way back upstairs. “Well, now that we’re fed and you’ve seen my home, let’s get our investigative hats on.”

“I’m ready. Where do we start?”

“We need to go to my uncle’s house, get a box of papers from him, and then head over to my grandfather’s house. All our family papers, going back generations, are in his attic.”

He raises an eyebrow. “How much paperwork are we talking?”

“A lot. If we’re lucky, we’ll find something quickly.”

“And if we’re not?”

“It could take all the thirty days we’ve been given,” I admit.

“Let’s go then,” he says. “I’ll drive.”

I lock up my house and laugh when I see the Porsche sitting at the curb. It just happens to be my dream car, but I won’t tell him that. I’ll even do my best to not act like a fool when I sit inside.

I can’t guarantee that I won’t ask to drive it.

“Did you have an early midlife crisis?” I ask him as he holds the door open for me. He chuckles, shuts my door, and walks around to the driver’s side.

“No crisis, I just like to drive fast,” he says as he buckles up.